Memory vs. Pondering

Several years ago, I found a delightful book in the dusty stacks of an airport used book store. The title, Education of the Founding Fathers of the Republic by Dr. James J. Walsh. It seems to hail ex libris of St. Francis Seminary's Salzmann Library.

One of Walsh's wanderings, while commenting on the Reverend Thomas Clap's tenure as president of Yale College, goes like this...

"What we are interested in particularly here is Clap's relation to the disputations and his intimate connection with the syllogistic training of mind which went with them. This same feature of college education is to be found... in all the colonial colleges. the departure from it represents that wandering off into the many featured course with a multitude and variety of all sorts of studies which gradually developed in the nineteenth century. This development brought with it many different reasons to complain that instruction has taken the place of education, that is that the cultivation of memory - the mere accumulation of facts - is replacing that study and pondering of principles, so valuable for bringing out powers of mind, which is represented by the etymology of the word education."

Hmmm.... the etymology of education from Webster, [L. educatus, past part. of educare to educate, fr. educere; see EDUCE.]

Now, the etymology of educe, [L. educere to lead forth, fr. e out + ducere to lead.] Meaning: to draw forth, as something not apparent; to elicit; evolve.

Instruction and cultivation of memory is pitted against the higher more noble endeavor of education which is the study and pondering of principles. And yet, there is nothing to ponder and study, nothing to "draw out" unless it is first put in. To "put in" means to be instructed in such a way that the mind orders information, ideas, facts, pictures, sayings, sounds, feelings, and even aromas. All of which is either thrown into the mind as a messy 3rd grader in his disheveled bedroom or orchestrated and premeditatingly designed as honeybees in an apiary.

Instruction serves education while not dictating. It courts, persuades; it is a means to education; a foundational stone; a piece that if lost then much, if not all, is lost. The one who memorizes her ABC's but cannot lift understanding of assembled letters off the page, has accomplished something but very little at the same time.

Even syllogisms are an art that needs discipline. But the rule is meant to serve the thought, and the thought the virtues of what is good and noble and beautiful.