A Way to Grow Wise

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 44.

A Way to Grow Wise.

AFTER reading a book or an article, or an item of information from any reliable source, before turning your attention to other things, give two or three minutes' quiet thought to the subject that has just been presented to your mind; see how much you can remember concerning it; and if there were any new ideas, instructive facts, or points of especial interest that impressed you as you read, force yourself to recall them. It may be a little troublesome at first, until your mind gets under control, and learns to obey your will, but the very effort to think it all out will engrave the facts deeply upon the memory, so deeply that they will not be effaced by the rushing in of a new and different set of ideas; whereas, if the matter be given no further consideration at all, the impression you have received will fade away so entirely that within a few weeks you will be totally unable to remember more than a dim outline of them.

Form the good habit, then, of always reviewing what has just been read. It exercises and disciplines the mental faculties, strengthens the memory, and teaches concentration of thought.

You will soon learn, in this way, to think and reason intelligently, to separate and classify different kinds of information; and in time the mind, instead of being a lumber-room in which the various contents are thrown together in careless confusion and disorder, will become a store-house where each special class or item of knowledge, neatly labeled, has its own particular place, and is ready for use the instant there is need of it.—St. Nicholas.