Word: subjects
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...given out at the beginning of the year, these results could be reached as well, or even better; for it would then serve as an index, or table of contents, to the work to be done, and some recitations that now are nearly useless because their connection with the subject as a whole is not realized, would confer other blessings than those of heavenly sleep. Such a method would, besides, prevent some serious evils belonging to the present...
...evils are these: First, cramming. It is true any vague objection to a way of study is generally expressed by calling it cramming. But though it is doubtful or false that a prolonged grind for an examination in which the student gets a general understanding of his subject is mentally destructive, no one can question the danger of merely committing to memory a mass of details, both when general relations are not grasped by the student's own efforts, and also when they are given to him as they are in a syllabus. Cramming of this kind certainly does...
Second, the injustice of ranking nearly alike two men, of whom one has a real knowledge of his subject, and the other only what his syllabus has hinted to him. Sir James Stephen has pointed out that in history it is quite possible for an adroit and dexterous man who has coolness, tact, and experience in examinations to assume the deceptive semblance of great erudition. It often happens that one who from much reading is acquainted with the minutiae as well as the outlines of history gets no higher mark (or perhaps not so high) than another who has confined...
...Whenever a student in Harvard College or in the Lawrence Scientific School shall have passed, in either of these departments of the University, an examination on a subject taught in the Medical School, the certificate of his having passed the College or Scientific School examination shall be accepted in lieu of an examination in that subject at the Medical School...
...Germans, who stand high among nations in literary attainments, tell us that nothing is so prolific as a little known well. It is not necessary that one should confine himself to one book, or class of books, in order to do justice to the subject, for this would be to cramp the mind and fit it for only one channel; though it were better to be a man of one book and know that well, than to wander through the various authors, gleaning here a little and there a little, but neglecting the great value of a thorough study...