Chapter 15

(2) Nor is it to be supposed because you understand the method that it will therefore work itself. It has to be _applied_ carefully and methodically _at least once_. This necessarily demands _time_, especially at first. Those who possess good health and good continuity, and a mastery of the System, accomplish the retention of a work in vastly less time than would be possible for them without the System, and the study is a pleasure instead of a task. On the other hand, those who are in the possession of poor health or of weak concentration, or who are overburdened with business anxieties, domestic cares or competitive worries, would very seldom, if ever, master any book in the ordinary way by _mere repetition_. These persons are extremely unfavourably situated to do justice to the System, and it costs them more time and trouble to master a book than the former class. A student admitted that he had carefully read a manual of English History completely through _sixteen_ times, and then failed in the examination. To have obtained a lasting knowledge of this History by my method would probably have occupied him as long as he was formerly engaged in _two or three_ of the sixteen fruitless perusals of it. There is, however, only one difference between this unfortunate student and the great majority of those who succeed in the examinations through _cramming_. He forgot all his historical knowledge _before_ the examination--they usually forget theirs shortly _after_. In fact, a student or a man in advanced years who has really mastered any book so that he never has to refer to it again is a wonder. Take the memories of members of the learned professions--they are usually only REFERENCE memories. They know where to _find_ the coveted knowledge, but they do not _possess_ it or _retain_ it in their minds. On the other hand, the student who masters a book by my method _really knows_ the contents of it, and he is thus enabled to devote to other purposes _an enormous amount of time in the future_ that other people have to spend in _perpetually refreshing_ their superficial acquirements. Moreover, the average student who has carried out _all_ my instructions can even _now_ learn as much by my Method in any stated time as he could learn without my Method, and _with equal thoroughness_ in many, many times as long a period! And if any one who has been pressed for time, or who has been in a panic about an impending examination, or who has been too much troubled with Discontinuity, too ill in general health, or too idle, to do more than superficially glance at my lessons--if any such person doubts his competency to accomplish as much as the diligent student of average ability has done, then let him turn back and really and truly MASTER my System [for he does not even KNOW what my System is until he has faithfully carried out to the very letter all my instructions, unless he has been a pupil of my oral lectures], and then and not before he will probably find that the achievements of the average diligent student of my System are quite within the easy range and scope of his own powers.

(3) In regard to the _subject matter_ of the book, you do not care to occupy yourself with what you are _already familiar_ with, and in most books there are a great many things that you already know. In many works, too, there is a great deal of padding-matter inserted to increase the bulk of the book, and possessing no permanent interest. The expositions and explanations which enable you to _understand_ the new matter usually take up a large part of the book, and sometimes much the largest part of it, and are not to be memorised, but only understood with a sole view to appreciate the valuable and important parts of the book--these expositions can be learned if desired--but they usually serve only a preliminary purpose. There is also very much _repetition_--the same matter in new dress, is reintroduced for sake of additional comments or applications. You do not trouble yourself with these iterations. The contents of a book which demand your attention are the IDEAS which are NEW to you, or the NEW USES made of familiar ideas.

Students who have not learned to exercise any independent thought often confess that in reading any book they are always in a maze. One thing seems just as important as another. To them the wheat looks exactly like the chaff. As an illustration that the power of Analysis is entirely wanting in many cases, I may mention that I once received a letter in which the writer had literally copied one of my column advertisements, and then added, "Please send me what relates to the above!" A modicum of mental training would have led him to say, "Kindly send me your Prospectus."

LEARN FIRST TO MAKE ABSTRACTS OF WHAT IS NEW TO YOU.

A great authority on education says: "Any work that deserves thorough study, deserves the labor of making an Abstract, _without which, indeed, the study is not thorough_."

A work which deserves thorough study is obviously one full of IDEAS, new to the reader, such as the student must master.

If you are thinking of making an Abstract of a particular book, awaken the utmost interest in regard to it before you begin. Are you sure that it is worthy of thorough study? Is it the last or best work on the subject? And if you advance, note in a separate memorandum book your criticisms on the author's method and the soundness of his views. These criticisms will help keep up your interest in the Abstract, and at the close enable you to suggest modifications, additions, excisions, or a refutation.

Three things are required: (1) To learn =how= to abstract; (2) To =make= one, at least, such abstract; and (3) To =learn= it when made.

HOW TO MAKE ABSTRACTS.

