Assimilative Memory

Assimilative Memory or, How to Attend and Never Forget, by Prof. A. Loisette. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1899, ©1896.

Prof. Alphonse Loisette is a pseudonym for Marcus Dwight Larrowe (dates unknown) who wrote several books on memory.

This one explains how to remember things by association. For example:

A little practice makes the pupil prompt in dealing with any figures whatever. Take the height of Mount Everest, which is 29,002 feet. We have all heard that it is more than five miles high. Let us test this statement. There are 5,280 feet in a mile, multiply 5,280 by 5, and we have 26,400. Hence we see that Mount Everest being 29,002 feet high must be more than five miles high. Half of a mile is 5,280 feet divided by 2, or 2,640 feet. Add this to 26,400 and we have 29,040. Hence we see that Mount Everest is 5½ miles high lacking 38 feet, or that if we add 38 feet to its height of 29,002, it would then be exactly 5½ miles high. Can we then forget that it is exactly 29,002 feet high?

DP Project

PG 25354

This is one of the last projects that the late Laura Wisewell post-processed. She is missed.