you all the stories I know?" I know nothing that will stop a child's crying, quicker than telling it a story. I know of no mode equally delightful to them, and, I might add, equally profitable.

There is a vast amount of common sense and human nature in the Bible. To say nothing of its authenticity, how perfectly does it harmonize with this principle, when it directs the Jews to "tell the Lord's doings to their children, and their childrens' children, and they again to theirs, by the way-side, and by the fire-side, when you lie down, and when you rise up." "Write them upon the doors," &c., "that they may be a perpetual token of remembrance," &c. In other words: Tell your children, your grand-children, and your great grandchildren stories of God's dealings with the children of Israel; their sojourn in Egypt; their departure; their wanderings in the desert; their rebellions, and all the incidents connected with Jewish history. The tenacious adherence of this nation to their ancient customs, renders it highly probable that this injunction is followed more or less to this day; and, accordingly, I have invariably found Eventuality surprisingly large in Jews; larger than in any other class. It is probably not too much to add, that our best oriental and historical scholars are Jews. From what I have seen of them in this respect, I unhesitatingly assert, that they far exceed any other people. But of this, the reader can judge for himself. What history equals that of Josephus for accuracy or minuteness of detail? And is not the Bible, considered merely as a history, characterized for the same qualities?

Again the North American Indians perpetuate their histories in the memories of the rising race. The old grand-father, too feeble to wield the tomahawk or chase the stag, takes his little grand-son upon his knee, and recounts to him, with a minuteness and accuracy of which we can form no idea, the battles he has fought, the enemies he has killed, and the manner of killing them, his journeys and every little circumstance connected there with, even to the starting of a deer, or the flying of an owl; as well as the aspect of the country, the mountains crossed, and rivers forded, and their windings, &c. A specimen of their astonishing powers of recollecting and narrating, is to be found in the life of Blackhawk, dictated by

him to an interpreter after his first visit to this country, some of which was extracted into the Phrenological Journal, Vol. I, No. 2. That article the writer prepared ; and, in looking over the work for selections to illustrate his developments, I was surprised at the perspicuity and minuteness of details of his story. Beginning back at the time when his tribe inhabited Montreal, he related, and that at the age of 70, those prophetic revelations which preceded their removal, and all the incidents of their successive journeys as the whites drove them back, and still farther back; the particulars of his joining Tecumseh in fighting against Gen. Harrison ; the details of the war in which he was taken prisoner; the injustice of the whites; his travels through the United States; whom he saw, and what was said on various occasions, &c., &c., with a precision of detail which is rarely if ever found in our own race. I hazard nothing in saying, that the Indians know more of their national history than the Anglo-Saxons do of theirs ; because, the former tell it to their children in the form of stories, while the latter put it in their libraries, and teach their children to “set on a bench and say A.” Let the two but be unitedthe very course I propose to pursue-and the attainments of our children would doubtless be incredible, far exceeding any thing now known.

Let every reader ask himself whether he does not remember the incidents and stories of childhood with a clearness and minuteness with which his present memory bears no compari. son? But why this weakening of this kind of memory? Because you sat "on a bench and said A;" that is, because your early education repressed instead of exciting Eventuality ; so that its inaction diminished it, and not because the constitution of man requires it to become enfeebled by age. You had nothing to remember, and therefore remembered nothing. And if you wish to improve your memory, go to remembering ; for, the more you try to remember, the more you do remember, and the more you remember, the better you are able to remember. It is a mistaken notion, that the more you tax your memory, the less you remember. The reverse is the fact, fact, unless other things confuse you, and wear out your brain. Ask our post-office clerks, if they do not find their memories of names, faces, changes ordered, &c., to improve instead of be

coming weaker. Many a lesson of this character have my travels taught me. In South Boston, I requested several omnibus drivers to do errands in Boston, to bring over one thing and another, and noticed that they never took a memorandum of the errand, and never made a mistake. They often do twenty errands at a trip, and do not put down a single one on paper; yet seldom make a mistake. The second time I went to the post-office in Boston, the clerk, without looking over the letters, told me I had none. I requested him to look. He said it was of no use, still, to satisfy me, he looked, but found none; and, scores of times, he told me that there was, or there was not, any thing for me, the moment he saw my face, without my being able to detect a single mistake. If he said yes, he found something; if no, nothing. Must it not require a most extraordinary act of memory to tell whether any of the vast number of mails arriving daily, brought a letter for me or not, or for any of the thousands who were constantly applying, whether strangers, as I was, or citizens? Yet, doubtless, every reader of these pages, might have had, perhaps can yet obtain, as good a memory about some things, if not every thing, as this clerk has.

