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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the collects and gospels. Dates, rules 

 of grammar, and the like, may be 

 ' crammed ' by mnemonic lines," etc. 



"We object to this distinction. " Bad 

 cram" means a great deal more than 

 Prof. Jevons here indicates ; and his 

 " good cram " is either " bad cram " or 

 no " cram " at all. He is mistaken in 

 limiting what he calls " bad cram " to 

 loading the memory with formula with- 

 out understanding principles, as in the 

 illustration he offers of Euclid's " Ele- 

 ments." It is possible to "cram" the 

 apprehension of a subject as well as its 

 verbal forms. We knew a young lady 

 in one of our leading academies, the 

 only female student in a geometry-class 

 of twenty, who, under the spur of fem- 

 inine vanity, kept her position at the 

 head of the class for the whole term, 

 giving the demonstrations every time 

 when the gentlemen broke down, and 

 having the clearest understanding of 

 the subject which such a prolonged 

 ordeal compelled, while the whole ex- 

 perience amounted to nothing for per- 

 manent effect. The boasted discipline 

 was a pure illusion. She lived for a 

 whole term in a sort of atmosphere of 

 geometrical excitement, and upon leav- 

 ing the school the mathematical fever 

 subsided and the geometry disappeared 

 like a dream. It was a case of pure 

 "cram." Time was not taken for di- 

 gestion for the deepening of acquisi- 

 tion and the consolidation of mental 

 habits. " Cram " refers not so much 

 to any form or kind of acquisition (al- 

 though some favor it more than others), 

 but rather to the rate of any acquisi- 

 tion. Its essential element is excessive 

 and unnatural forcing a stuffing of 

 mental aliment, that may be excellent 

 in itself, but out of relation to natural 

 appetite or healthy assimilation. Prof. 

 Jevons says that the epithet "cram" 

 affords an admirable " cry " for the 

 opponents of the examination-system; 

 that " it is short, emphatic, and happily 

 derived from a disagreeable physical 

 metaphor;" by Avhich he probably 



means that its metaphorical use in ed- 

 ucation is derived from a disagreeable 

 physiological experience. But is its 

 mental application really so metaphori- 

 cal, after all ? One may eat so as to 

 keep pace with the digestive and assim- 

 ilative processes of the system, or he 

 may exceed that rate in taking food, 

 which is cramming. But is not mental 

 acquirement also based on physiological 

 activity, and subject to a time-rate de- 

 pending upon cerebral assimilation? 

 The " cram " of the dining-room and 

 the " cram " of the school-room are, at 

 bottom, the same thing, merely involv- 

 ing different physiological organs. 



Prof. Jevons, indeed, yields this 

 point explicitly. He concedes the 

 physiological basis of mental culture, in 

 saying: "It is the very purpose of a 

 liberal education^ as it is correctly 

 called, to develop and train the plastic 

 fibres of the youthful brain so as to pre- 

 vent them taking too early a definite 

 'set,' which will afterward narrow and 

 restrict the range of acquisition and 

 judgment." But if it is plastic fibres 

 and cells that we have at last to deal 

 with, what escape is there from the 

 conclusion that true education the 

 leading out of the faculties must take 

 its rate from the measured processes 

 of nervous growth ? 



Prof. Jevons's " good cram " is de- 

 fined as arduous and thorough study 

 directed to the winning of honors at a 

 competitive examination. But thorough 

 study, carried on under the conditions 

 favorable to enduring acquisition, is not 

 " cram " of any sort, because the term in 

 its essential meaning excludes thorough- 

 ness. We shall not deny that much 

 vigorous, persistent intellectual work 

 may be accomplished under competi- 

 tive inspiration, in which no " cram " is 

 involved; and we think Prof. Jevons 

 commits a harmful error in applying 

 the term "cram" to such study, and 

 undertaking to qualify it by an adjec- 

 tive that simply neutralizes it. Under 

 such an authoritative sanction, all 



