Cramming seeks to stamp things in by intense application immediately before the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can form but few associations.
Interpretation
Cramming is an ineffective learning method that lacks depth in understanding.
William James emphasizes that cramming, while it may lead to short-term memorization, does not facilitate a deeper understanding or connection of knowledge. Knowledge obtained through such rushed methods is often superficial and fails to create lasting associations that enhance learning and retention.
In practice
A teacher could use this quote to explain the importance of thorough study habits to students.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
In fragile and conflict-affected states, education can insulate children from chaos and insecurity and better prepare them to bring about future stability.
Music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.
I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.
To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was 10, with a biography of Thomas Edison.
You have to know human behaviour β¦ And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. Youβll never write above what you know about people.
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