1. Mental Filing - You were not born with a poor memory. Remembering is a process that must be learned, just like walking, talking, eating, telling colors apart, distinguishing sounds, and telling time. You learned these when you were a child, and now you can perform them without effort, without being conscious of the mental processes involved. You can learn the process of using your memory just as thoroughly, and when you do you will have in your power a hundred times the knowledge and ex­perience you actually put to use now

2. Mental Hooks - 1. ALARM CLOCK. Now visualize an alarm clock. This alarm clock is very large. Both hands point to the figure 1. I tell you this not only because I want the picture to be clear, but because you are to associate it with the number one. Alarm clock is our first key word. To strengthen the association, remember, for example, that the alarm clock is the first thing you see in the morning, and it cost you one dollar. It rings once before you reach out and turn it off. ONE is ALARM CLOCK.

3. Something Simple - Though you may not have realized it, you have already learned the fundamental principle of our memory system. You are now ready to put it to work. The first five key words are ready in your mind to help you remember something else entirely. Let us start with something fairly simple—say, the five biggest cities in the world.

4. Mental Images - In the last chapter, we spoke of the importance of exagger­ation in remembering an image. Another factor is action.

Why are actors so furious when some minor character steals a scene by the simple device of walking across the stage? Because it is an old truism in the theater that the eyes of the audience are always attracted and held by a moving object. In the same way, your mental images will be more vivid to you if you can put some action into them.

5. Remember Reading - A young college student I know, facing an exam in physics, sat up cramming the whole night before the test. By dawn he had mastered one hundred and fifty definitions simply by re­peating them over and over until he "had" them. When I met him on the street a week later, I asked him how he had made out. He laughed. "Oh, I passed with flying colors. But if you asked me for-one of those definitions now, I couldn't tell you, if my life depended on it!"

6. Unlock Memory - Do you begin to realize what magic lies in these key words? You now have five keys to unlock chambers of your memory swiftly and surely. Naturally, with ten key words you can double the storage room. Let's have a look at the next five, and see how much more easily the mental images come after the practice of the previous chapters.

7. Remember This - Whether we are lawyers, surgeons, salesmen, housewives, symphonic or streetcar conductors, there is one kind of remem­bering that is necessary to all of us. It is right here that most of us commit our major sins. We all, no matter what our busi­ness or financial status is, must remind ourselves to do numer­ous things from day to day. We may forget to mail letters, to make train reservations, to bring home sun-tan lotion when our wives are leaving for the country. Frequently these over­sights get us into consequences ridiculously out of proportion to their importance.

8. Remember to Remember - But, you will say, how am I going to remember in the morn­ing that I have a memory system, that I have filed a memoran­dum list, and that I am going to do all these things today? In short, how will I remember to remember?

Here is where our first key word serves a double purpose, for few of us are fortunate enough not to have to awaken in the morning to the overture of an alarm clock. Even if the alarm is not set, your first conscious act is to glance at the dial to see what time it is.

9. Five Little Words - The ten key words you already know are the ones you are going to use most. But knowing fifteen will help you still more, every day. For real efficiency, you should have this many ready for instant use. Here are key words 11 through 15.

11. SIDEWALK. This is easy to visualize, for the two side-walks on the sides of a street form two parallel lines, just like the figure 11. ELEVEN is SIDEWALK.

10. Shopping List - The women who have been reading this book have probably been waiting all along for a suggestion for a practical applica­tion of the Mental Filing System to their own activities. This chapter is dedicated to the ladies, and I hope to show them how to save extra steps and minimize exasperation by systema­tizing one of their daily household duties—making a shopping list.

11. Sell Your Memories - A salesman should find infinite value in the use of the Mental Filing System, for all sales points and routine can be filed with it and remembered just as easily as the shopping list in the last chapter or the list of the world's largest cities. He may know his product thoroughly, but many a sale has fallen through because the salesman was not able to present all the principal sales points to a potential customer.

