MEMORY 1. If you should hear some one say A, B, C, D, this would be likely to call to mind E, and perhaps the letters which immediately follow it. If you should hear or see the names, Adam and Eve, these would call to mind the Garden of Eden. A certain sound in the next street will call up the mental picture of a trolley-car. acquaintance on the street may call up his name. the general principle which explains these facts? words, why does one of these things call up the other? Seeing an 2. Why does tying a knot in a handkerchief help one to remember an errand? 3. Can you recite the alphabet backward as quickly and with the same correctness as forward? 4. If you had a declamation to recite before an audience, what would you do in the way of memorizing to make certain that you would be able to repeat it when the time came? 5. If you should say to a number of persons: "Name a play of Shakespeare," one might answer, The Merchant of Venice, another Julius Caesar, another, Hamlet, and so on. What are the reasons why The Merchant of Venice will occur to one person, Julius Caesar to another, etc? 6. Select two stanzas of a poem, each eight lines in length. Learn the first at a single sitting, reading it through at each repetition. Read the second through twice a day until it is learned. Do not think of it between times. Compare the time or number of repetitions required in each case. The stanza is to be considered learned as soon as you can repeat it without a single error. 7. What is the influence of attention upon memory? Illustrate from your own experience. 8. Which can be learned more quickly, a sentence in a textbook which conveys no meaning to your mind, or one of equal length whose meaning you perfectly understand? 9. What is the influence of fatigue upon memory? Answer from your own experience or observation. 10. A man was able to read four languages almost equally well, Greek, Latin, French, and his native language, English. As a result of an attack of sickness he lost to a slight degree his power to understand Latin, to a greater degree his power to understand French, and he lost completely the ability to understand English. His ability to understand Greek remained unaffected. This shows that memory depends upon the brain. What else does it show about the nature of memory? 11. In view of the statements in the preceding question, is it probable that a series of exercises in memorizing English poetry will enable one to learn more easily the vocabulary of a foreign language, or an assignment in history? 12. After a muscle has been strengthened in a gymnasium by the use of the proper apparatus, we can employ the strength thus acquired for work of a wholly different kind. Does this fact require us to believe that we can develop our power of learning the vocabulary of a foreign language by memorizing something of a different character, as poetry? REASONING The arguments in Exercises 1-8 can be reduced to one of the two following forms: Where there is B there is C Where there is B there is C A is B ... A is C A is not C ... A is not B Put the arguments into one or the other of these forms, supplying the omitted sentence (premise) wherever one is omitted. Then determine whether the conclusion asserted follows from the premises. Then answer the question: Is the conclusion true? If not, where lies the error in the argument? As an example of what is desired take the following: "There must be a fire is this field because smoke is rising from it." This can be put into the following form: Where there is smoke there is fire. Here is smoke. Therefore here is fire. Again: "There can be no organic life on the moon because moisture is not found there." This can be put into the following form: Where there is organic life there is moisture. Therefore on the moon there is no organic life. Both of these conclusions follow from the premises. Accordingly in so far as the premises are true the conclusions are true also. EXERCISES 1. John Smith has a poor class record, so he is ineligible for the foot-ball team. 2. This cake must be unhealthy, for it is very delicious. 3. "Where there's a will, there's a way." Therefore, if you have failed, it is your own fault. 4. You ought to have read that book more carefully, for whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well. 5. "Procrastination is the thief of time." Therefore, you have lost time by your long delay in answering that letter. 6. Capital punishment is wrong. For capital punishment is murder and murder is always wrong. 7. All punishment is wrong; for we may not do evil that good may come. 8. You can not make men moral by legislation. Therefore, laws restricting the liquor traffic can do no good. 9. Herbert Spencer attacked the English Parliament for attempting to over-ride laws of nature by laws of Parliament. What is the meaning of a "law of Parliament?" Of a "law of nature?" Did Parliament ever make the attempt here alleged? What may we suppose Mr. Spencer's real meaning to have been? 10. "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko (the Polish general) fell." What different meanings may "Freedom" have in this assertion? Are all kinds equally valuable? Is it possible that a people may preserve or obtain one kind of freedom by losing another? In such a case, which kind would it be wise for them to sacrifice? 11. "All men are created equal." What different things may this statement mean? 12. In his work entitled Liberty, John Stuart Mill asserts that the only purpose for which a government is justified in interfering with the liberty of any one of its subjects is to prevent him from harming someone else; it is not justified in interfering to prevent him from harming himself alone. For example, certain states forbid men to work more than a specified number of hours per day in certain employments, on the ground that excessively long hours will injure their health; in many places the state forbids the purchase of intoxicating liquors, on the ground that the use of such liquors is injurious to mind and body. Mill condemns all such legislation. What assumption does he make in the assertion quoted above? Is the assumption true? CHAPTER II--THE PHYSICAL BASIS ON THE MENTAL LIFE INTELLECTUAL SUCCESS AND PHYSICAL VIGOR Success depends to a very considerable extent upon health, and that not merely in the sense of freedom from disease but also in the sense of abounding physical vigor. The power to concentrate the attention, fulness and accuracy of memory, keenness of analysis, richness of ideas, the ability to trace cause and effect, and in fact every form of intellectual power, depend in a high degree upon the kind and amount of blood that feeds the brain. The events of every day life, as they come under the observation of everyone of us, supply us with a certain amount of evidence for this position which it would be well worth while to bring to mind. This may be done by answering such questions as the following: 1. Is it easier or harder to memorize when tired, or does fatigue make no difference? 2. Is there any difference in this respect between muscular fatigue and fatigue due to mental work? 3. Do things learned when we are tired stay by us as long as when learned in a state of physical vigor? 4. Does fatigue have any influence upon the power to concentrate the attention? Answer for both muscular and mental fatigue. 5. What is the effect of typhoid fever upon memory and attention? What is the effect of grip? Of an ordinary cold? 6. What may be the effects upon memory of a blow upon the head? 7. What are the effects of coffee or alcohol upon memory and attention? |