Word: stupidity
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...prospered without them? Why, then, should anyone regret their absence? Of course excessive roughness must be smoothed; but too much milling robs the wheat of its strength. The position which the college authorities and the majority of the students have taken in this matter is both wise and advanced. Stupid uniformity is the curse of most societies, but freedom of thought and action is an exceedingly good corner stone upon which to found a great university...
...least, says Professor Thorndike, of Columbia, famous as the father of the psychological-test-for-entrance-to-college system, and who now proposes another scheme of education reform. The old system of grading is demoralizing to students, depending as it does, upon mere chance, or "the stupid conceit and sardonic indifference of the individual instructor". The shocking results of such a system, continues Professor Thorndike, are demonstrated by the scandalous fact that at Harvard As are thirty-five-times as common in Greek as in English courses. Such things must not be! Substitute for this unspeakable system the exact...
...against one or more of the apparently useless University rules. For, unfortunately, the University is far from being free from that "Red Tape" which is the usual concomitant of law and order. But there is one standing regulation that, every year, especially arouse the undergraduate ire because of its stupid inconsistency--this is the ruling that "not more than two men shall inhabit a college room...
...another, have the children of dream gone unchallenged by many. Is it that after the lucid history of centuries the reason, the merit, the meaning, the value of art is still doubtful? Remembering Greece, and Athens that should make Rome vital, and Byzantium that should trumpet Italy out of stupid darkness, and the Latin Renaissance that should succour Europe even to the present moment, can any pen deny those who would look upon football as a momentary spectacle and upon beauty as an eternal grace...
...absence, perhaps, may explain why Mexico has failed so far to establish a settled government. The greatest achievements in history have more than once been the outcome of lost causes. Contemporary observers may have spoken of Thermopylae or Valley Forgo as colossal futility, and branded Leonidas or Washington as stupid and obstinate for not deserting with their forces to the enemy the moment defeat seemed evident. But in both cases obstinacy, had its final result; and in both cases it was the "losing side" that...