12. Art of Forgetting - Back in 1885, the German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus made the first experimental studies in remembering and for­getting. What he discovered then still holds true today—that using the common method of memorizing, we forget forty per cent within twenty minutes and seventy-five per cent by the end of the week! Doesn't it stand to reason, then, that if you are going to bother to learn things once, you might just as well go to a little extra trouble and protect your investment of time? You can do this easily by repeating briefly what you have learned once a day for a week, and then once a week for a month.

13. Case History - At any time at all our memory may be the very key for open­ing opportunities we have long been seeking. You are familiar with the common story of an unknown actor's quick rise to fame when he was able to take over the leading role the night the star suddenly fell ill. Ethel Barrymore got her first big chance when the stage manager discovered she had memo­rized every part in His Excellency the Governor and was ready to step into the leading lady's shoes at once. Toscanini, the great conductor, was "discovered" the night he substituted for another conductor on the spur of the moment.

14. Speak In Public - Teachers of public speaking are always warning us in thun­derous voices against memorizing speeches. And they are right. Did you ever listen in agony to a man reel through a talk he had spent hours committing to heart? His whole atti­tude notifies you at once of three things: (1) that he is scared to death of you; (2) that he will consider himself lucky to be alive and breathing at the final period; (3) that he will be overwhelmingly grateful when the whole thing is over and he can make his escape.

15. Better Writing - "Yes," you agree, "the Mental Filing System is great for de­livering a speech without notes, but I have to write it down on paper first to organize it. I don't see how I can compose the whole thing mentally."

The ability to organize your theme without notes, to develop ideas in your mind, is one of the most valuable things this memory system can teach you. You will find it can be applied not only to speeches but to writing long letters and even articles.

16. Cost of Forgetting - Let us say you are a businessman, and one day you have a really brilliant idea about improving the sales end of your business. At the next conference you outline your idea, and it goes over with a bang. Everybody gets busy on it, and for a month the executives of your company hold meetings to work out the details.

17. Students - I was sitting on my front porch one day when a couple of the neighbor boys walked up the path. Something was on their minds, and it didn't take them long to tell me about it. Their teacher had told them to learn the thirteen original states of the Union as their history assignment for the day, and one look at that formidable list had them down. Neither of them, they admitted candidly, was a star pupil as it was, and—well, they wanted to go fishing. If they could only find a way of memoriz­ing those states quickly. . . . They beat around the bush, like Tom Sawyer, for a while, and then one of them came to the point.

18. Remember Numbers - The Mental Filing System has a special application im­measurably useful to every one of us in almost every aspect of our lives—its use in remembering numbers. Telephone num­bers, addresses, important dates in history, birthdays, and anni­versaries are only a few of the items you'll be able to fix in your mind now that you know the key words. The ability to remember numbers sometimes means the difference between making or losing a sale or passing or flunking a course in school. You've surely known crises when a number re­membered correctly would have meant everything to you

19. 100 Mental Hooks! - NOW YOU HAVE 100 MENTAL HOOKS! ......

20. Interesting Facts - With your list of key words, you can make a part of your permanent mental baggage any collection of data you wish. Obviously, usefulness will be your first criterion even in drill ing with lists of words. Scarcely less desirable is this type of one-two-three memory as a social asset—from an also-asked you can leap easily into the proud position of the life of any party.

1. Names & Faces - "I know your face, but I just can't remember your name."

You will admit you've had to say it often—far too often. Every time you say it to someone, no matter how hard you try to be courteous, you are stating all too plainly, "We've met before, I know, but you didn't make enough of an impression to make me remember you."

2. Gold in Names - The title of this chapter is a general precept to observe if you are sincerely interested in remembering names. This is not one of the four separate rules for remembering names that I am going to give you. It is a preface to these, without which you could never apply them. It is the first principle you must have to become skillful in associating people with their names.

3. Name Straight - The chief reason you "forget" a name is that you never knew it in the first place.

Stop for a moment to think about the usual introduction. A friend of yours says, "I'd like you to meet Mr. New—m." You offer your hand and say "How do you do. Glad to meet you."