Let the ambitious student make an Abstract of any chapter of John Stuart Mill's Logic, and then compare his work with the Analysis of this same chapter by the Rev. A. H. Killick (published by Longmans), and he will at once see the enormous difference between the essentials and the non-essentials--the difference between the subject of discussion and the _explanation_ or _exposition_ of it. The student's abstract, if printed, would extend over twenty to thirty pages. Mr. Killick's only occupies two to five pages. But do not reverse the process and read Mr. Killick's Analysis first and then make your Abstract. The latter, however, is _the easier_, _the usual_, and _the useless_ method. Let the student continue this comparison till he attains very nearly the brevity and discrimination displayed by Mr. Killick. Or, if he prefers History, let him write a summary of any chapter of Green's "Short History of the English People," and then compare his digest with Mr. C. W. A. Tait's Analysis of the same chapter (now bound up with Green's History, as lately published in England). It would be a capital training for the student to abstract the whole of Green's work and compare his abridgment of each chapter with that of Mr. Tait. After considerable practice in this way in making Abstracts and _comparing his work with that of such Masterly Abstractors_ as Dr. Killick and Mr. Tait, the student who needs this training is prepared to make abstracts of his own text-books.

Any other work of which an Abstract is published will serve the student as well as the above. There were formerly published Abstracts of several law books. And there may be other works whose abstracts are available to the ambitious student.

Abstracts would be very amusing if they did not indicate an almost total failure of educational training in the matter of _thinking for one's self_. Recently a Pupil brought me a work on Physiology, written for general readers, and pointing to a paragraph in it that occupied nearly a whole page, exclaimed, "The only way I can make an abstract of that paragraph is to _learn it by heart_!" A glance at it showed me that I could express the gist and pith of it in the following sentence:--"The pulse beats 81 times per minute when you are standing, 71 times when sitting, and 66 times when lying down." After a re-perusal of the paragraph he remarked, "You are right. That is all one cares to remember in that long passage." To his request for me to memorise the Abstract, I replied by asking what is the "Best Known" in it. Why, "pulse," of course. It is merely occupied with the _number of times_ the pulse beats per minute in different positions of the body. Now correlate (memorising your correlations as you proceed) "pulse" to "standing," and "standing" to a word expressing 81 ({f}ee{t}); "sitting" to a word that translates 71 ({c}augh{t}); and "lying down" to a word that spells in figures 66 ({j}ud{g}e). The bodily positions being exhaustively enumerated need not be correlated together. Pulse ... beating ... fighting ... stand-up fight ... STANDING ... stand ... small table ... table legs ... FEET. SITTING ... rest ... arrest ... CAUGHT. LYING DOWN ... lies ... perjury ... trial ... JUDGE.

These efforts in abstracting will qualify the young student to distinguish the main ideas from the subordinate ones, and he will then know when reading a book what to attend to and what to reject. Try a short essay first, then a longer one; and at last, when you are familiar with the method, attack any book, and you will cope with it successfully. Not much practice in this way will be required to enable you to know, from a glance at the _table of contents_, just what to assail and what to disregard. And in all your _first_ attempts in reading a technical work, make out an Abstract of each chapter in writing, and then deal only with this Abstract. Whenever the Subject is not treated in a desultory manner, but with logical precision, you will soon be able to find Suggestive or Prompting Words in the Sequence of Ideas and in the successive Links in the Chain of Thought that runs through the exposition. If there is no such Sequence of Ideas or Chain of Thought running through it, it may serve as an amusement, but is little likely to command serious study. _In a short time_ you will be able, in the language of Dr. Johnson, "to tear out the heart of any book." Hazlitt said that Coleridge rarely read a book through, "but would plunge into the marrow of a new volume and feed on all the nutritious matter with surprising rapidity, grasping the thought of the author and following out his reasonings to consequences of which he never dreamt." Such a result is rarely attained even by the ablest of men--but it is the ultimate goal at which every student should aim--an aim in which he will be largely assisted by the ART OF ASSIMILATIVE MEMORY.

There are four methods of learning abstracts: one is by Synthesis; the other is by the Analytic-Synthetic Method, the third is mostly by Assimilative Analysis, and the fourth method is by the memory developed and trained by the System, but which is not consciously used.

(1) It is the novelties of Fact, Opinion, Illustration, &c., set forth in your Abstract that you correlate together, thus: You correlate the Title of the First Chapter to the Title of the Book; next, the Titles of the Chapters to each other; and then you correlate, in each chapter, the first leading idea or proposition to the title of the chapter, the second leading idea to the first, &c., &c. In this way you will proceed until you have absorbed all the _new ideas_, _facts_, _statistics_ or _illustrations_, or whatever you wish to retain. You can then test yourself on the work by calling to mind whatever you have thus cemented together. If this is well done you will never have to do it again.

(2) We have already seen how to apply the Analytic-Synthetic Method in learning by heart selections in Prose or Poetry, and same method can be used in memorising an Abstract of such parts of a book as are new to the reader. This method, too, once used in addition to what has been done by the pupil, will make a further resort to it unnecessary.

(3) And the same remark applies to the third method.

(4) The fourth method is the pupil's final method.

