Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/185

Rh Koran to memory. And investigation reveals, always, that there has been used the identical process of committing these sacred books to memory, and recalling them at will—the natural method, instead of an artificial one. And therefore we shall devote this chapter solely to this method whereby poems or prose may be committed to memory and recalled readily.

This natural method of memorizing words, sentences, or verses is no royal road. It is a system which must be mastered by steady work and faithful review. One must start at the beginning and work his way up. But the result of such work will astonish anyone not familiar with it. It is the very same method that the Hindus, Hebrews, Mohammedans, Norsemen, and the rest of the races, memorized their thousands of verses and hundreds of chapters of the sacred books of their people. It is the method of the successful actor, and the popular elocutionist, not to mention those speakers who carefully commit to memory their “impromptu” addresses and “extemporaneous” speeches.

This natural system of memorizing is based