Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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trouble and time that you expend upon it. As we have said, not
only do you gain the advantage of storing away these records of
the day for future use, but you also have your attention called
to many important details that have escaped you,and you will
find that many ideas of importance will come to you in your
moments of leisure rumination. Let this work be done in the
evening, when you feel at ease but do not do it after you
retire. The bed is made for sleep, not for thinking. You will find
that the subconsciousness will awaken to the fact that it will be
called upon later for the records of the day, and will, accordingly,
take notice of what happens, in a far more diligent and faithful
manner. The subconsciousness responds to a call made upon it
in an astonishing manner, when it once understands just what
is required of it. You will see that much of the virtue of the plan
recommended consists in the fact that in the review there is an
employment of the attention in a manner impossible during
the haste and rush of the day s work. The faint impressions
are brought out for examination, and the attention of the
examination and review greatly deepen the impression in each
case, so that it may be reproduced thereafter. In a sentence: it is
the deepening of the faint impressions of the day.
Thurlow Weed, a well-known politician of the last century,
testifies to the efficacy of the above mentioned method,
in his Memoirs. His plan was slightly different from that
mentioned by us, but you will at once see that it involves the
same principles the same psychology. Mr. Weed says: Some
of my friends used to think that I was cut out for a politician,
but I saw at once a fatal weakness. My memory was a sieve. I
could remember nothing. Dates, names, appointments, faces
everything escaped me. I said to my wife, Catherine, I shall
never make a successful politician, for I cannot remember, and
that is a prime necessity of politicians. A politician who sees a
man once should remember him forever. My wife told me that
I must train my memory. So when I came home that night I sat
down alone and spent fifteen minutes trying silently to recall
Memory
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with accuracy the principal events of the day. I could remember
but little at first now I remember that I could not then recall
what I had for breakfast. After a few days practice I found I
could recall more. Events came back to me more minutely,
more accurately, and more vividly than at first. After a fortnight
or so of this, Catherine said why don t you relate to me the
events of the day instead of recalling them to yourself? It would
be interesting and my interest in it would be a stimulus to you.
Having great respect for my wife s opinion, I began a habit of
oral confession, as it were, which was continued for almost
fifty years. Every night, the last thing before retiring, I told her
everything I could remember that had happened to me, or
about me, during the day. I generally recalled the very dishes
I had for breakfast, dinner and tea; the people I had seen, and
what they had said; the editorials I had written for my paper,
giving her a brief abstract of them; I mentioned all the letters I
had seen and received, and the very language used, as nearly as
possible; when I had walked or ridden I told her everything
that had come within my observation. I found that I could
say my lessons better and better every year, and instead of the
practice growing irksome, it became a pleasure to go Over
again the events of the day. I am indebted to this discipline for