Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/33



In order that the student may appreciate the marvelous extent of development possible to the memory, we have thought it advisable to mention a number of celebrated cases, past and present. In so doing we have no desire to hold up these cases as worthy of imitation, for they are exceptional and not necessary in every-day life. We mention them merely to show to what wonderful extent development along these lines is possible.

In India, in the past, the sacred books were committed to memory, and handed down from teacher to student, for ages. And even to-day it is no uncommon thing for the student to be able to repeat, word for word, some voluminous religious work equal in extent to the New Testament. Max Muller states that the entire text and glossary of Panini’s Sanscrit grammar, equal in extent to the entire Bible, were handed down orally for several centuries 27