Remembering Memory
It's hard to imagine today how we can ever get back to valuing the formation of memory in education.
From The Book of Memory (emphasis mine):
Here, as well as in any other medieval text, we can understand that craft rules (artes) were thought to be, as Aristotle says, built up from repeated, remembered experiences, the principle being to recognize and organize likeness. This could then be applied, even to things never seen before and encountered for the first time. This is not mnemonic in the restricted sense that moderns tend to understand it, but in the larger sense of how all learning takes place. Learning is regarded as a process of discovering more effective, efficient, inclusive mnemonics – for memory, as Hugh of St. Victor says, is the basis of learning. . . . This is an analysis of learning that differs from our own in its emphasis upon memory and memorial cues, and it is very far from restricted to rote tasks. It places rote in the service of creative thought.
It's hard to imagine today how we can ever get back to valuing the formation of memory in education.
