by reading a passage of about a page in
length, repeating the reading till the subject could reproduce all the
facts. It was found that the person who acquired all the facts from the
fewest readings remembered more of the facts later. It must be said that
there is less difference between the subjects later than at first.

In the laboratory of Columbia University a similar experiment was
performed, but in a somewhat different way. Students were required to
commit to memory German vocabularies and were later tested for their
retention of the words learned. It was found that those who learned the
most words in a given time, also retained the largest percentage of what
had been learned. It should not be surprising that this is the case. The
quick learner is the one who makes the best use of all the factors of
retention, the factors mentioned in the preceding paragraph--good
attention, association, organization, etc.

Another experiment performed in the author's laboratory bears out the
above conclusions. A group of students were required to commit to memory
at one sitting a long list of nonsense syllables. The number of
repetitions necessary to enable each student to reproduce them was
noted. One day later, the students attempted to reproduce the syllables.
Of course they could not, and they were then required to say them over
again till they could just repeat them from memory. The number of
repetitions was noted. The number of repetitions was much less than on
the first day. On the third day, the process was repeated. The number of
repetitions was fewer still. This relearning was kept up each day till
each person could repeat the syllables from memory without any study.
It was found that the person who learned the syllables in the fewest
repetitions the first time, relearned them in the fewest repetitions on
succeeding days. All the experiments bearing on the subject point to the
same conclusion; namely, that the quick learner, if other things are
equal, retains at least as well as the slow learner, and usually retains
better.

=Transfer of Memory Training.= We have said above that there are many
kinds or aspects of memory. It has also been said that we can improve
memory by practice. Now, the question arises, if we improve one aspect
of memory, does this improve all aspects? This is an important question;
moreover, it is one to be settled by experiment and not by argument.

The most extensive and thorough experiment wa