It has been often said that a perfect memory is less of a blessing than the power of oblivion.  Thus THEMISTOCLES (who, according to CATO, as cited by CICERO, knew the names and faces of every man in Athens) having offered to teach some one the art of memory, received for reply, “Rather teach me how to forget”—­esse facturum si se oblivisci quae vellet, quam si meminisse docuisset.  And CLAUDIUS had such an enviable power in the latter respect that immediately after he had put to death his wife MESSALINA, he forgot all about it, asking, “Cur domina non veniret?”—­“Why the Missus didn’t come?”—­while on the following day, after condemning several friends to death, he sent invitations to them to come and dine with him.  And again, there are people who have, as it were, two memories, one good, the other bad, as was the case with CALVISIUS SABRINUS, who could recall anything in literature, but never remembered the names of his own servants, or even his friends.  But he got over the difficulty by naming his nine attendants after the nine Muses, while he called his intimates Homer, Hesiod, and so on.  This scholar would truly seem to have drunk of the two fountains sacred to Trophonius, by the river Orchomenus in Boeotia, one of which bestowed memory and the other oblivion.  And like unto them is the power of the Will, aided by Forethought and Suggestion, for while it properly directs and aids us to remember what we will, it per contra also helps us to forget.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONSTRUCTIVE FACULTIES.

    “He who hath learned a single art,
    Can thrive, I ween, in any part.”
        —­German Proverb.

    “He would have taught you how you might employ
    Yourself; and many did to him repair,
    And, certes, not in vain; he had inventions rare.” 
        —­WORDSWORTH.

When I had, after many years of study and research in England and on the Continent, developed the theory that all practical, technical education of youth should be preceded by a light or easy training on an aesthetic basis, or the minor arts, I for four years, to test the scheme, was engaged in teaching in the city of Philadelphia, every week in separate classes, two hundred children, besides a number of ladies.  These were from the public schools of the city.  The total number of these public pupils was then 110,000.

My pupils were taught, firstly, simple outline decorative design with drawing at the same time; after this, according to sex, easy embroidery, wood carving, modeling in clay, leather-work, carpentering, inlaying, repousse modeling in clay, porcelain painting, and other small arts.  Nearly all of the pupils, who were from ten to sixteen years of age, acquired two or three, if not all, of these arts, and then very easily found employment in factories or fabrics, etc.