of above their respective walls. One room will thus
furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50
occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in
the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact
position of each place or number, it is then necessary to
associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so
that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly
remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may
immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the
objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or
from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at
once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the
ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places,
by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over
in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several
hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing
them only once."

This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too
mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take
note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the
mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a
rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles
the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more
yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the
system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on
mechanical or arithmetical associations--not founded on nature, and is of
very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit
of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a
logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.

Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic
systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a
multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than
rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they
are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the
other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they
cannot be highly esteemed."

In fact, these mnemonical systems are only