ime for memorizing a twelve-line stanza from
fifteen minutes to five. This improvement is due to the subject's
finding out ways of tackling this particular sort of material. He gets
used to Spenser's style and range of ideas. And so it is with any kind
of material; practice in memorizing it brings great improvement in
memorizing that particular material.

Whether practice with one sort of material brings skill that can be
"transferred", or carried over to a second kind of material, is quite
another question. Usually the amount of _transfer_ is small compared
with the improvement gained in handling the first material, or
compared with the improvement that will result from specific training
with the second kind. What skill is transferred consists partly of the
habit of looking for groupings and relationships, and partly in the
confidence in one's own ability as a memorizer. It is really worth
while taking part in a memory experiment, just to know what you can
accomplish after a little training. Most persons who complain of poor
memory would be {362} convinced by such an experiment that their
memory was fundamentally sound. But these laboratory exercises do not
pretend to develop any general "power of memory", and the much
advertised systems of memory training are no more justified in such a
claim. What is developed, in both cases, is skill in memorizing
certain kinds of material so as to pass certain forms of memory test.

One who suffers from poor memory for any special material, as names,
errands, or engagements, probably is not going to work right in
committing the facts to memory; and if he gives special attention to
this particular matter, keeping tab on himself to see whether he
improves, he is likely to find better ways of fixing the facts and to
make great improvement. It was said of a certain college president of
the older day that he never failed to call a student or alumnus by
name, after he had once met the man. How did he do it? He had the
custom of calling each man in the freshman class into his office for a
private interview, during which, besides fatherly advice, he asked the
man personal questions and studied him intently. He was interested in
the man, he formed a clear impression of his personality, and to that
personality he carefully attached the name. Undoubtedly this able
scholar was possessed of an unusually retentive memory; but his memory
for names depended largely on his method of committing the