The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII. Anon
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be covered with a hat or with a small tray while you are out of the room. No matter how quickly they lift the cover and replace it again, you will be able to name a majority out of a dozen or more articles.
Work one or two of these simple exercises occasionally, until you feel you are acquiring greater speed and accuracy.
Exercise III.
It is interesting and useful to know at what distance removed from you the ticking of a watch can be heard. Deafness is a matter of degree, and sometimes minor defects in hearing, quite remediable in their early stages, are allowed to develop unnoticed. Acuteness of hearing, indeed, can be cultivated; and it is worth the trouble to increase by inches the distance between you and the watch, so as to determine the ratio of improvement. Thus, if on a first attempt you can hear a watch ticking on a table five yards off, stand a foot farther away, then another foot, and so on until you fail to hear the sound.
Exercise IV.
Whenever there is a connection between two ideas, or between the words representing two ideas, the connection is based on one of four laws, the first of which is the law of inherent connection; the second is the law of opposition, the third is the law of external connection; and the fourth is the law of similarity of sound. A special lesson on these laws will be given later on in the Course, and the mastery of it will enable you to write down 1,000 or more words, and on reading them over once to repeat the whole list from beginning to end and from the end to the beginning.
At present, we shall do no more than illustrate the fact that such a connection does exist. Here, for instance, is a list of eight words. By way of exercise read them through once noting the connections, then repeat them, or as many of them as you can.
1.White
2.Black
3.Nigger
4.Lynching
5.America
6.Canada
7.Reciprocity
8.Defeat
Here is a second list, this time eighteen words. Endeavour to remember them so as to repeat them after a single reading.
Observe the associated connections between the words.
1.Rose
2.Flower
3.Show
4.Prizes
5.Money
6.Miserly
7.Scrooge
8.Dickens
9.Bleak House
10.Broadstairs
11.Kent
12.Hops
13.Sleep
14.Insomnia
15.Medicine
16.Bottle
17.Neck
18.Gallows
SPECIAL EXERCISES FOR MIND TRAINING AND HEALTH
By EUSTACE MILES, M.A.
With this revised edition of the Pelman Course the Directors present a complete system of physical exercises, specially compiled by the eminent authority on all matters pertaining to bodily health, Mr. Eustace Miles, M.A.
Of Mr. Miles’ work in the science of health research, physical training, diet, etc. it is almost unnecessary to speak; his name is a household word in this and most other countries.
Mr. Miles, himself an authority on Mental Training, has on many occasions expressed the highest possible opinion of the Pelman Course, and in securing his collaboration for the Physical Training side of the Institute’s Work, the Directors are confident in the belief that they are offering students the best possible combination of exercises for mental and bodily fitness that can be presented.
The exercises prepared by Mr. Miles will suit the requirements of the majority of students, but where exercises of a special character, and advice as to diet and matters of a confidential nature are concerned, the Secretary of the Pelman Institute will give an introduction to Mr. Miles, who has consented to treat all Pelman students at special fees.
In the lessons that follow, Mr. Miles has achieved two distinctive results:—
(1) He has produced a system of physical training, at once simple and effective, such as a busy man or woman can take up without difficulty or danger; for it must be confessed some systems of physical culture call for rather expensive apparatus and the REGIME is often too punishing to be good for health, especially with sedentary workers.
(2) Secondly, he has invented exercises which combine body building with mind training; in other words, a student can be traming imagination and developing will power at the same time as he increases the vitality of bodily functions. This is a considerable gain to all who seek symmetrical growth – an efficient mind in a sound body.
First Lesson.
Right physical exercises are very important for various general reasons. Here are a few of them:—
1. Regularity of Habit. The late Professor William James insisted that it was a good thing to go through something regularly, especially if it was not very pleasing, so as to prove one’s own power over oneself. The regular performance and repetition of certain physical movements re-acts on the willpower, and reinforces it, so that by degrees one finds it easier and easier to turn one’s attention and one’s energies in any given direction at will.
With regard to exercises of the right sort, this regular practice is all the more useful because—as distinct from most of the drudgery we go through—it brings health and fitness.
2. The right exercises also tend to self-respect. A good instance is the training of the left hand. Most people have very clumsy left hands, and they cannot have proper self-respect while they carry about with them constantly so inefficient a member. Besides this, the training of the left hand influences a certain part of the right side of the brain. Let people train their left hands—not necessarily to equal their right hands in skill, but to approach towards that standard—and they will have more respect for their body in general.
3. Health and fitness in general come from the right exercises, done in the right way. I shall enlarge on this point in future Lessons.
4. Imagination and memory can be trained by certain methods and exercises, and I shall illustrate this in the course of the present Lesson.
Most of these Lessons will be divided into two parts—exercises that you can do in bed, and exercises that you can do when you have got out of bed.
As to exercises in bed, a most famous example of their very good effects is Sanford Bennett, who made himself young at the age of 70, simply by bed exercises. I do not recommend his system exactly as it is, but the idea of doing exercises before you get up is a very good one.
Exercise I.
Lying in bed, flat on your back, and with the bed-clothes off, stretch out your right foot and leg. Stretch them down as far as they will go, with the toes as far away from you as possible, and the knee well braced back. Hold the leg and foot in this position for