Professor Hunter Bakers writes, “It is interesting to read about education in the 19th century. One encounters a former emphasis on memorization and recitation. I suppose that method is considered inadequate now and we have moved well past it.”
I think memorizing is important. It’s recommended in the Trivium at early ages, because kids like to rattle off quotes. They are little parrots at that age.
There’s no time in life when you get stuff things into someone’s head and be sure it will stick forever like early childhood. I memorized a lot of stuff when I was a kid, and most of it’s still there, to some extent.
Memorization was the backbone of medieval education. Aquinas may have been somewhat exceptional, but his ability to recite four books from memory at once (since he could talk four times as fast as scribes could write, and his handwriting was illegible) was a testament to his age. It was common advice in monastic circles that a memorized book was more trustworthy than a written book, since written books might have scribal errors.
Mary Carruthers has written two fascinating books on the subject (The Book of Memory and The Craft of Thought.) Unfortunately, Gutenberg’s printing press began to make memorization less relevant, and of course the internet has only continued that trend.
(In short, the 19th Century is a middle-point in the decline of memorization, not the high point in its use.)