needed to memorize it. In other words, as one of the investigators puts it: "Our ability to memorize increases with the demands made upon it." One explanation of this fitting of memory to its task is probably the general tendency to adjustment. Man, as we have seen, fits his efforts to the demands-to the obstacles, to the resistance. He does not do it consciously. It is a sort of organic adaptation. Without the pressure of resistance, without something to overcome, relaxation sets in. If one's abilities are to be tested it must be through a bigger job, one that calls for the best that can be given. Then, if the man has adequate reserve power he uses it because the result is worth the effort, and it can be gained in no other way. And in memory, as in other matters, men reveal their power only in response to pressure from without.

In committing to memory a short selection one does not feel that much effort is required. With a larger amount, on the other hand, the desire to save time leads to immediate and persistent concentration of attention. The period of "warming up"-overcoming the initial disinclination-is shortened or eliminated, and the associations are strengthened. In this way the work is accomplished in a proportionately shorter time.

A survey of memory from the vantage-ground of its strength and weakness brings into view certain facts and principles. First of all, adults can no longer accuse their age for their memory failures. The mature can remember better than children if they have more knowledge and use it. Unwillingness to recall related knowledge and to make the application cause many lapses of memory. We should, however, not try to remember everything. Not a few memory troubles begin here. Individuals make little or no distinction between memory values. Consequently, there is no mental emphasis, no outstanding facts and principles to which special attention is given and around which related matter is grouped.

We have said that much of the information which we expect to use can be readily found in books of reference. Dates, figures, statistics, and many details are matters of this sort. Engagements are of only temporary moment, and should be written down. The memory should not be needlessly encumbered. Historical information should be grouped by landmarks, for which comparatively few dates are needed. In science, conclusions and principles should be remembered. They are few, and facts are many. So their retention is not difficult; and besides, principles will usually carry with them essential details.

After material has been selected as worthy of a place in memory, the next move is to understand it. If it is historical, scientific, or literary interpretation, its comprehension will require special attention, and thinking guarantees retention. But understanding has a wider reach than is usually attributed to it. There must be reasons for the conclusions and interpretations, and these reasons involve relations with other facts-relations of cause and effect, of succession, contiguity, or similarity and contrast. These relations are interpreting connections with other ideas by which the thought that we wish to remember acquires meaning, and through this wider significance it is later recalled. Finding meaning is the basis of thinking, and thinking is fundamental to memory. Interfering associations are likely to occur and obstruct recall unless the thinking is accurate and clear.

Repetition, of course, should not be overlooked. Anything that is worth remembering deserves the effort that will fix it. But the repetitions should not occur at once. Intervals of a day or more should separate them, and then there should be no dallying. Surprise is often expressed at the ability of some men to remember humorous stories. The explanation, however, is that these people are inveterate story-tellers. Indeed, their stories have another humorous aspect, quite apart from their content, of which

the envied narrators are not conscious. The repeating habit is so fixed that they tell the stories several times to the same persons. Therein lies their success-and failure. Repetition fixes the stories, but no effort is made to remember those to whom they have already been related.

Memory, then, is not the capricious, freakish process that it is sometimes thought to be. It is subject to law and order. Some of its laws have been determined by the investigations to which we have referred. Associations-not artificial ones but those with meaning in them—we have found to be the compelling force through which ideas are recalled. The problem of memory therefore resolves itself into getting the right associations and "fixing" them. It is with the "fixing" process that the investigations contained in this chapter deal. In selections to be committed to memory the associations are given in the text. Here, the "whole method," with as rapid reading as clear comprehension permits, should be the plan. When, however, one reads, and tries to get the import, associations reach out further and include all related thoughts. In this case, getting the full meaning with all its implications and organizing the knowledge thus obtained are the foundation for remembering. But here, also, repetition should not be neglected, and in repeating new meaning will be discovered.

Although the impressionability and retentiveness of nerve-cells probably cannot be improved directly, indirectly they may be influenced by severe attention to what has been selected for retention. Training counts for much, and also knowledge of one's personal memory deficiency, with care for the methods of improvement. Darwin says of himself: "My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or, on the other hand, in favor of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for

my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry." Montaigne also speaks of his poor memory, but neither with him nor with Darwin does the defect seem to have been a serious handicap in what they set themselves to accomplish. They organized their minds and work to retain the information they needed. And the more humble man with smaller tasks may do as well, if he will only apply the principles upon which a serviceable memory is built-and think.

1 Autobiography.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TESTIMONY AND

RUMOR

THE accuracy of reports of what has been seen or heard is a matter of wide interest. In courts of justice it decides the liberty or life of the defendant, and in the social world the narration of conversations or events often disrupts a community and destroys the happiness of all concerned. Assuming an earnest desire to relate the facts as they occurred, what are the chances for a truthful narration, and does the feeling of accuracy assure a reasonably correct reproduction? These questions are fundamental to court testimony and to social intercourse; and in the answers are revealed some interesting peculiarities of human psychology. Perhaps these questions may be best approached by a concrete case.

A few years ago the writer's attention was directed to a rather remarkable criminal trial. In 1871 Alexander Jester started east from Kansas in a light spring wagon with canvas top, drawn by two small pony horses. While fording a stream near Emporia, as the horses were drinking, he fell into conversation with Gilbert Gates, a young man who was returning from homesteading land in Kansas. Young Gates was travelling in what was then known as a prairie-schooner drawn by a pair of heavy horses. Jester had three young deer in his wagon, and Gates a buffalo calf. They decided to travel together and give exhibitions with their animals to meet expenses. When they reached Paris, Missouri, Gates had disappeared. Jester's explanation, at the preliminary hearing, was that he became homesick and sold his outfit to him that he might hasten