Twain System

Summary

• Dates are difficult to acquire but valuable - like cattle-pens of a ranch

• why pictures? story: memorizing lecture
  • 11 items, initialing brief divisions of the lecture
  • had them by heart, but can't remember their order
  • chained to your notes. writing items on fingernails.
  • then pictures. pictures that could immediately be thrown away, because the pictures were so memorable
  • have remembered for 20 years

Example

Twain gives 3 example images from his lecture story above, but then goes into a much more detailed example involving a more difficult bit of memorization.

Rulers of England, from the Conqueror On Down

The idea is to see the reigns of each ruler with your eyes.

At Twain's house, there was a long fence that he marked out each English monarch at a location on the fence, with their reigns proportional to their distance along the fence - all 817 years represented by 817 feet.