VALUE OF FORGETTING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143766, 15 April 1912, Page 3

VALUE OF FORGETTING.

A BUSINESS FACUI.TY WORTH . TRAINING.

“I forget every case after X have decided it,” said Judge Bray at Bloomsbury County Court. Lawyers and business men alike agree that a trained faculty for forgetting is a great asset. “It is really the habit of forgetting temporarily,” said a well-known King’s Counsel on Wednesday. “This habit, I should say, is the secret of mental concentration, which is indispensable to success. It is only by practice that tho faculty develops, and until ho has acquired it the yotmg barrister is in difficulties. The mind becomes trained automatically to forget things for the time being ; they are placed away in separate Cells and the door of recollection shut upon them until it is necessary to recall them once again.

“For example, I may be suddenly called from a criminal case at the Old Bailey to argue a point of law in tho High Courts, and as I leave the Old Bailey I forget without an effort all about the case and enter the High Courts with my mjjid entirely devoted to the point of law to be argued. Thus a barrister remembers only the case engaging him at a particular moment. All hi.s = other cases are put away, mentally pigeon-holed, to bo taken down when required.” “Directly I have done with one matter of business I forget it and turn to tho next,” said a prominent City man. “I find it is hopeless to work on any other principle. The man who cannot forget at will is always handicapped. If ho docs not put one business deal completely out of his mind before he tackles the next he becomes flustered and worried.”