CHAPTER III

CELEBRATED CASES OF MEMORY

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 before being committed to writing. There are Brahmins to-day who have committed to memory, and who can repeat at will, the entire collection of religious poems known as the Mahabarata, consisting of over 300,000 slokas or verses. Leland states that, "the Slavonian minstrels of the present day have by heart with remarkable accuracy immensely long, epic poems. I have found the same among Algonquin Indians whose sagas or mythic legends are interminable, and yet are committed word by word accurately. I have heard in England of a lady ninety years of age whose memory was miraculous, and of which extraordinary instances are narrated by her friends. She attributed it to the fact that when young she had been made to learn a verse from the Bible every day, and then constantly review it. As her memory improved, she learned more, the result being that in the end she could repeat from memory any verse or chapter called for in the whole Scripture."