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Chapter - 04

How To Remember Places, Colors And Forms

Up to this point we have studied only the functioning of the memory. Now let us turn to the various objects which we wish to remember.

When you are in a circle of intimate friends, turn the conversation on the subject of memory. You will be amazed at the conclusions drawn by the various individuals about their own memories.

One of them has no difficulty in recalling numbers, names and dates, but confesses he can never remember persons no matter how often he has seen or spoken to them. The next always remembers faces but can never recall names. One of those present—usually a man—says that he never loses his way in a neighborhood where he has once set foot, but that he cannot describe the architecture of a single building in it.

A woman, on the other hand, complains that she has no sense of direction and that she confuses the points of the compass. She even finds it difficult not to lose her way in localities which are quite familiar to her. And yet she can give her dressmaker a detailed description of a model of which she has had only a passing glimpse in a theater lobby.

Aside from these examples, you know from your own experience how variously the individual memory functions in learning a foreign language or in recalling melodies.

From the foregoing we may conclude that it is a mistake for people to speak in generalities about a "good" memory or a "poor" memory. The human memory is never completely good or completely poor. It is good or poor only in reference to particular material, and we must, therefore, make distinctions between a memory for faces, names, numbers, facts, and a memory for tunes, foreign languages, etc.

With this fact in mind, we come to the methods for improving the memory in each of these particular fields, for obviously the great differences in the cases call for wide differences in method.

For the present we will defer a discussion of numbers, faces, names, dates and facts, because they can be dealt with more satisfactorily with the help of mnemotechnical aids, which will be considered in a later chapter. But a faulty memory for places, forms and colors can be corrected in a natural, simple way, and the method which I propose will bring results in a short while.

Have You A Good Memory For Places?

Can you find your way in a strange city with the help of a map, or retrace your steps over a particular route which you have been over only once? If you cannot, I recommend this method.

If you live in a large city, go to some part of town into which you seldom if ever venture. If you live in a small town or in the country, you can practise this exercise with best results when you are making a trip or go to another town. In any case, select a route, preferably irregular and circuitous, which will take you some twenty or thirty minutes to walk. As you go along, pay particular attention to landmarks, especially those on corners where you turn to right or to left. For instance, notice any striking house fronts, monuments, store windows, and the like. When you reach the end of your walk, try to recall every detail that you noticed on the way and retrace your steps in memory. If you can do so, make a little sketch showing the important landmarks on the way. Then try to retrace your steps in the opposite direction, mentally of course, using your landmarks as guides. If you cannot find your way back to your starting point, in spite of your memorized landmarks, repeat the exercise again and again until you know the way perfectly.

This exercise in orientation may seem difficult to you at first, but if you try it often, in different localities, you will ultimately succeed. Your eye and brain gradually accustom themselves to watching automatically for landmarks. After you have mastered this exercise you will find that even in a strange city you will not lose your sense of direction when following a route on a map. Your practised and sharpened sense of direction will not fail you, no matter how long a route you choose.

Have You A Good Memory For Geography?

Without consulting an atlas, sketch a rough outline map of North America. Remember that unless you actually work out these exercises this book cannot be of real assistance to you. While it is not necessary for your sketch to show odd conformations of the land, it should be a reasonably correct outline of the continent. When you have completed the rough outline, put in the following, in the order given:

New York City

San Francisco
 
Florida

The boundary between the United States and Canada

The boundary between the United States and Mexico

Lake Michigan

Chicago

Washington, D. C.

The Mississippi-Missouri River

Yellowstone National Park

When you have completed your map, compare it with an atlas to check your memory for geography. Find out to what extent it has failed you.

Now make a rough sketch of South America, again without referring to an atlas. Show the ABC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) with their capitals. Then compare your map with the atlas and correct your mistakes.

If these exercises are too difficult, start by making sketches of sections of the country with which you are familiar, which you have visited and know from your own experience.

Remember that the important thing about these exercises is not meticulous accuracy, but the ability to outline from memory, without reference to an atlas.

I can still remember my geography lessons in school. At that time map drawing was often assigned as home work and the best grade was given to the pupil whose map looked most like the one in the atlas, with the ocean colored an attractive blue and the mountains a pretty brown. My teacher, like many of his colleagues, had not the faintest knowledge of the psychology of memory. He did not know that a rough sketch done from memory and later compared with the atlas was of far greater value in impressing the outlines of a foreign country than the handsomest map copied, or even traced, from a book.

Don't make the same mistake in your study of geography or in teaching the subject to your children! The correct way to memorize the shape of a foreign country, its rivers, lakes, mountains, and cities is as follows:

1. Make a sketch map of the country from memory.

2. Compare your rough draft with the atlas and correct your mistakes.

3. Lay this map aside and make a new one, again from memory.

4. Compare it with the atlas and again correct your errors.

5. When this second (or third, or fourth, if need be) map meets with your approval, wait several days and then make a new one from memory.

If you do this exercise often enough, you will notice a great improvement in your memory for geography. You will find yourself, in time, able to conjure up the appearance of any country or city when you hear its name spoken or see it in print, and you will take a more intelligent interest in geographical names when you encounter them.

Have You A Good Memory For Colors?

Go to a picture gallery, look at any painting, and then, at home or in another part of the gallery, try to visualize all the details and colors of the picture. Again a rough sketch will be of aid to you. You need not have any artistic talent whatsoever to do this exercise. It isn't necessary to make a beautiful sketch. The essential thing is to discover how much your memory has retained of the details and, above all, of the colors of the painting which you selected.

Now, go back for another view of the painting, compare your sketch with the original, correct your mistakes, and repeat the process until your visualization and memory of color and details are absolutely correct.

You will doubtless meet with difficulties the first time you try this exercise. But it will encourage you to find that these difficulties will gradually disappear with practice and that your memory for colors, forms, and the like grows.

The following story serves to illustrate how a practised and trained memory functions in this capacity:

One of the most beautiful and valuable paintings in St. Peter's Church in Cologne was the Rubens altarpiece. It depicts the martyrdom of one of the apostles. In 1805 a French soldier stole the picture as a war trophy and took it to France. As the painting had been a great favorite, the people of Cologne were reluctant to hang a different picture in its place. Thereupon a painter in the city offered to make a copy of it from memory, and the copy was hung in place of the original.

Many years later the original was returned by the French and the remarkable fact was discovered that the copy was so like the original, even in the smallest details, that one could hardly differentiate between them. Had the painter made his copy directly from the original he would have been considered merely a good copyist and the story would hold little interest. But he made it entirely from memory, after the original had been removed, and the incident serves as proof of what a trained memory for color and form can accomplish.

Have You A Good Memory For Architectural Detail?

Make a rough sketch of your own house front from memory, without going out to look at it. From memory sketch any striking building, such as a church or library, which you frequently pass.

Compare your sketches with the originals, correct your mistakes, and continue with the method outlined above for improving your memory of geography.

By this time you have enough examples so that you can continue independently with the development of memory for objects which are not dealt with here. Bear in mind, however, that so far we have considered only such simple subjects in memory training as can be mastered without the aid of mnemonics.

For more difficult subjects—numbers, names, dates, etc. —mnemotechnical aids are indispensable, and later on we shall see how even the most difficult things can be memorized and retained through mnemonics.

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