Word: grinding
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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Some few happy men find pleasure in books, - ay, and in books that are not novels, - and grind, with blissful visions of required studies anticipated; but many, though dreading the approach of the awful "last Thursday," are crushed under that most oppressive of "soft things," - a thirteen weeks' vacation...
...doubt it was expected to appear when wanted; and if not, it would not make much difference. Those who were foolish enough to choose such a study could wait eight or ten weeks well enough; or they could drop the study when they became tired of waiting, and grind up a little back work in some other branch. It would do them good, both by inculcating the habit of industry and by illustrating the terrible uncertainty of human expectations...
...evils are these: First, cramming. It is true any vague objection to a way of study is generally expressed by calling it cramming. But though it is doubtful or false that a prolonged grind for an examination in which the student gets a general understanding of his subject is mentally destructive, no one can question the danger of merely committing to memory a mass of details, both when general relations are not grasped by the student's own efforts, and also when they are given to him as they are in a syllabus. Cramming of this kind certainly does...
...matches with Yale; and if we had these now, there would be an opportunity for some persons to engage in intercollegiate rivalry who have not the muscle and endurance for rowing on the crew, nor the skill and strength requisite for playing on the nine, nor the powers of "grind" which will perhaps be essential in the future to competition for intercollegiate scholarships...