In educational circles for the last half century or so, the words “rote memory” have become almost offensive to many. If the object of education is to teach people to think and to feel deeply, it seems either wasteful or damaging to require them at any level to memorize facts and lists. According to this idea, teaching rules of grammar may block the student’s creativity. Making him learn the multiplication table is a waste of his time when he can play store in school or buy a calculator cheaply in the check-out line.