Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-12-14
Cramming.

~oah w 1OhOl lIC VI
: one with obloquy; the new boots that hui
us are praised and priced and the old PAL
t that served us thrown into the street.
The crammIng system, that served S
8 long and faithfully. now shares mans in
gratitude in company with other cast-oi
: servrtors; without provision, without pen
sion, like an old schoolmaster, an old sol
der, an old horse, it receives nothing bu
scorn and scofing from the mouths of men
We have become educators and have ceas
ed to be teachers. The d~rawing-out pro
cess has taken such possession of our facuI
ties that We persist in misunderstanding
out, until we have nothing to draw witt
but breathless lungs, and nothing or
which to operate but exhausted receivers
L believe in examining. | would like
to rest from drawing out, and try the plan
OF pouring In, for variety, if for nothing
else. The first attempts to impart infor-
nation were systems of examining,
knowledge was first acquired by cram
ming. And whatever the Omega of edu-
cation itself may be, the Alpha is-to
cram.
The first educational efforts of Greece
We're, causing her youtht to committee men,
DRY the poetry of Homer-cramming.
The weightiest educational undertaking
among the ancient Irish was to learn. and
remember the geneaiogies of the numer-
our royal families thatstocked their island,
so that the thirty-second cousin of the fos-
ter-brother of q prince might be pointed
out with a willow stick at every hands
turn and behold the result there is not
an ''O' or a me" in Christcndom or out
of it, that is not the lineal desc cndant of
an Irish king.
Wa must cram-fll the minds of the
young with facts, facts, facts-important
and unimpartant, curious and ommon-
place, connected and disconnected, relative
and arbitrary facts. We must pour them
in constantly, and stop every leak by
which they might escape. Coming from
many sources, being of diverse natures,
they form at first, it is true, a rather tur-
bid solution, and our sick hearts often feel
that the little bottles we're better with
out them (; but let them alone; the world
will shake up the contents of those little
bottles, and time will clarity the liquid
and crystalline the valuable ingredients.
The mind of child has an original force
of its own, or 1t has not. If it has not, no
patent, educational tinkering can impart
that force to it. If it has originality, its
W individuality is the best shaping and
soiidifying power over the mass of crude
knowledge it contains. In the first case.
facts are better than nothing in the sec
ond, facts are just what is necessary to
mental growth. Cramming is the oppo-
site of philosophy. First in order of i'm
portance is philosophy; first in order of
time is c:amming. Cramming furnishes
the material /; philosophy, sooner or later.
handles its tools and erects the building.
Cramming fills the barrel with cider phi
losophy proceeds with it's kind fermenta-
ton, which insures the elders preserva-
ton through the months of winter.
The process of creation is one ofphilos-
ophy that of discovery, one of examining.
The second begins where the first ends, as
the strand of yarn last wound on, is the
first to be unwound from the ball. 1t is
for the Infinite to create; it is for the
finite nan to cram and if finite man ever
a creator it is only after a fearful
amount of examining.
Humboldt wasa an incorrigible crammer:
he travelled over land and sea to cram.
Pythagoras went to Egypt TO cram. Ma
homet crammed on Judaism and Christi
before he attempted to originate.
lately went to South America to
cram. Major Powell goes shooting through
the canons of the Colorado on a cram
expedition. Walter Scott. so exact
in his description of scenery, crammed for
every picture. Michael Angelo crammed
in the subject Of architecture before he
placed the dome of one grand temple on
the columns of another. Darwin, before
favoring us with his theory SO f~atteringto
remote ancestry, performed a fright
ful task in the way of examining. These
men, and all men thathaye done any good
the world, spent a long time in collect
ng facts-facts, facts agreeing, facts cen
.radictory. At first these facts are as con-
and confused as the ~fancies ofa
lream but, after a while, somehow, of
heir W accord, they form into groups
md c~oteries, they make or discover rela-
ionships with one another, and move on
ward, like the ~well-conccivcd characters
# story, to form a grand, happy, we'll I
lrranged tableau at the end. Miscella-
leous facts are like shy and strange visit
RS at the opening of ball soon the mu- /
ic of thought and reason is heardAthe '
Iisorderly assemblage changes. as if BE- |
into little systems that spin around
n the mazJ whirlings of symmetry, beau =
y, and grace. :
Such is essentially the inductire meth
d o. philosophy-nine parts off is cram !
ming, n part logic. Ifit is good for
nen, it is good for children; for, men in
are but the children of other
len's brains. With the oxygen, and by-
rogen present IN proper proportions, there
but little time consumed in uniting1
hem by means of the electric spark; but
the component elements. YOU .
tight flash your spark forever and not a Z
rop of water would be made. Cramming {
the element, philosophy the spark. The e
rst thing a childappreciates of a tree, Isl y
IS fruit, or its practical use then he no !
its leaves then he becomes acquaint-
d with the twigs (no a~llusion to corporal4 I
unishment) then with the larger limbs:
len with the trunk ; and, finally, with its /
BOTS then, and not till then, is lie ready
grapple with the functions of its parts, :
I'D the laws of its growth. Throw him
Ito the study of these laws at the outset, 1
I'D he will remain imbedded in its trunk 7
like the simpleton sage, Merlin, when P
'oled by the tricky damsel-till his eyes 5
e as dark as its cave, and his intellect =
Vegetable as its fiber. Anatomy pre-fs,
'des physiology /; the knowledge of facts tft
-ecedes the Interpretation of laws. rsmlI .
A boy sees a locomotive dropping her Q
Irallel rods" How is it done? is his 4