74 galton.org
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Inquiries into Human Faculty
were executed with marvellous fidelity, as attested by a commission of the
Institute, appointed in 1852 to inquire into the matter, of which the
eminent painter Horace Vernet was a member. The present Slade
Professor of Fine Arts at University College, M. Légros, was a pupil of M.
de Boisbaudran. He has expressed to me his indebtedness to the system,
and he has assured me of his own success in teaching others in a
somewhat similar way.
Colonel Moncrieff informs me that, when wintering in 1877 near Fort
Garry in North America, young Indians occasionally came to his quarters,
and that he found them much interested in any pictures or prints that were
put before them. On one of these occasions he saw an Indian tracing the
outline of a print from the Illustrated News very carefully with the point
of his knife. The reason he gave for this odd maneuver was, that he would
remember the better how to carve it when he returned home.
I could mention instances within my own experience in which the
visualising faculty has become strengthened by practice; notably one of an
eminent electrical engineer, who had the power of recalling form with
unusual precision, but not colour. A few weeks after he had replied to my
questions, he told me that my inquiries had induced him to practise his
colour memory, and that he had done so with such success that he was
become quite an adept at it, and that the newly-acquired power was a
source of much pleasure to him.
A useful faculty, easily developed by practice, is that of retaining a
retinal picture. A scene is flashed upon the eye; the memory of it persists,
and details, which escaped observation during the brief time when it was
actually seen, may be analysed and studied at leisure in the subsequent
vision.
The memories we should aim at acquiring are, however, such as are
based on a thorough understanding of the objects observed. In no case is
this more surely effected than in the processes of mechanical drawing,
where the intended structure has to be portrayed so exactly in plan,
elevation, side view, and sections, that the workman has simply to copy
the drawing in metal, wood, or stone, as the case may be. It is
undoubtedly the fact that mechanicians,
