Attention to the facts of reading will be secured by increased power of Concentration, and a familiarity with In., Ex., and Con. will enable us to assimilate all dates and figures by numeric thinking with the greatest promptitude, especially the longer or larger series.
Try the case of Noah's Flood, 2348 B.C. Here the figures pass by a unit at a time from 2[3] to 4, and then by doubling the 4 we have the last figure 8--making altogether 2348. Another method of dealing with this date is very instructive. Read the account in Gen. ch. vii., vv. 9, 13, and 15. Now we can proceed.
They went into the Ark by _twos_. This gives the figure 2. Now let us find the other figures. Noah's three sons and their wives make three pairs of persons, or _three_ families. This gives the second figure 3. Then counting Noah and his wife, and his three sons and their wives, there were four pairs of human beings altogether. This gives the figure 4. Finally the total number of human beings who entered the ark were 4 pairs or _eight_ persons. This gives the figure 8. Thus we have the entire set of figures, 2348 B.C. Take the date of the creation according to the accepted biblical chronology as 4004 B.C. We could say the date has _four_ figures, that the expression of it begins and ends with the figure 4, and that the two intermediates are nought, or cyphers; or that the figures are expressed by 40 and _forty reversed_ as 40-04--or 4004.
Having met several persons who claimed that they always remembered figures by reasoning about them [whatever that may have meant], and yet all such persons having shown an inability to remember many dates or numbers, I inferred that they were honestly mistaken in supposing that they could remember numbers, or else that such a method was not adapted to their idiosyncrasies. At that time, I did not suspect that their failure may have arisen from lack of _training_ in In., Ex., and Con. From the circumstance that I myself could use this method with promptitude and certainty, I determined to test it in a strictly scientific way.
I made the experiment two years ago, and all my experience since has corroborated the conclusion then arrived at.
I experimented with the two groups of 20 pupils each. Neither knew any method of dealing with dates and numbers. The first group had had no training in In., Ex., and Con.; the second group had been well practised in those laws. I then gave each member of each group several very difficult cases of dates and numbers to be memorised--one example containing 24 figures. To save time and space in exposition, I have heretofore only mentioned 12 figures, or the half of the amount. All of the first group failed except one. He, however, could not memorise the 24 figures. All of the second group handled all the new examples with success, and only two of them met with much difficulty in dealing with the 24 figures.