The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing Part 51

President Chosen for the first word as the one most apt to occur to the mind of anyone wis.h.i.+ng to repeat the names of the Presidents.

Dentist President and dentist.

Draw What does a dentist do?

(To give up) When something is drawn from one it is given up.

This is a date phrase meaning 1789.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON. a.s.sociate the quality of self-sacrifice with Was.h.i.+ngton's character.

Morning wash Was.h.i.+ngton and wash.

Dew Early wetness and dew.

Flower beds Dew and flowers.

(Took a bouquet) Flowers and bouquet. Date phrase (1797),

Garden Bouquet and garden.

Eden The first garden.

Adam Juxtaposition of thought.

ADAMS Suggestion by sound.

Fall Juxtaposition of thought.

Failure Fall and failure.

(Deficit) Upon failure there is usually a deficit Date word (1801).

Debt The consequence of a deficit.

Confederate bonds Suggestion by meaning.

Jefferson Davis Juxtaposition of thought.

JEFFERSON.

Now follow out the rest for yourself, taking about ten at a time, and binding those you do last to those you have done before, each time, before attacking the next bunch.

JEFFERSON Judge Jeffreys (b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.size) bereavement (too heavy a sob) parental grief mad son MADISON Maderia frustrating first-rate wine (defeating) feet toe the line row MONROE row boat steamer side-splitting (divert) annoy hara.s.sing HARRISON Old Harry the tempter (the fraud) painted clay baked clay tiles TYLER Wat Tyler poll tax compulsory (free will) free offering burnt offering poker POLK end of dance termination "ly"

(adverb) part of speech part of a man TAYLOR measurer theodoilte (Theophilus) fill us FILLMORE more fuel the flame flambeau bow arrow PIERCE hurt (feeling) wound soldier cannon BUCHANAN rebuke official censure (to officiate) wedding linked LINCOLN civil service ward politician (stop 'em) stop procession (tough boy) Little Ben Harry HARRISON Tippecanoe tariff too knapsack war-field (the funnel) windpipe throat quinzy QUINCY ADAMS quince fine fruit (the fine boy) sailor boy sailor jack tar JACKSON stone wall indomitable (tough make) oaken furniture bureau VAN BUREN rent link stroll seash.o.r.e take give GRANT award school premium examination cramming (f.a.gging) laborer hay field HAYES hazy clear (vivid) brightly lighted camp-fire war-field GARFIELD Guiteau murderer prisoner prison fare (half fed) well fed well read author ARTHUR round table tea cup (half full) divide cleave CLEVELAND City of Cleveland two twice (the heavy sh.e.l.l) mollusk unfamiliar word dictionary Johnson's JOHNSON son bad son (thievish bay) dishonest boy (back) Mac McKINLEY kill Czolgosz (zees) seize ruffian rough rider rouse ROOSEVELT size heavy fat TAFT

It will be noted that some of the date words, as "free will," only give three figures of the date, 845; but it is to be supposed that if the student knows that many figures in the date of Polk's inauguration he can guess the other one.

The curious thing about this system will now become apparent. If the reader has learned the series so that he can say it down from President to Taft, he can with no effort, and without any further preparation, say it backwards from Taft up to the commencement! There could be no better proof that this is the natural mnemonic system. It proves itself by its works.

The series should be repeated backward and forward every day for a month, and should be supplemented by a series of the reader's own making, and by this one, which gives the numbers from 0 to 100, and which must be chained together before they can be learned:

