Improve Your Memory Through Reviews

One of the techniques that can be used to establish the habit of easily recalling our knowledge is review. Things stick in the mind by repetition. We learn our native tongue by hearing it over and over. We forget it when we cease to speak it. Missionaries and travelers lose their native tongue when they speak only a foreign one. Von Bulow, the eminent pianist, says: "When I neglect practice three days, the world notices a difference in my playing; two days, and my friends notice a difference; one day, and I notice a difference.

Repetition is essential to the preservation of our knowledge. Repetition gives also a deeper insight into the meaning of words and the spirit of a piece. A celebrated orator of this country said when he first read Mark Anthony's Oration over Caesar, that it seemed tame, but successive readings made it a masterpiece and kindled every emotion of his soul.

Review is strongly recommended by the best educators, and by the intellectually great declared to be the key-note of success. Remember that the great secret of being successful and accurate as a student, next to Perseverance, is the constant habit of reviewing.

Watts, who is one of the best writers on memory, makes review indispensable. Downs, whose work on memory is justly celebrated, declares that review makes the mind wax to receive and marble to retain. Dr. Harper, a former president of the University of Chicago, and said to be the finest teacher of Hebrew in America, makes review a sine qua non of study. Each day he requires the student to review the lessons of the preceding day; besides, he requires weekly and monthly reviews. He declares there is no rapid advancement without review.

Thomas Jefferson was regularly in the habit of mentally reviewing and making analysis and abstracts of all he read. No day without verses committed, was the method of Roscoe Conkling.

Review is essential to progress and the retention of knowledge; the review is not merely that of repetition, but the conscious and sensible recalling of what we have learned and then comparing it with original sources. For instance, suppose we wish to review a lesson or book; we can do so by recalling what we know of the lesson or book, and then comparing what we remember with the lesson or book, or we can go direct to the lesson or book and review it by rereading it. The former is infinitely the better plan.

Many bright students readily commit and easily forget, and whenever they wish to use any knowledge they have once acquired, but forgotten, they consult a book. While some considered dull, and whose progress at first is not rapid, make permanent their acquisitions by oft recalling all that they can remember of their studies and books, and then comparing what they remember with the books themselves or with the original sources.

Try this exercise. Review nightly the events of the day. Take often a census of your mental and moral possessions. Review daily some book. Each day review the verses of the preceding day. The review should be wholly from memory. Each week the number of verses may be doubled or increased. The task at first should be small. The human mind as well as the body grows best by not straining it.

The habit of daily reviewing cannot be too highly commended. Review every book you read. See the connection between paragraph and paragraph, and chapter and chapter. At the end of every page and chapter, review. When you have closed the book, review. Make analysis and abstracts of the book.

Think as you read. Think while you read,— and think when you have closed the book. To think as you read, mentally picture what you read. Let faces glow before you. Let the form, features, dress and acts of individuals and scenes live before you. When you read the abstract, translate it into the concrete.

It may take time to read a book in this way, but it will pay. The thinking powers will be cultivated, the judgment will become more sensitive and the whole intellectual man be developed. There will be a pleasure and profit never before experienced. One good book properly read is worth a hasty reading of a score of other books. One book rightly read enables us to read more easily and more intelligently other books.