726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to two, or at most three ! Geography, for instance, might easily be 

 sufficiently learned in three months if it were taught exclusively, and 

 so of many other subjects. As for grammar, it should be banished 

 from all schools, except perhaps from the senior year of a university 

 course. No child ever learned to speak good English from studying 

 grammar. It has driven many a poor little wretch into headaches and 

 other nervous troubles. It is the most ingenious device for forcing an 

 immature brain into early decrepitude that the cunning of man has 

 yet devised. The only reason why it does not do more harm is, that 

 not one in ten of the pupils that come out of our schools know any- 

 thing about it. 



So far as my experience goes (and my profession has brought me 

 many opportunities for observation), there is too much cramming in 

 all our schools, and too much learning by rote, without there being an 

 understanding of the stibjects studied. It appears to be the main ob- 

 ject of some teachers to develop the memory at the expense of the 

 other mental faculties. Now the memory is one of the lowest facul- 

 ties of the mind. In fact, it- is not a faculty, but simply the result of 

 the registration of impressions. It is a property of certain parts of the 

 brain-substance, and it often exists in its highest form in persons of 

 low intelligence, in whom it is exerted automatically, as it were, and 

 without reason. If the perceptions and the power of mental concen- 

 tration be cultivated, the memory will take care of itself. 



It is generally the case that those persons who possess good memo- 

 ries are deficient in the capacity for giving attention. Facts and cir- 

 cumstances make little impression upon us all as we grow older. Hence 

 we find that the events which occurred in childhood, and which were 

 registered then, are easily remembered, while those that happened only 

 a few weeks ago, not having been sufficiently noticed at the time, made 

 little impression on the registering apparatus of the brain, and are 

 partly or wholly forgotten. 



Persons with good memories are, as a rule, indifferent students ; 

 they trust to memory rather than to understanding, and hence rarely 

 have clear and full ideas of the subjects studied. Of course there are 

 persons with strong memories and great intelligence and powers of 

 application, but they do not require schools. They are competent to 

 take care of themselves, and they do. The text-books used in schools 

 generally take too much for granted on the part of the student. Bald 

 statements are made without sufficient explanation ; the pupil learns 

 them by heart, and is supposed to know all about them because he can 

 recite them without missing a word. I recollect how it was with my- 

 self in the matter of geometry. I took the first premium at school for 

 recitations in that branch of science. I used to go up to the black- 

 board, draw all my lines correctly, and then, without hesitating at a 

 word, glibly make the required demonstration ; and yet of the real 

 nature of geometry I had no idea. I did not know the use of it, nor 



