those crumb-like compilations of
chronology and history, with which we are familiar, styled "treasures of
knowledge:"--thus, he injected into the brain of his neophytes dates by
the dozen and proper names--geographical ones in particular--by the
score, impressing them on stubborn memories through the aid of some
easily-learnt rhyme, or comic association, that made even the dullest
comprehension retentive for awhile.

His entire curriculum consisted, mainly, in the getting by heart, with
their answers, of sundry old civil service examination papers which he
kept in stock--continually increasing his store as fresh ones were
issued by the examining board, until he was at length master of every
question which had ever puzzled a candidate from the era of the first
competition down to the present day.

His motive in this was very obvious. The crammer argued, not only
wisely, but well, that a certain proportion of these questions were
pretty safe to be again propounded in subsequent contests, just as one
sees antique Joe Millers appear again and again, at regular recurring
intervals, in the excruciating "Facetiae" columns of those penny
serials, of limited merit and "unlimited circulation," that delight the
eyes and ears of below-stairs readers, the staple of whose mental
pabulum they principally form.

The crammer was right in his premises, as I've said, the old queries
being so frequently put and re-put, that they amount on average to fifty
per cent, at least, of the total number that may be set to-morrow, to
addle the brains of the Smiths, Browns, and Robinsons who may be
ambitious of serving their country in a red-tape capacity.

It has often struck me that the general principles of our national
system of education are open to considerable improvement.

We go to work on a wrong foundation.

Any plan of instruction, meant to be permanent in its effects, should be
homogeneous: we, on the contrary, so break up and divide the different
branches of ordinary knowledge, that they resemble more a number of
disconnected particles, loosely strung together without order or
uniformity, than the kindred units of a harmonious whole--as should
properly be the case.

We mark out and specify, geography, history, science, and Belles
Lettres, as distinct subjects for study--whereas, in reality, they
dovetail into one another in the closest bonds of relationship; and,
were they only thus judiciously intermingled, in one, thorough, co