Children's Minds

The tradition of memorization did not survive the progressive revolution in American schools. A century ago, progressive educators first voiced the arguments that would have such an unfortunate effect in U.S. classrooms. To impose classic poetry and rhetoric on young minds was, these theorists maintained, an oppressive act.

Not just the memorization, but the literary culture at the heart of the exercise, was, they claimed, sterile and unfruitful, and promoted a culture of servility harmful to the free creative play of the mind.

“We must overcome the fetichism of the alphabet, of the multiplication table, of grammars, of scales, and of bibliolatry,” progressive educator G. Stanley Hall said in 1901. “The true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities.”

So explains Michael Knox Beran in an excellent article called "In Defense of Memorization" (City Journal 2004).

I've been musing about memorization lately, because in the past couple of weeks my children--ages 9, 11, and 13--have memorized this:

To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

And this:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.

This began when, one morning at breakfast, the boys startled me by quoting the first five lines of Hamlet's soliloquy.

"Where did you learn that?" I asked. We homeschool, after all, and I was certain they hadn't picked it up from their neighborhood buddies while, say, wearing cardboard boxes and playing Sumo Wrestler, which was what they'd all been doing out in the front yard the day before.

Actually, though, that wasn't far from the truth. "We were reading Calvin and Hobbes," they said, "And Calvin's yucky dinner raised up on his plate and started talking. That is what it said."

I considered this. "If you've already learned that much, you might as well learn some more." And they did, with great enthusiasm, no doubt imagining Calvin's dinner all the while.

A few days later I happened to watch Emma Thompson's Wit--an excellent movie--which resulted in my muttering lines from Donne as I washed dishes the next day. The kids wanted to know what I was saying. I told them, and considered--wouldn't Donne's portrayal of death be a nice balance to Hamlet's? "Why don't you memorize this next," I said, and within two or three days, they had--and so had I. We worked on it together.

Did they understand every word? Not at first, no. I gave them a general explanation, but I'm pretty sure the nine-year-old didn't truly understand most of Donne's poem until he'd memorized it and then recited it ten or twelve times. He likes to recite it; he likes the way the words feel. And somehow, gradually, the meaning sinks in.

Now they want to know what they can memorize next.

The progressives’ educational philosophy is only superficially a philosophy of liberty. The progressive exercises in “guided fantasy” and “sensitivity training” that have replaced memorization and recitation do little to free kids’ selves.

The older techniques, by contrast, are genuinely liberating. They build up in the child a more powerful mental instrument, one that will allow him, in later life, to make good use of his freedom.

They cultivate those critical powers that enable an educated adult to question authority intelligently.

The older techniques also unlock doors in the interior world of the soul. Classic poetry and rhetoric give kids a language, at once subtle and copious, in which to articulate their own thoughts, perceptions, and inchoate feelings. They help awaken what was previously dormant, actualize what was before only potential, and so enable the young person to fulfill the injunction of Pindar: “Become what you are."