s themselves, which thus return, are called memories, or more
commonly recollections.

How it is that by an act of volition we can summon again into the mind
an idea which has formerly been present, and which is now absent, we
have the same difficulty in explaining which we had in explaining how,
by an act of volition, we can banish a thought which is now present, or
by the power of attention can detain some one thought to the exclusion
of all others. To think what particular thing it is that we wish to
remember, is in fact to have remembered it already. It is an obstruse
and difficult inquiry, into which it is not necessary now to enter. A
more important inquiry, and one connected directly with our present
theme, relates to the different kinds of memory, and their connection
severally with the faculty of attention.

Quickness of memory is that quality which is most easily developed,
especially in young persons. It is also its most showy quality, and the
temptation to give it an inordinate development is strong. The habit of
getting things by rote, is easily acquired by practice. It is
astonishing what masses of Scripture texts young children will get by
heart, when under some special stimulus of reward or display. I have
often refused to publish marvellous feats of this kind, not because I
thought the accounts incredible, (unfortunately, they were too true,)
but because I thought they were a species of mental excess, and they
should no more be encouraged than bodily excesses. A little girl in my
own Sunday-School once actually committed to memory the whole of the
Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism in three days! Six months
afterwards she hardly knew a word of it. It had been a regular mental
debauch. A few more such atrocities would have made her an idiot.
College records tell us of what are called "crammed men," that is, men
who literally stuff themselves with knowledge in order to pass a
particular examination, or to gain a particular honor, and who
afterwards forget their knowledge, as fast as they have acquired it.
There is a well authenticated instance of a student who actually learned
the six books of Euclid by heart, though he could not tell the
difference between an angle and a triangle. The memory of such men is
quickened like that of the parrot. They learn purely by rote. Real
mental attention, the true digester of knowledge, is never roused. The
knowledge which they gorge, is never truly assimilated a