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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



" CEAM." 



By Peof. W. STANLEY JEVONS. 



A HUMAN institution has, like man, its seven 

 ages. In its infancy, unknown and unno- 

 ticed, it excites in youth some interest and surprise. 

 Advancing toward manhood, every one is forward 

 in praising its usefulness. As it grows up and be- 

 comes established, the popular tone begins to 

 change. Some people are unavoidably offended 

 or actually injured by a new institution, and, as 

 it grows older and more powerful, these people 

 become more numerous. In proportion to the 

 success of an undertaking will be the difficulties 

 and jealousies which are encountered. It be- 

 comes the interest of certain persons to find out 

 the weak points of the system, and turn them 

 to their private advantage. Thus the institu- 

 tion reaches its critical age, which safely sur- 

 mounted, it progresses through a prosperous mid- 

 dle life to a venerable old age of infirmities and 

 abuses, dying out in the form of a mere sur- 

 vival. 



There is no difficulty in seeing what period 

 of life the examination-system has now reached. 

 It is that critical age at which its progress is so 

 marked as to raise wide-spread irritation. To 

 abuse examinations is one of the most popular 

 commonplaces of public speeches and after-din- 

 ner conversation. Everybody has something to 

 say in dispraise, and the reason is pretty obvious. 

 Many persons have been inconvenienced by ex- 

 aminations ; some regret the loss of patronage; 

 others the loss of patrons and appointments ; 

 schoolmasters do not like having their work rude- 

 ly tested — they feel the competition of more far- 

 " sighted teachers who have adapted themselves 

 betimes to a new state of things. In these and 

 other ways it arises that a formidable minority 

 actually have good grounds for hating examina- 

 tions. They make their feelings widely known, 

 and the general public, ever ready to grumble at 

 a novelty of which they hear too much, and do 

 not precisely appreciate the advantages, take up 

 the burden of the complaint. 



Fortunately, too, for the opponents of exam- 

 ination, an admirable "cry" has been found. 

 Examination, they say, leads to " cram," and 

 " cram " is the destruction of true study. Peo- 

 ple who know nothing else about examination 

 know well enough that it is " cram." The word 

 has all the attributes of a perfect question-begging 



epithet. It is short, emphatic, and happily de- 

 rived from a disagreeable physical metaphor. Ac- 

 cordingly, there is not a respectable gentleman 

 distributing prizes to a body of scholars at the 

 end of the session, and at a loss for something 

 to say, who does not think of this word " cram," 

 and proceed to expatiate on the evils of the ex- 

 amination-system. 



I intend in this article to take up the less 

 popular view of the subject and say what I can 

 in favor of examinations. I wish to analyze the 

 meaning of the word " cram," and decide, if pos- 

 sible, whether it is the baneful thing that so many 

 people say. . There is no difficulty in seeing at 

 once that "cram" means two different things, 

 which I will call " good cram " and u bad cram." 

 A candidate, preparing for an important competi- 

 tive examination, may put himself under a tutor 

 well skilled in preparing for that examination. 

 This tutor looks for success by carefully directing 

 the candidate's studies into the most "paying" 

 lines, and restricting them rigorously to those 

 lines. The training given may be of an arduous, 

 thorough character, so that the faculties of the 

 pupil are stretched and exercised to their utmost 

 in those lines. This would be called "cram" 

 because it involves exclusive devotion to the an- 

 swering of certain examination-papers. I call it 

 " good cram." 



"Bad cram," on the other hand, consists in 

 temporarily impressing upon the candidate's 

 mind a collection of facts, dates, or formulae, 

 held in a wholly undigested state and ready to be 

 disgorged in the examination-room by an act of 

 mere memory. A candidate, unable to appre- 

 hend the bearing of Euclid's reasoning in the 

 first book of his " Elements," may learn the 

 propositions off by heart, diagrams, letters, and 

 all, like a Sunday-scholar learning the collects 

 and gospels. Dates, rules of grammar, and the 

 like, may be " crammed " by mnemonic lines, or 

 by one of those wretched systems of artificial 

 memory, teachers of which are always going 

 about. In such ways it is, I believe, possible to 

 give answers which simulate knowledge, and no 

 more prove true knowledge than the chattering 

 of a parrot proves intellect. 



I am far from denying the existence of " bad 

 cram " of this character, but I hold that it can 



