Didascalicon, Book III: the art of study (discipline and method)
Chapter XII. On memory
Of memory I think this ought especially not to be passed over at present: that as talent investigates and finds by dividing, so memory keeps by gathering. It is necessary, therefore, that what we have divided in learning we gather by committing to memory. To gather is to reduce what has been written or disputed at greater length to a certain brief and compendious sum, which by the elders was called the epilogue, that is a brief recapitulation of what has been said. For every treatise has some principle on which the whole truth of the matter and the force of the sentence rests, and to it all the rest are referred: to seek and consider this is to gather. There is one fountain, and many little streams; you who follow the windings of the rivers, hold the fountain and you have the whole. I say this because man’s memory is dull, and delights in brevity, and if it is divided among many things it becomes less in each. We ought, therefore, in all learning to gather something brief and certain, to be stored in the secret chamber of memory, from which afterwards, when the matter requires, other things may be derived. This also must often be repeated, and recalled from the belly of memory to the palate, lest it grow stale from long interruption. Hence I beg you, reader, do not rejoice too much if you have read many things, but if you have understood many, and not only understood but been able also to retain them. Otherwise neither to read much nor to understand profits. Wherefore I recall that I said above that those who give themselves to learning need talent and memory.