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Updated: September 12, 2025
Thus we are discovering the wisdom of the saying, that one secret in education is "to know how wisely to lose time." The once universal practice of learning by rote, is daily falling more into discredit. All modern authorities condemn the old mechanical way of teaching the alphabet. The multiplication table is now frequently taught experimentally.
Egmont possessed more of conscience than of fixed principles; his head had not given him a code of its own, but had merely learnt it by rote; the mere name of any action, therefore, was often with him sufficient for its condemnation.
When they leave school they can read, write, add, subtract, divide, and multiply after a fashion; they can mispronounce a few French words, without being able to construct a single grammatical sentence or understand a syllable that is said to them; they know enough shorthand to write down simple words at one half the speed of ordinary handwriting; and they have acquired by rote a few dry facts from history and geography, all of which will be totally obliterated from their memories within a space of twelve months.
Tristram played upon his rote, and the sound reached the ears of Isoude, who became so deeply affected, that Sir Palamedes was induced to return with her to land, that they might see the unknown musician.
Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass and God would forgive her.
A half truth which we have won for ourselves is worth more than a whole truth learned from others, learned by rote as a parrot learns. A truth which we accept with closed eyes, submissively, deferentially, servilely such a truth is nothing but a lie. Stand erect! Open your eyes and look about you! Be not afraid! The modicum of truth which you can secure by your own efforts is your safest light.
From now on she gave this talent full play, memorising even pages of the history book in her zeal; and before many weeks had passed, in all lessons except those in arithmetic you could not, alas! get sums by rote she was separated from Inez and Bertha by the width of the class.
They knew how to go the readiest way to work; and seeing that science, when most rightly applied and best understood, can do no more but teach us prudence, moral honesty, and resolution, they thought fit, at first hand, to initiate their children with the knowledge of effects, and to instruct them, not by hearsay and rote, but by the experiment of action, in lively forming and moulding them; not only by words and precepts, but chiefly by works and examples; to the end it might not be a knowledge in the mind only, but its complexion and habit: not an acquisition, but a natural possession.
All the morning calls I ever saw were formal, every one stiff, and speaking by rote, or talking politics. How glad I used to be to get on horseback again! But to see these why, it is like the shepherd's glimpse at the pixies! as one reads a new book, or watches what one only half understands a rook's parliament, or a gathering of sea-fowl on the Shag Rock. 'A rook's parliament?
The doctor's counsels were all forgotten, of course, or remembered only in odd moments, as when going to bed, or shaving in the morning. Then I would promise myself reformation when the book was finished. That done I would live by rote and acquire bucolic health, I told myself. In most respects that period was thoroughly typical of my life during the next half dozen years.
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