Now what is the man's name? Newsom? Newton? Newman? Newlin?

4. Repetition - After you have observed Rule One: Get the Name Right, you must apply Rule Two: Rap the Name in by Repetition.

While you are talking to your new acquaintance, use his name as frequently as you can. Tack it on the end of sentences; begin your remarks to him by addressing him directly by name. Each time you speak his name aloud, you are driving it by one more hammer blow deeper into your memory. If it happens that other people are carrying on the conversation, and you cannot repeat the name aloud, then at least try saying it over and over again to yourself while you are studying your new acquaintance's features and general appearance.

5. Fastening Faces - You are still in the company of your new acquaintance. Having applied Rule One successfully, you are sure of his name, and you are conscientiously observing Rule Two, which means you are seizing every opportunity of saying his name aloud. Rule Three comes next, and you are to put it into effect at once. Fasten the Face in Your Mind,

The difference between the man with an excellent memory for faces and the man who constantly mistakes one person for another is not a matter of eyesight or of intelligence- It is a difference in observation.

6. What's in a Name - Anchoring the Name by Association

Our fourth, and last, basic principle for remembering names and faces is association. We must anchor a new name to our minds by as many other related facts, pictures, or impressions as we can hitch to it.

Let us imagine, for example, that I lead you into a room full of people and introduce you to four men in succession— Mr. Graham, Mr. Singleton, Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Wetherby. If you are making no effort to catch these names as I introduce you, three of these men will remain complete blanks to you.

7. 3 Ladies, 12 Men - You now know as much about the basic principles of remem­bering names and faces as any person alive today. You have it all at your finger tips—all that remains is practice.

You've learned the four rules and know the general principle of being name-conscious. Now to practice applying them. In much the same way as we went over Mr. Byrd's photograph a couple of chapters ago, we shall now meet the pictures of fifteen people and see how many more we can remember by applying the rules we have just learned.

8. Mistaken Identity - One day, in 1896, a woman visited Scotland Yard to lodge a complaint. About a week before, she said, she had answered an advertisement in a newspaper for a housekeeper for an English nobleman. Within a day or two a man appeared at her house and introduced himself as Lord Willoughby de Winton. He interviewed her, described his great country estate in mag­nificent terms, and intimated that if the lady accepted the posi­tion offered, she might in time be elevated above the status of a mere housekeeper.

9. Ten New Faces - In this chapter you will meet ten new people. The first six will be presented with hints on how to remember them when you see them again, but after you are introduced to Mr. Rippey, Number Six, we shall leave you. There will be no clues sug­gested for the last four photographs, for by the time you reach them you will be able to figure out your own.

10. Groups - "Remember groups of people? Never! I consider myself lucky if I can meet two people at once and know their names five minutes later!"

The man who said this to me was the dignified, white-haired chairman of a large industrial firm. And he meant it.

Yet one week later, after he had mastered the principles set forth in this book, that same man was meeting twenty per­sons at once, and remembering their names with ease. The transformation seemed so miraculous, even to himself that he said: "I want you to come to Akron and teach my executives how to do the same thing.

11. On Your Own! - Here are ten new people for you to meet. You are entirely on your own. Study them as you did the earlier acquaintances, Getting the Name Right, Rapping the Name in by Repetition, Fastening the Face in Your Mind, and Anchoring the Name by Association. You are about to meet:

12. Round-up - Finally, we present all the people you have met in this book, from Mr. Price, to whom you were introduced first of all, to Miss Pilcher, your latest acquaintance. If you are able to call each one by name you may consider yourself an expert. How­ever, we don't expect a perfect score yet. Though you've come to the end of the book, your training is not yet complete, for your memory will continue to improve for a period of months, as you put this course into practice.

13. Fun with Names - Obviously, the secret of mastering any system lies in the amount of time that one gives to drill. But drilling oneself may become monotonous unless it can be worked into a social activity, at least occasionally. Fortunately, if you have care­fully read and digested and practiced all that has preceded, you are now ready to incorporate in your recreations our sys­tem of remembering names and faces.

THE END