Cramming
Cramming is a word which is often very loosely used, and it is necessary to determine precisely, the meaning of the word. It might be defined as an unintelligent learning of such facts as will in the opinion of the student enable him to pass a certain examination. It is obvious that such ill-digested knowledge cannot remain permanently in his mind, and that the process whereby such facts are accumulated cannot train his intelligence.
It the object of learning is merely to pass examinations, and then cramming as defined is right and justifiable. But is this the object of education? No doubt, many men are able to obtain lucrative posts because they have passed through an academicals course with distinction; but these posts are only open to them because those with whom the appointments rest consider that success in these particular examinations necessarily implies a training of the faculties that makes the educated man far superior to the uneducated. If it is found that holders of academic distinctions in the eyes of the public will decrease, and they will no longer be the mesas of obtaining profitable employment. There can be little doubt that cramming as defined is neither more nor less than a form of dishonesty. Examinations are in-tended to decide whether a student has the ability to comprehend a particular subject and has devoted time and attention to its study. Cramming is an attempt to gain credit for this ability and industry by taking advantage of any lack of astuteness on the part of the examiner.
On the other hand there is a form of work often designated cramming, though falsely, which is unobjectionable. Au illustration will make the meaning plain. The study of history entails long and patient reading of historians, the balancing of fact against fact, and the formation of judgment, after careful enquiry, on the ideas and actions of those who guide the destinies of a nation. it is possible that a student may have compared authorities, enquired into motives, and estimated results in an honest and laborious manner, and yet be unable to answer a paper with credit because he has not the facts correctly at his finger ends. A hasty review of these facts, committing to memory dates and genealogies, may be dry and mechanical process, but it is necessary for those who have to write with limited time and without books of reference, and is erroneously stigmatized as cramming. It should never be forgotten that learning, apart from the emoluments it may bring, has a value of its own and that the benefits can only be derived at the cost of hard, patient and honest toil. There is no royal road to learning, and he who attempts to find one will lose himself in bogs and quagmires.
