are met memory is good.
After providing proper conditions for memory, then, trust your memory.
An attitude of confidence is very necessary. If, when you are
memorizing, you continually tremble for fear that you will not recall
at the desired moment, the fixedness of the impression will be greatly
hindered. Therefore, after utilizing all your knowledge about the
conditions of memorizing, rest content and trust to the laws of Nature.
They will not fail you.

By this time you have seen that memory is not a mysterious mental
faculty with which some people are generously endowed, and of which
others are deprived. All people of normal intelligence can remember and
can improve their ability if they desire. The improvement does not take
the form that some people expect, however. No magic wand can transform
you into a good memorizes You must work the transformation yourself.
Furthermore, it is not an instantaneous process to be accomplished
overnight. It will come about only after you have built up a set of
habits, according to our conception of study as a process of habit
formation.

A final word of caution should be added. Some people think of memory as
a separate division or compartment of the mind which can be controlled
and improved by exercising it alone. Such a conception is fallacious.
Improvement in memory will involve improvement in other mental
abilities, and you will find that as you improve your ability to
remember, you will develop at the same time better powers to
concentrate attention, to image, to associate facts and to reason.

READING AND EXERCISE

Reading: See readings for Chapter VI.

Exercise I. Compare the mental conditions of impression with those of
recall.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCENTRATION OF ATTENTION

Nearly everyone has difficulty in the concentration of attention. Brain
workers in business and industry, students in high school and college,
and even professors in universities, complain of the same difficulty.
Attention seems in some way to be at the very core of mental activity,
for no matter from what aspect we view the mind, its excellence seems
to depend upon the power to concentrate attention. When we examine a
growing infant, one of the first signs by which we judge the awakening
of intelligence is the power to pay attention or to "notice things."
When we examine the intellectual ability of normal adults we do so by
means of tests that require close concentration of attention. In