Stick A Pin In There

( Originally Published 1885 )

THIS may seem to apply to the girls, yet if I mistake not I have often heard it used by men and boys. At any rate, I think it will be understood by boys as well as girls.

To "stick a pin in there" is a figure of speech, which signifies, Pay particular attention to the point just made, not the point of the pin, but the point of the thought just stated, or under consideration. It is to fasten it in the memory. It means to glue it down, paste it, mucilage it. In other words, chain it up, so that it will not escape you.

Now there are many things which do not need pinning. A boy who is interested profoundly in the next base ball game does not need to stick a pin in to remember either when the game is to come off or where. But mother's errand, or the promise to return that book or newspaper to-morrow before twelve o'clock, is likely to slip away, unless it be securely pinned down.

Sticking pins may seem a very simple process, and one might naturally infer that no special directions need to be given upon the subject; but even a brief consideration will probably be sufficient to show that this metaphorical sticking of pins sometimes needs a great deal of direction and suggestion and enforcement.

The simple fact is that this sticking of pins is nothing less than the cultivation of the power of attention. This faculty, — if it may be called such, — is capable of almost indefinite cultivation and improvement.

In fact, attention lies at the basis of memory. Some people think that in many schools the memory is overcrowded. They say, " One thing at a time." But Dr. John Todd wrote to young persons as follows :

" The old adage of too many irons in the fire conveys an abominable lie ; keep them all in, poker, tongs, and all." And then he would proceed very deliberately to tell how they must be cared for so that no iron shall burn. When you have a thing to remember you have only to "stick a pin in there," and you cannot forget it. For example, some persons find difficulty in remembering the number of an office upon the street. But tell them very slowly, and solemnly, and deliberately, that it is " Half a dollar Bromfield Street," and they cannot forget it, by trying ever so hard. You "stick a pin in there."

A boy was going to the store to get a pound of prunes. He knew very well the difference between prunes and dates. Hence, he said to himself, "Not dates prunes." When he got to the store he said, "Now what is it? Not dates, but prunes." He had " stuck a pin in there." When a busy business man wished to remember to buy two boxes of strawberries to take home for supper, he tied a knot in his pocket hand-kerchief. Three times that day he came across that knot — every time it said " Straw-berries" in bold type. His pin held it in his memory, and he carried home the strawberries.

A man was having a coat made. He went into the tailor's shop one day to try it on. He casually remarked that it seemed rather short. One of his friends standing by wittily suggested, " It will be long enough before you get another." All laughed, and he himself thought it was a good joke. But when he attempted to tell it to his wife, and said : "Good joke, — Brown said, 'Well, never mind, Jones ; it will be a good while before you get another,'" his wife did not see anything to laugh at. He did not "stick a pin in there."

When you have something to remember you must "pay attention to it," as the Irishman did. Some one said, "Pat, how was it that you could sleep through the whole twenty-four hours?" Pat replied, "Shure, sor, it was by payin' 'tintion to it, sor."

I remember a few it may be a very few, but I do remember a few Latin quotations, such as " Arma virumque cano," etc., and " Quousque tandem abutere," etc., and "Grates persolvere dignas non opis est nostrae." But there are whole pages and books that I do not remember. But it required no more painstaking, perhaps, to remember one Iine than another. Yet a few got remembered and many got forgotten, or as the boy very truthfully said, disremembered.

At one time I was walking along the streets of the city with a young man who was in the habit of calling by name every man whom he met, if he knew the man. Now I had had hard work to call names quickly. But I said : "If he can do that, why cannot I? " It is only a habit. It can be acquired by "payin' 'tintion to it." So I began by looking ahead, and noticing who was coming. Seeing some one whose face I knew, I would proceed to say to myself, "Let me see, what is his name?" By thus thinking of it before he came up, his name would come to my mind, and when I passed him I would say, as my young friend had said, "Good morning, Mr. Jones," or " How do you do, Mr. Brown." This habit, persistently practised, at length seemed to become a sort of second nature; and there was after that far less difficulty in remembering names than before. I met a clergyman in the bookstore, corner of Beacon and Somerset Streets, Boston, one day, whom I had not seen for forty years, and called his name at once. A gentleman called at the hotel in Portland, Oregon, within an hour or two after my arrival there, and told me that I did not remember him, — I could not call his name. But I did at once, and he expressed great surprise, saying, "Well, well, I did not think you would remember me, for you have n't seen me since I was a little boy six years old, and you used to drive me out of your uncle's store." Dr. William T. Harris and I met in Washington in 1879. We had not seen each other since we were boys together in Phillips Academy in 1853, twenty-six years before. Each at once recognized the other and called his name. The habit of memory can be improved greatly, in any particular direction ; and it is done principally by " payin' 'tintion to it," by "sticking a pin in there."

The merchant remembers prices, the lawyers precedents, the clergyman texts, the poet poetry, the painter pictures, the historian events, and so on to the end of the chapter. The judgment, also, is improved by this power of careful attention.

Few better lessons, perhaps, can be learned by the pupils in our schools, than the importance, the absolute necessity, in order to attain success in life, of "sticking pins," or as the Irishman expressed it, of "payin' 'tintion," that is, of taking the utmost pains to acquire the power of attention.