Belladonna … deadly nightshade … deadly sick … emetic … mustard and water … brandy and water … stimulants … hot … perspiration … pilocarpine [p. injected hypodermically causes profuse perspiration].

THE TWELVE PAIRS OF CRANIAL NERVES.

The following list is worked out for practice much more fully than a medical student would do if he were learning the list in his studies. The medical student would doubtless first objectively identify these nerves in dissection, and then use correlations to help him remember those which his natural memory could not carry. If not a medical student, my pupil may omit this and the previous examples from Quain’s Anatomy.

THE TWELVE PAIRS OF CRANIAL NERVES.

1. Between “perspiration” and “tea”?
2. Why so?
3. Explain the relation between “Belladonna” and “deadly nightshade.”
4. What advice is here given the medical student?
5. Are you required to learn the twelve pairs of cranial nerves if you are not a medical student?
6. What do the words printed in italics indicate in this exercise?
7. Is it essential for the medical student to know these uses?
8. What word indicates the number of pairs of cranial nerves?
9. Through what consonant?

PROTOPLASM.

Albumen, gluten, fibrin, syntonin, are closely allied substances known as proteids, and each is composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Proteids … Protector … commonwealth … for all … albumen … all men … liars … fibs … fibrin … brindled … spotted … sin … syntonin … toe nails … hoofs … glue … gluten.

For the past ten years I have printed in my large prospectus a general view of my meaning. I will reproduce most of those views here, premising that I have never suggested that books are to be learned by heart, but only the important, useful portions of them—such as are new to the reader and which he may desire to retain.

I do not mean such books as Bradshaw’s Guide, the London Post-Office Directory, or any other mere collection of names, addresses, statistics, &c., which one may have occasion to consult, but which it would be the mere bravado of Memory to learn by heart—though even this is possible enough to the master of my System. What is one’s object in reading a book? Simply to retain the IDEAS in it that are NEW and USEFUL to him, as well as the NEW USES that are therein set forth of old and familiar ideas. If the reader is already partly acquainted with a book, there will be fewer new ideas in it than in one with which he is unacquainted. Now, what do I mean by Learning either of these books in one reading? I mean exactly what I say. All that you desire to remember shall be retained—all the leading or subordinate ideas, propositions, illustrations, facts, &c., &c.

There are only two ways of learning a book in this thorough manner:

It is only the exceptionally powerful natural memories that win at exacting examinations by rote—even then their learning is soon forgotten, unless it is perpetually renewed.

(2) The other mode of learning any book in the thorough manner I have indicated, whether it be a book in which the reader finds but few novel ideas or where they are all new, as in a scientific or technical work, is by my Method. In fact, I believe no one can learn any book so thoroughly by rote, even if he possesses a marvellous Natural Memory and if he peruse it ever so many times, as my Pupils can by my method in a single perusal. Let the reader note that my System has two important aspects—(1) It is a Device or Method of memorising or learning any facts whatever—prose, poetry, dates, data, formulæ and facts and principles of the sciences, &c., &c., &c., or anything whatsoever to be remembered. (2) There is another equally, if not more important aspect of it, namely, as a Trainer or Strengthener of the Natural Memory to any extent the pupil wishes to carry it. And the Natural Memory is so strengthened by the use of the System, that as a Device, the System is no longer required. You then remember from your new Memory-power without taking any pains to remember, and I am happy to add that the diligent student can derive the full benefit of the System as a Memory Trainer by learning the lessons in the way I point out.

I now reproduce most of the plan always adopted in dealing with books whose contents, or the unfamiliar portions of them are to be mastered.

(1) You will not read the book with the rapidity with which some young ladies are said to devour the latest novel. They are often suspected of skipping pages at a time in order to discover the different stages of a plot, until a thoroughly aroused curiosity compels them to hasten at once to the last chapter to fall upon the denouement. This is not the style of perusal I contemplate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1. —Birth of Prince of Wales Nov. 9, 1841
2. —Earl of Munster’s suicide Mar. 20, 1842
3. —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
4. —Defeat of Boers at Natal by the British troops May 26, 1842
5. —Treaty with the United States of America on North-West Boundary, Slave Trade and Extradition Aug. 9, 1842
6. —Defeat of Ameers at Meanee by Sir Charles Napier. Loss 10,000 Jan. 16, 1843
7. —Birth of Princess Maud Mary Alice April 25, 1843
8. —Arkwright’s son leaves his heirs £8,000,000 May 24, 1843
9. —Birth of Prince Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Aug. 6, 1844
10. —Imprisonment for debt under £20 abolished Aug. 10, 1844

THIRD EXERCISE.

FOURTH EXERCISE.

1. —Treaty with United States in regard to the Nicaragua Canal April 19, 1850
2. —Sir Robert Peel’s fall from a horse, on Constitution Hill, June 29, resulted in his death July 2, 1850
3. —A Farewell Benefit to William Macready, the tragedian, at Drury Lane Theatre Feb. 26, 1851
4. —Opening of International Exhibition by Her Majesty, in Hyde Park May 1, 1851
5. —Louis Napoleon’s Coup d’état Dec. 2, 1851
6. —Duke of Wellington’s Death Sept. 14, 1852
7. —Birth of Prince Leopold April 7, 1853
8. —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
9. —Rev. F. D. Maurice dismissed from King’s College for opinion’s sake Oct. 27, 1853
10. —War declared by Russia against Turkey Nov. 1, 1853

FIFTH EXERCISE.

1. —War declared by England, against Russia Mar. 22, 1854
2. —Epochal Work—Spencer’s Psychology 1855
3. —Treaty of Peace between England, France, and Russia, at Paris Mar. 30, 1856
4. —Bands play on Sunday afternoons in Kensington Gardens April 13, 1856
5. —Birth of Princess Beatrice April 14, 1857
6. —Capture of Delhi Sept. 20, 1857
7. —First Sitting of the Court for Divorces: Sir Cresswell Cresswell, Judge Ordinary Jan. 16, 1858
8. —Statue of Sir Isaac Newton unveiled by Lord Brougham at Grantham Sept. 21, 1858
9. —Darwin’s “Origin of Species” published 1859
10. —Death of Lord (Thomas Babington) Macaulay Dec. 28, 1859

ANALYSIS OF ONE HUNDRED EVENTS OF THE VICTORIAN ERA.

As before suggested, let the pupil recite the foregoing ten events forwards and the reverse way several times from memory. And then let him similarly recite the entire twenty events.

As to the dates of the 100 events, they will cause no difficulty. The pupil should look upon my formulas as models merely, and make his own whenever possible. In all the events belonging to this century, we have only to deal with the last two figures—(3) Model (7) Queen gives the date of (18)37. The rule in regard to the month and the day of the month is very easily applied. A separate word for each figure except for the three months [October, November and December] where there are two figures in the one word that expresses the number of the month, as ties, dues, ’tis, thus, this, those, express October, the tenth month; that, did, died, dot, date, thought, &c., &c., indicate November, the eleventh month; and then, thin, tone, tune, attain, &c., &c., mean December, the twelfth month. A Model Queen Just in season—Just in its “J” means the sixth month, or June, and “n” in “in” and “s” in season means a cypher—or 20—the translation of the phrase is (18)37—June—20th day.

A CONCLUDING REMARK.