My own experience on this point is, perhaps, worth relating. From the first, I have practised giving writtn descriptions of character along with charts; and, when a company was examined, or when several examinations were made in succession, being compelled to postpone the writing till I had more leisure, I charged my memory with two things; first, the size of every organ in each person examined; and, secondly, with what I said about each, until I could write them out, which often was not till days afterward, and till hundreds in the mean time had been examined. I sometimes took memoranda at the time, but would not look at them till I had written what I remembered, and have seldom had occasion to add any thing. When I did not charge my mind with the examination, it passed out of it as the person left the room, unless it was worthy of being remembered, or unless my brain was exhausted by fatigue. To say that my memory, not only of examinations, but also of places, faces, and the size of organs, has doubled several times, is to fall short of the fact. It is rare that a circumstance, though trifling in itself, is mentioned as connected with my visit to a certain place or family,

which is not remembered, the only difficulty being in remein. bering names-a point to which, till recently, I never attended; and now, only slightly. In Boston, having occasion to order an article by packet from Philadelphia, on taking out my pencil to write the names of the ship and captain, its leads were out, and no means of making the momoranda were at hand. Applying this principle, I thought it over and over and over again, till “The Robi. Waln,” Capt. Martin, was indelibly impressed upon my recollection. In visiting families--and I often have appointments every evening for three weeks ahead -I never allow myself to note down either name, date, street, number, or hour, or the number to be examined, and all from practising the principle I am urging. Nor would the gold of the world, if such a thing were possible, buy of me the mere improvement in the various kinds of memory effected by applying this principle. Let the reader practise it, and in five years, he, too, will say the same. Nay, more. Doubtless every reader may double the power of any kind, or of all kinds, of memory in six months, and improve it fifty per cent in one month. At least, it is worth the trial which consists

— only in the vigorous and habitual exercise of your mind upon what you wish to remember-a simple remedy, but a glorious result.

Following out this principle, I seldom lecture from notes, but from memory alone; though never commit, in which, not having practised, I do not excel. My work on Phrenology was composed, not from notes, but from recollecting the heads and characters of those described in it; and I could fill ten more just such volumes from the same source, without departing one iota from what was said at the examination, except omitting unimportant parts.

These remarks about myself, which might be greatly ex. tended, are not prompted by a boastful spirit; for, I claim no great credit for doing what my business compels me to do ; but, by a desire to present the reader with a scene from real life as a sample of the means of exercising, and thereby im. proving, the powers of memory, especially of Eventuality, as well as to illustrate the great law on which the education of the opening mind should be conducted. I will just add, that the study of Phrenology far exceeds all the mental exercises I

ever experienced or read of, for disciplining the memory, and improving the mind. Its study is, therefore, cordially recommended not only on account of the glorious truths and rich mines of thought it opens, but merely as a means of strength ening the memory and improving the mind. But more of this after I have analyzed the other intellectual faculties.

Were other illustrations of the extent to which memory may be improved by exercising it, necessary, I might state cases related to me in my practice. Mr. White, dentist, Tenth street, near George, Philadelphia, informs me that his wife's uncle, who resides near Reading, Pa., was unable to read, or write, or keep books, and yet, that he usually did business to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars, annually, without ever having been known to make a mistake as to the amount due from him or to him, till after he became intemperate.

After giving this lecture in Clinton Hall, in February last, a gentleman stated to me that he knew an extensive drover in the New York market, who could not read, write, or keep books; yet, who would sell out a drove of hundreds of cattle, one to one man, another to another, a half to a third, and a quarter to another, and yet, keep every one in his head, their weight and price, and amount due from each; and, said he, "I never knew a single mistake; and, what is more, he will do the same of droves sold years ago." He stated it as his full conviction, that he never forgot a single hoof he ever sold, or its weight, or price, or purchaser. If the reader thinks that this draws too largely upon his Marvellousness, I reply, wait a little; for, you may yet see collateral evidence of its truth. I give it as my full and deliberate opinion, that the mind of man is so constituted as to be able, if the organs be fully developed and mind properly disciplined, and if the body be kept in the right state, to retain EVERY thing it ever received. Unquestionably, our memories are originally constituted to be fact tight-to let no event of our lives, NOTHING ever seen, heard, or read, escape us, but to recall every thing committed to its trust. Look at the astonishingly retentive memories of children. And yet their brains are still soft and immature. What, then might the memory of adults become? As much stronger, more minute, and tenacious, as their brains are capable of