The foregoing exhaustive methods of dealing with a book are recommended to those only whose natural memories are not yet made powerfully retentive by the System as a Memory-TRAINER. If, however, a Pupil possesses a good natural memory and a mastery of the System as a Device for memorising, and he has also greatly added to the power of his Concentration as well as his memory by doing all the exercises, he _will not use my System, even in the reading of the first book, except now and then_--certainly _not_ constantly, but _only occasionally_. Although not necessary in case of memories made strong by the System, yet I do most earnestly recommend the most gifted and highly endowed to deal with _one_ book in the above thorough-going manner. As for instance, Herbert Spencer's little work on Education [four short essays]. Dr. Charles Mercier, who next to Herbert Spencer is the most original and clear sighted Psychologist in England, presents, in a work entitled "Sanity and Insanity," a scarcely equalled example of lucid exposition and logical development. Whichever one is selected it should be fairly and honestly handled by my method. The gain to Intellectual Comprehension from having carefully abstracted one book, and the gain to the memory from having made and memorised the Abstract, will produce results that will last through life, and make all subsequent acquisitions more easy and delightful, and make all further abstracts probably unnecessary.

HOW TO LEARN A LONG SERIES OF UNCONNECTED FACTS IN THE SCIENCES OR EVENTS IN HISTORY, CHAPTERS IN BOOKS, OR THE CONTENTS OF BOOKS.

1. It is useless for the pupil to attempt to learn the exercise here given unless he has carefully studied the Building, Ice, Presidential, and English Sovereign Series. The _meaning_ of In., Ex., and Con. can be understood in application to the facts of life, the events of History and the principles and details of the Arts and Sciences, only by a complete mastery of all that precedes this exercise.

2. Let the pupil learn only _ten_ facts, propositions or statements at each of the first few sittings, and then, as he adds ten more, let him recite from memory all that he has previously learned of this exercise. The _cementing relations_ of In., Ex., and Con., which bind the events together, must in each case be first found by the student himself, and afterwards, and not before, let him glance at my analysis which follows this series.

3. The lawyer, in selecting 100 or 1,000 events of the Victorian Era, would doubtless make a list interesting to lawyers, the physician would make one of interest mostly or mainly to doctors, and similarly with educators, statesmen, editors, &c., &c. But I have selected events with a view to find the most difficult cases to deal with and with no other view, and if the pupil masters these, all other work hereafter will be easy to him.

4. This method can be promptly used, provided the pupil does not attempt to engorge or cloy his mind by undertaking too much at a time at first. Practice will soon make longer exercises easy. Each of the following six Exercises is enough for any one session or sitting.

5. Between a pair of _words_ it may be difficult sometimes to find either the relation of In., Ex., or Con.; but in the case of sentences, propositions or descriptions, it is always easy to find one or other of the cementing relations. Relations which to me are strong, may seem weak to some pupils. No two persons would find the same relation in some cases, but, however different the solutions may be, they must always verify In., Ex., or Con.

6. The Int. Analysis, the Analytic-Synthetic, or the mere Analytic method, will enable the pupil to memorise the statement or sentence which describes the fact whenever any aid is necessary.

7. This Method can be readily applied to events in ancient or modern times, or to an accumulation of facts in the sciences, &c.

8. If we were to express only the year the formula would in most cases be different. To indicate the month and the day of the month, a consistent phrase must be used.

ONE HUNDRED EVENTS OF THE VICTORIAN ERA, LEARNED BY ONE CAREFUL READING OR STUDY.

FIRST EXERCISE.

1--The Victoria era begins June 20, 1837

2--Abolition of death penalty for forgery and some other crimes July 17, 1837

3--Question of Trades Unionism brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Wakley and Mr. Daniel O'Connell Feb. 13, 1838

4--First steam voyage across the Atlantic Ocean _completed_ in 15 days by the _Great Western_ June 17, 1838

5--International Copyright Act passed July 31, 1838

6--Chartist Meetings proclaimed illegal Dec. 12, 1838

7--Anti-corn Law League formed Dec. 19, 1838

8--Penny Postage Act passed Aug. 17, 1839

9--Marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, by the Archbishop of Canterbury Feb. 10, 1840

=10=--Birth of Princess Royal Nov. 21, 1840

SECOND EXERCISE.

11--Birth of Prince of Wales Nov. 9, 1841

12--Earl of Munster's suicide Mar. 20, 1842

13--Monster Chartist Petition, borne by 16 men and containing 3,317,702 names, denied a hearing before the bar of the House of Commons May 2, 1842

14--Defeat of Boers at Natal by the British troops May 26, 1842

15--Treaty with the United States of America on North-West Boundary, Slave Trade and Extradition Aug. 9, 1842

16--Defeat of Ameers at Meanee by Sir Charles Napier. Loss 10,000 Jan. 16, 1843

17--Birth of Princess Maud Mary Alice Apr. 25, 1843

18--Arkwright's son leaves his heirs £8,000,000 May 24, 1843

19--Birth of Prince Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Aug. 6, 1844

=20=--Imprisonment for debt under £20 abolished Aug. 10, 1844

THIRD EXERCISE.