0--hoes 1--wheat 2--hen 3--home 4--hair 5--oil 6--shoe 7--hook 8--off 9--bee 10--daisy 11--tooth 12--dine 13--time 14--tower 15--dell 16--ditch 17--duck 18--dove 21--hand 19--tabby 20--hyenas 22--nun 23--name 24--owner 25--nail 26--hinge 27--ink 28--knife 29--k.n.o.b 30--muse 31--Mayday 32--hymen 33--mama 34--mare 35--mill 36--image 37--mug 38--m.u.f.f 39--mob 40--race 41--hart 42--horn 43--army 44--warrior 45--royal 46--arch 47--rock 48--wharf 49--rope 50--wheels 51--lad 52--lion 53--lamb 54--lair 55--lily 56--lodge 57--lake 58--leaf 59--elbow 60--chess 61--cheat 62--chain 63--sham 64--chair 65--jail 66--judge 67--jockey 68--shave 69--s.h.i.+p 70--eggs 71--gate 72--gun 73--comb 74--hawker 75--coal 76--cage 77--cake 78--coffee 79--cube 80--vase 81--feet 82--vein 83--fame 84--fire 85--vial 86--fish 87--fig 88--fife 89--fib 90--piles 91--putty 92--pane 93--bomb 94--bier 95--bell 96--peach 98--beef 97--book 99--pope 100--diocese

[Transcriber's note: Items 21, 19, 20, 22 are shown as printed.]

By the use of this table, which should be committed as thoroughly as the President series, so that it can be repeated backward and forward, any date, figure or number can be at once constructed, and bound by the usual chain to the fact which you wish it to accompany.

When the student wishes to go farther and attack larger problems than the simple binding of two facts together, there is little in Loisette's system that is new, although there is much that is good. If it is a book that is to be learned as one would prepare for an examination, each chapter is to be considered separately. Of each an epitome is to be written in which the writer must exercise all of his ingenuity to reduce the matter in hand to its final skeleton of fact. This he is to commit to memory both by the use of the chain and the old system of interrogation. Suppose after much labor through a wide s.p.a.ce of language one boils a chapter or an event down to the final irreducible sediment: "Magna Charta was exacted by the barons from King John at Runnymede."

You must now turn this statement this way and that way; asking yourself about it every possible and impossible question, gravely considering the answers, and, if you find any part of it especially difficult to remember, chaining it to the question which will bring it out. Thus, "What was exacted by the barons from King John at Runnymede?" "Magna Charta." "By whom was Magna Charta exacted from King John at Runnymede?"

"By the barons." "From whom was," etc., etc.? "King John." "From what king," etc., etc.? "King John." "Where was Magna Charta," etc., etc.?

"At Runnymede."

And so on and so on, as long as your ingenuity can suggest questions to ask, or points of view from which to consider the statement. Your mind will be finally saturated with the information, and prepared to spill it out at the first squeeze of the examiner. This, however, is not new. It was taught in the schools hundreds of years before Loisette was born.

Old newspaper men will recall in connection with it Horace Greeley's statement that the test of a news item was the clear and satisfactory manner in which a report answered the interrogatories, "What?" "When?"

"Where?" "Who?" "Why?"

In the same way Loisette advises the learning of poetry, e. g.:

"The a.s.syrian came down like the wolf on the fold."

"Who came down?"

"How did the a.s.syian come down?"

"Like what animal did?" etc.

And so on and so on, until the verses are exhausted of every sc.r.a.p of information to be had out of them by the most a.s.siduous cross-examination.

Whatever the reader may think of the availability or value of this part of the system, there are so many easily applicable tests of the worth of much that Loisette has done, that it may be taken with the rest.

Few people, to give an easy example, can remember the value of the ratio between the circ.u.mference and the diameter of the circle beyond four places of decimals, or at most six--3.141592. Here is the value to 108 decimal places:

3.14159265.3589793238.4626433832.7950288419.7169399375.1058209749.- 4459230781.6406286208.9986280348.2534211706.7982148086 plus.

By a very simple application of the numerical letter values these 108 decimal places can be carried in the mind and recalled about as fast as you can write them down. All that is to be done is to memorize these nonsense lines:

Mother Day will buy any shawl.

My love pick up my new m.u.f.f.

A Russian jeer may move a woman.

Cables enough for Utopia.

Get a cheap ham pie by my cooley.

The slave knows a bigger ape.

I rarely hop on my sick foot.

Cheer a sage in a fas.h.i.+on safe.

A baby fish now views my wharf.