How to Cure a Bad Memory.
By Olive Thorne
Your memory is bad, perhaps; but I can tell you two secrets that will cure the worst memory. One is to read a subject in which you are strongly interested. The other is, to not only read, but think. When you have read a paragraph or a page, stop, close the book, and try to remember the ideas on that page, and not only recall them vaguely in your mind, but put them into words, and speak them out. Faithfully follow these two rules, and you have the golden keys of knowledge. Besides inattentive reading, there are other things injurious to memory. One is the habit of skimming over newspapers, items of news, smart remarks, bits of information, political reflections, fashion notes, all in a confused jumble, never to be thought of again, thus diligently cultivating a habit of careless reading, hard to break. Another is the reading of trashy novels. Nothing is so fatal to reading with profit as the habit of running through story after story, and forgetting them as soon as read. I know a gray-haired woman, a life-long lover of books, who sadly declares that her mind has been ruined by such reading. A help to memory is repetition. Nothing is so certain to keep our French fresh and ready for use, as to have always on hand an interesting story in that language, to take up for ten minutes every day. In that case, you will not forget your French with the majority of your schoolmates.—Olive Thorne.