The Vault: Filling the Memory With Good Things

Memory is the beginning of knowledge

Memorizing plants gives us a richer experience of the natural world. (Biba Kayewich)

Not long ago, I wrote about the importance of memory in education. I said that we can learn important truths from the Greek myth of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, giving birth to the nine Muses, goddesses of the arts and sciences. This myth shows that memory is the mother of learning, not only on the individual level but also on the societal level.

In order to grow and thrive, we must remember as a society our cultural heritage, and a true education is, in large part, becoming familiar with and storing within us “the best that has been thought and said,” in Matthew Arnold’s famous phrase. Children and adults alike should be shaped by what has gone before them, which requires bringing it into their memories.

This article will carry that discussion forward by offering suggestions on the specific types of material to store in memory.

We all know that we “are what we eat.” Everything we consume becomes a part of us. But we often neglect the corollary to this biological truth—that everything we take into our minds also becomes part of us and begins to shape us, for good or ill. So it’s important for students (and adults) to bring in positive influences that can be stored up in the memory like a vault of precious stones.

Here are some ideas of things to hold in the vault:

Poetry

Poetry memorization is the gold standard when it comes to strengthening the memory muscle. Not only does memorizing poetry develop a student’s sense of rhythm, meter, rhetorical devices, and even acting, but also it provides them with a treasury of some of the greatest wisdom our culture has to offer. Using both the sound and the sense of the words to create a single unit of meaning more complete than either by itself, poetry expresses certain truths in a way that nothing else can. Enfolded and borne aloft by beautiful language, these truths embed themselves in the heart.

In my own experience, there have been important or difficult moments in my life when the sound of a line of poetry has wafted through my mind and given me sudden strength and insight.

If you wish to memorize great poems, I recommend taking a look at “The Classic Hundred Poems,” edited by William Harmon, which is a collection of the most anthologized poems of all time.

Songs

Many classic poems have been set to music (Robert Burns’s “Red, Red Rose” for example), while the lyrics of many folk songs are very poetic (“The Parting Glass”). Here, two great art forms meet.

There’s nothing quite like pulling out a guitar by a campfire or in a living room as daylight subsides and beginning to sing an old folk or country song—especially when those around you spontaneously join in. This leads us to another benefit of memorization: It allows you to share the beauty of what you know with others, even on the spur of the moment. You don’t have to carry sheet music with you all the time if you’ve memorized a few songs. Memory becomes a gift.

Aristotle believed music was fundamental to education. He said, “Music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.” Good music forms good characters, and memorizing good music only enhances the process.

Passages From Literature

Like poetry, prose passages can carry a great measure of wisdom, beauty, and inspiration. Though poetry may be easier to memorize because of the rhythm and rhyme involved, it’s still possible to remember passages of prose—in the Middle Ages, for example, monks often memorized much or all of the New Testament. Schoolboys in the time of Shakespeare memorized texts by Roman historians.

While a passage from Herodotus may not appeal to you, what about, for example, the last paragraph of “The Road” by the late Cormac McCarthy? Who wouldn’t want to return again and again through the power of memory to this:

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

Plants, Trees, and Animals

Memorizing plants gives us a richer experience of the natural world. (Biba Kayewich)

Memorizing plants, trees, animals, insects, and the like provides us with a richer experience of the natural world than we would otherwise have. I am constantly impressed by my wife’s ability to name a wide range of plants, flowers, and trees, while I struggle to identify something as common as a daisy—or is it a black-eyed Susan? In my defense, she doesn’t know the names of nearly as many dinosaur species as I do (I knew that obsession of my 10-year-old self would pay off eventually).

To name a thing is to know it in a deeper way. This is part of what makes us human. Our rational nature allows us to put words to ideas, concepts, and types, and in so doing, we are fulfilling a key property of our human potential, which is to make connections between things.

Constellations

Knowing the names of the constellations deepens our sense of wonder and mystery. (Biba Kayewich)

We might say that all deep thought begins with looking up at the stars. Aristotle said, “It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe.”

As stated above about plants and animals, when we give names to things, we enter into a deeper relationship with them. The same holds for the night skies. When we know constellations, we begin to see a certain order in the heavens and our place within it. Knowledge of the constellations’ connections to mythology will only deepen our sense of wonder and mystery.

Let me close with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words on the value of memory:

“Memory performs the impossible for man by the strength of his divine arms; holds together past and present, beholding both, existing in both, abides in the flowing, and gives continuity and dignity to human life. It holds us to our family, to our friends. Hereby a home is possible. ... This is the companion, this the tutor, the poet, the library, with which you travel.”