The Trained Memory | Page 7

Iron Filings and Mental Magnets]
From the instant that you make such a choice you are on the alert for facts relevant to the subject of your ambition. Upon them you concentrate your attention. They are presented to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. All facts that pertain to the art of flying henceforth cluster and cling to your conscious memory like iron filings to a magnet. All that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from these intensely active complexes, and in time fade into subconscious forgetfulness.
[Sidenote: The Compartment of Subconscious Forgetfulness]
By subconscious forgetfulness we mean a compartment, as it were, of that reservoir in which all past experiences are stored.
Consciousness is a momentary thing. It is a passing state. It is ephemeral and flitting. It is made up _in part of present sense-impressions_ and in part of past experiences. These past experiences are brought forth from subconsciousness. Some are voluntarily brought forth. Some present themselves without our conscious volition, but by the operation of the laws of association and dissociation. Some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet they may appear when least we are expecting them. It is these last to which we have referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. As a matter of fact, none are ever actually lost.
[Sidenote: Making Experience Count]
All the wealth of your past experience is still yours--a concrete part of your personality. All that is required to make it available for your present use is a sufficient concentration of your attention, _a concentration of attention that shall dwell persistently and exclusively upon those associations that bear upon the fact desired_.
The tendency of the mind toward dissociation, a function limiting the indiscriminate recall of associated "groups," is also manifested in all of us in the transfer to unconsciousness of many muscular activities.
[Sidenote: How Habits Are Formed]
As infants we learn to walk only by giving to every movement of the limbs the most deliberate conscious attention. Yet, in time, the complicated co-operation of muscular movements involved in walking becomes involuntary and unconscious, so that we are no longer even aware of them.
It is the same with reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, the manipulation of all sorts of mechanical devices, the thousand and one other muscular activities that become what we call habitual.
The moment one tries to make these habitual activities again dependent on the conscious will he encounters difficulties.
"The centipede was happy quite, Until the toad, for fun, Said, 'Pray which leg goes after which?' This stirred his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run."
_All these habitual activities are started as acts of painstaking care and conscious attention. All ultimately become unconscious._ They may, however, be started or stopped at will. They are, therefore, still related to the conscious mind. They occupy a semi-automatic middle ground between conscious and subconscious activities.

THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS
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CHAPTER VI
THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS
[Sidenote: Practice in Memorizing Inadequate]
It is evident that if what we have been describing as the process of recall is true, then the commonly accepted idea that practice in memorizing makes memorizing easier is false, and that there is no truth in the popular figure of speech that likens the memory to a muscle that grows stronger with use.
So far as the memory is concerned, however, practice may result in a more or less unconscious improvement in the methods of memorizing.
_By practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new associative methods in our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to the actual scope and power of retention._
[Sidenote: Torture of the Drill]
Yet many books on memory-training have wide circulation whose authors, showing no conception of the processes involved, seek to develop the general ability to remember by incessant practice in memorizing particular facts, just as one would develop a muscle by exercise.
The following is quoted from a well-known work of this character:
"I am now treating a case of loss of memory in a person advanced in years, who did not know that his memory had failed most remarkably until I told him of it. He is making vigorous efforts to bring it back again, and with partial success. The method pursued is to spend two hours daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, in exercising this faculty. The patient is instructed to give the closest attention to all that he learns, so that it shall be impressed on his mind clearly. He is asked to recall every evening all the facts and experiences of the day, and again the next morning. Every name heard is written down and impressed on his mind clearly and an effort made to recall it at intervals. Ten names from among public