Isaac Wilks

Bandari quoting Norman Doidge: during 19C & 20C “a classical education often included rote memorization of long poems in foreign languages, which strengthened the auditory memory (hence thinking in language) and an almost fanatical attention to handwriting, which probably helped

strengthen motor capacities and thus not only helped handwriting but added speed and fluency to reading and speaking.” These pedagogical techniques were gradually discontinued in the 60’s, as they were considered “too rigid, boring, and ‘not relevant.’”

the loss of “the only opportunity that many students had to systematically exercise the brain function that gives us fluency and grace with symbols” led to a “general decline in eloquence, which requires memory and a level of auditory brain-power unfamiliar to us now.”