Henry Ward Beecher was able to deliver one of the world's greatest addresses at

Liverpool because of his excellent memory. In speaking of the occasion Mr.

Beecher said that all the events, arguments and appeals that he had ever heard

or read or written seemed to pass before his mind as oratorical weapons, and

standing there he had but to reach forth his hand and "seize the weapons as they

went smoking by." Ben Jonson could repeat all he had written. Scaliger memorized

the Iliad in three weeks. Locke says: "Without memory, man is a perpetual

infant." Quintilian and Aristotle regarded it as a measure of genius.

 

Now all this is very good. We all agree that a reliable memory is an invaluable

possession for the speaker. We never dissent for a moment when we are solemnly

told that his memory should be a storehouse from which at pleasure he can draw

facts, fancies, and illustrations. But can the memory be trained to act as the

warder for all the truths that we have gained from thinking, reading, and

experience? And if so, how? Let us see.

 

Twenty years ago a poor immigrant boy, employed as a dish washer in New York,

wandered into the Cooper Union and began to read a copy of Henry George's

"Progress and Poverty." His passion for knowledge was awakened, and he became a

habitual reader. But he found that he was not able to remember what he read, so

he began to train his naturally poor memory until he became the world's greatest

memory expert. This man was the late Mr. Felix Berol. Mr. Berol could tell the

population of any town in the world, of more than five thousand inhabitants. He

could recall the names of forty strangers who had just been introduced to him