CRAMMING.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5200, 16 September 1885, Page 3

CRAMMING.

[To tbe Editor of the Evening Star.] Sib,—Your leader in last night's Stab is a true and faithful echo of the sentiments held by a large number of your readers who are heads of families. A? a father of a family who has children in one of tie Board's schools (without wishing to interfere or create a spirit of defiance in the children against their teachers) I deprecate the manner in which some of the teachers are wont to enforce the learning of arithmetical puzzles, fit only for children of a much larger growth. Giving science questions to children of 10 or 11 years is also ridiculous. lam now speaking of the smaller fry, but when the system is carried on to much higher branches, for the purpose of obtaining credit for the school—and kudos to the teachers in particular—^at such an awful sacrifice of young life, it is time that an inquiry was instituted, and that " fireeaters" have their direction from the Board to use judgment in the " forcing " business, and gentleness and restraint be resorted to in the case of those pupils who wish to undergo a too persistent study of abstruse subjects for the Tain purpose of coming out with flying colors—but, ah ! at what a risk with some ! The spectacle is now presented to us of three young lires cut short through this absurd system of cramming for the glorification of a select few. Mr Editor, don't let the matter rest here. Your fluent pen is quite capable of baring this ghastly skeleton arising in our educational system, and awakening tbe interest of the general public in the matter, and, no doubt, a timely warning may be the means of sating the lires of others who are treading tbe same dangerous path, and cause them to avoid it in the future.—l am, &c., A Pabent.