" cram:' 



21 



yet other cases a few weeks or months : it is an 

 infinitesimally small part of all our mental impres- 

 sions which can be profitably remembered for 

 years. Memory may be too retentive, and fa- 

 cility of forgetting and of driving out one train 

 of ideas by a new train is almost as essential to a 

 well-trained intellect as facility of retention. 



Take the case of a barrister in full practice, 

 who deals with several cases in a day. His busi- 

 ness is to acquire as rapidly as possible the facts 

 of the case immediately before him. With the 

 powers of representation of a well-trained mind 

 he holds these facts steadily before him, com- 

 paring them with each other, discovering their 

 relations, applying to them the principles and 

 rules of law more deeply graven on his memory, 

 or bringing them into connection with a few of the 

 more prominent facts of previous cases which he 

 happens to remember. For the details of laws 

 and precedents he trusts to his text-writers, the 

 statute-book, and his law-library. Even before 

 the case is finished his mind has probably sifted 

 out the facts and rejected the unimportant ones 

 by the law of obliviscence. One case done with, 

 he takes up a wholly new series of facts, and 

 so from day to day, and from month to month, 

 the matter before him is constantly changing. 

 The same remarks are even more true of a busy 

 and able administrator like Mr. Cross. The points 

 which come before him arc infinite in variety. 

 The facts of each case are rapidly brought to his 

 notice by subordinates, by correspondents, by de- 

 bates in the House, by deputations and interviews, 

 or by newspaper reports. Applying well-trained 

 powers of judgment to the matter in hand, he 

 makes a rapid decision and passes to the next 

 piece of business. It would be fatal to Mr. Cross 

 if he were to allow things to sink deep into his 

 mind and stay there. There would be no difficul- 

 ty in showing that in like manner, but in varying 

 degrees, the engineer, the physician, the mer- 

 chant, even the tradesman or the intelligent arti- 

 san, deals every day with various combinations of 

 facts which cannot all be stored up in the cere- 

 bral framework, and certainly need not be so. 



The bearing of these considerations upon the 

 subject of examinations ought to be very evident. 

 For what is " cram " but the rapid acquisition of 

 a series of facts, the vigorous getting up of a case, 

 in order to exhibit well-trained powers of com- 

 prehension, of judgment, and of retention, before 

 an examiner ? The practised barrister " crams " 

 up his " brief " (so called because, as some sup- 

 pose, made brief for the purpose), and stands an 

 examination in it before a judge and jury. The 



candidate is not so hurried ; he spends months, or 

 it may be two or three years, in getting up his 

 differential calculus, or his inorganic chemistry. 

 It is quite likely that when the ordeal is passed, 

 and the favorable verdict delivered, he will dis- 

 miss the equations, and the salts, and the com- 

 pounds, from his mind as rapidly as possible; but 

 it does not follow that the useful effect of his 

 training vanishes at the same time. If so, it fol- 

 lows that almost all the most able and successful 

 men of the present day threw away their pains at 

 school and college. I suppose that no one ever 

 heard of a differential equation solving a nice 

 point of law, nor is it common to hear Sophocles 

 and Tacitus quoted by a leading counsel. Yet it 

 can hardly be denied that our greatest barristers 

 and judges were trained in the mathematical 

 sciences, or, if not, that their teachers thought 

 the classics a better training-ground. If things 

 taught at school and college are to stay in the 

 mind to serve us in the business of life, then al- 

 most all the higher education yet given in this 

 kingdom has missed its mark. 



I come to the conclusion, then, that well- 

 ordered education is a severe system of well-sus- 

 tained " cram." Mr. Herbert Spencer holds that 

 the child's play simulates the actions and exer- 

 cises of the man. So I would hold that the agony 

 of the examination-room is an anticipation of the 

 struggles of life. All life is a long series of com- 

 petitive examinations. The barrister before the 

 jury ; the preacher in his pulpit ; the merchant 

 on the Exchange-flags ; the member in the House 

 — all are going in for their " little goes," and their 

 "great goes," and their "triposes." And I un- 

 hesitatingly assert that, as far as experience can 

 guide us, or any kind of reasoning enable us to 

 infer, well-conducted competitive examinations be- 

 fore able examiners are the best means of training 

 and the best method of selection for those who 

 are to be foremost in the battle of life. 



I will go a step further, and assert that exam- 

 ination in one form or another is not only an in- 

 dispensable test of results, but it is a main element 

 in training. It represents the active use of fac- 

 ulties as contrasted with that passive use which 

 too often resolves itself into letting things come 

 in at one ear and go out at the other. Those 

 who discuss examinations in the public papers 

 seem to think that they are held occasionally 

 and for the sole purpose of awarding prizes and 

 appointments. But in every well-ordered course 

 of instruction there ought to be, and there usually 

 are, frequent less formal examinations of which 

 outsiders hear nothing. The purposes of these 



