Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/70

64 uninteresting thing and studying its details until you are able to describe them. This will prove very tiresome at first but you must stick to it. Do not practice too long at a time at first; take a rest and try it again later. You will soon find that it comes easier, and that a new interest is beginning to manifest itself in the task. Examine this book, as practice, learn how many pages there are in it; how many chapters; how many pages in each chapter; the details of type, printing and binding—all the little things about it—so that you could give another person a full account of the minor details of the book. This may seem uninteresting—and so it will be at first—but a little practice will create a new interest in the petty details, and you will be surprised at the number of little things that you will notice. This plan, practiced on many things, in spare hours, will develop the power of voluntary attention and perception in anyone, no matter how deficient he may have been in these things. If you can get some one else to join in the game-task with you, and then each endeavor to excel the other in find-