ccess,
beginning with the simplest figures. They were made to study the
models thoroughly before they tried to draw them from memory. One
favourite expedient was to associate the sight memory with the
muscular memory, by making his pupils follow at a distance the
outlines of the figures with a pencil held in their hands. After
three or four months' practice, their visual memory became greatly
strengthened. They had no difficulty in summoning images at will, in
holding them steady, and in drawing them. Their copies [7] were
executed with marvellous fidelity, as attested by a commission of
the Institute, appointed in 1852 to inquire into the matter, of
which the eminent painter Horace Vernet was a member. The present
Slade Professor of Fine Arts at University College, M. Legros, was a
pupil of M. de Boisbaudran. He has expressed to me his indebtedness
to the system, and he has assured me of his own success in teaching
others in a somewhat similar way.

[Footnote 7: Republished in an 8vo, entitled _Enseignment
Artistique_. Morel et Cie. Paris, 1879.]

Colonel Moncrieff informs me that, when wintering in 1877 near Fort
Garry in North America, young Indians occasionally came to his
quarters, and that he found them much interested in any pictures or
prints that were put before them. On one of these occasions he saw
an Indian tracing the outline of a print from the _Illustrated News_
very carefully with the point of his knife. The reason he gave for
this odd manoeuvre was, that he would remember the better how to
carve it when he returned home.

I could mention instances within my own experience in which the
visualising faculty has become strengthened by practice; notably one
of an eminent electrical engineer, who had the power of recalling
form with unusual precision, but not colour. A few weeks after he
had replied to my questions, he told me that my inquiries had
induced him to practise his colour memory, and that he had done so
with such success that he was become quite an adept at it, and that
the newly-acquired power was a source of much pleasure to him.

A useful faculty, easily developed by practice, is that of retaining
a retinal picture. A scene is flashed upon the eye; the memory of it
persists, and details, which escaped observation during the brief
time when it was actually seen, may be analysed and studied at
leisure in the subsequent vision.

The memories we should aim at acquiring are, however, such as a