THE EVILS OF CRAM 249 



days. Take the following extracts from the address to the graduates of 1874 

 (see Nature, April 30, 1874), and from the address of 1881. 



It is a mere common-place to say that examination, or, as I have elsewhere 

 called it, artificial selection is, as too often conducted, about the most imperfect of 

 human institutions; and that in too many cases it is not only misleading, but 

 directly destructive, especially when proper precautions are not taken to annihilate 

 absolutely the chances of a candidate who is merely crammed, not in any sense 

 educated. Not long ago I saw an advertisement to the effect : " History in an 

 hour, by a Cambridge Coach" How much must this author have thought of the 

 ability of the examiners before whom his readers were to appear ? There is one, but 

 so far as I can see, only one, way of entirely extirpating cram as a system, it may be 

 costly well, let the candidates bear the expense, if the country (which will be 

 ultimately the gainer) should refuse. Take your candidates, when fully primed for 

 examination, and send them off to sea without books, without even pen and ink ; 

 attend assiduously to their physical health, but let their minds lie fallow. Continue 

 this treatment for a few months, and then turn them suddenly into the Examination 

 Hall. Even six months would not be wasted in such a process if it really enabled 

 us to cure the grand inherent defect of all modern examinations. It is amusing to 

 think what an outcry would be everywhere raised if there were a possibility of such 

 a scheme being actually tried say in Civil Service Examinations. But the certainty 

 of such an outcry, under the conditions supposed, is of itself a complete proof of 

 the utter abomination of the cramming system. I shall probably be told, by 

 upholders of the present methods, that I know nothing about them, that I am 

 prejudiced, bigoted, and what not. That, of course, is the natural cry of those 

 whose " craft is in danger " and it is preserved for all time in the historic words, 

 " Thou wert altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us ? " I venture now to 

 state, without the least fear of contradiction, a proposition which (whether new or 

 not) I consider to be of inestimable value to the country at large : Wherever the 

 examiners are not in great part the teachers also, there will cram to a great extent 

 supersede education 



This Chinese passion for excessive examination threatens to become as great a 

 nuisance here as the Celestials themselves have proved in San Francisco. I had better 

 not tell you any more of my own experiences ; I have already said quite enough about 

 myself. But I can tell you what occurred to a friend of my own, a professor in 

 a neighbouring State. My friend belongs to the well-known kingdom of Yvetot 

 that happy land in which (as Thackeray tells us) the good king 



Each year called out his fighting men, 

 And marched a league from home ; and then 

 Marched back again. 



The Professor had once a favourite student, of much more than ordinary 

 promise, who sought a post under government a post for which he was in all 

 respects singularly fitted. Now, none but the very highest of such posts can be 

 obtained in Yvetot except after a strict examination ; so the youth had to submit 



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