21--Maynooth College Endowment Bill passed by House of Lords by 131 majority May 16, 1845

22--Faraday announces discovery tending to show that _light_, _heat_, and _electricity_ are but different manifestations of one great universal principle Nov. 5, 1845

23--Birth of Princess Helena May 25, 1846

24--Opening of new Philosophical Institute at Edinburgh Nov. 4, 1846

25--Shakespeare's House, at Stratford-on-Avon, purchased by the Shakespeare Committee for £3,000 Sept.16, 1847

26--Commercial crisis: Bank of England rate raised to 9 per cent. Oct. 31, 1847

27--Chloroform administered by Professor Simpson at Edinburgh Nov. 12, 1847

28--The French Revolution of Feb. 22, 1848

29--Birth of Princess Louise Mar. 18, 1848

=30=--Kossuth claims protection from England Sept.20, 1849

FOURTH EXERCISE.

31--Treaty with United States in regard to the Nicaragua Canal Apr. 19, 1850

32--Sir Robert Peel's fall from a horse, on Constitution Hill, June 29, resulted in his death July 2, 1850

33--A Farewell Benefit to William Macready, the tragedian, at Drury Lane Theatre Feb. 26, 1851

34--Opening of International Exhibition by Her Majesty, in Hyde Park May 1, 1851

35--Louis Napoleon's Coup d'état Dec. 2, 1851

36--Duke of Wellington's Death Sept.14, 1852

37--Birth of Prince Leopold Apr. 7, 1853

38--Lord Palmerston advises Presbytery of Edinburgh to first consult the laws of sanitation before ordering a fast on account of the Cholera Oct. 19, 1853

39--Rev. F. D. Maurice dismissed from King's College for opinion's sake Oct. 27, 1853

=40=--War declared by Russia against Turkey Nov. 1, 1853

FIFTH EXERCISE.

41--War declared by England, against Russia Mar. 22, 1854

42--Epochal Work--Spencer's Psychology 1855

43--Treaty of Peace between England, France, and Russia, at Paris Mar. 30, 1856

44--Bands play on Sunday afternoons in Kensington Gardens Apr. 13, 1856

45--Birth of Princess Beatrice Apr. 14, 1857

46--Capture of Delhi Sept.20, 1857

47--First Sitting of the Court for Divorces: Sir Cresswell Cresswell, Judge Ordinary Jan. 16, 1858

48--Statue of Sir Isaac Newton unveiled by Lord Brougham at Grantham Sept.21, 1858

49--Darwin's "Origin of Species" published 1859

=50=--Death of Lord (Thomas Babington) Macaulay Dec. 28, 1859

SIXTH EXERCISE.

51--Thomas Hopley, schoolmaster, sentenced to 4 years' penal servitude for causing the death of R. C. Cancellor by excessive corporal punishment July 23, 1860

52--Lord Clarence advises Ironclads for the Navy Mar. 11, 1861

53--Recognition by English Government of the Southern Confederacy May 8, 1861

54--Death of Prince Consort of gastric fever Nov. 14, 1861

55--Marriage of Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark Mar. 10, 1863

56--Tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth Apr. 23, 1864

57--Tercentenary of the death of Calvin May 27, 1864

58--Inauguration of a statue to Sir Wm. Jenner, at Boulogne Sept. 1, 1865

59--Albert Medal for those who in saving life endanger their own Mar. 7, 1866

=60=--Mr. Peabody thanked by H. M. the Queen for his munificent gifts to the poor of London Mar. 28, 1866

61--Government requires Electric Telegraph July 31, 1868

62--University of Edinburgh admits women to the study of medicine Oct. 27, 1869

63--Act for the abolition of imprisonment for debt comes into effect Jan. 1, 1870

64--Prof. Tyndall traces propagation of disease by _dust_ and _germs_ floating in the air Jan. 14, 1870

65--Prince of Wales attacked with typhoid fever Nov. 23, 1871

66--Geneva Convention awards the United States of America, on account of Alabama Claims, £3,000,000 against Great Britain Sept.14, 1873

67--Miss Richards, of Stapleton, walked 1000 miles in 1000 consecutive hours June 29, 1874

68--Captain Boynton crosses English Channel (second attempt) in his swimming dress May 28, 1875

69--British Museum lighted by electricity Oct. 20, 1879

=70=--Tay Bridge disaster Dec. 28, 1879

71--Death of Mrs. Mary Ann Cross (George Eliot) Nov. 22, 1880

72--International Medical Congress in London; 2000 doctors from all parts of the world Aug. 3, 1881