VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|TD|DATE|1379194325|CONTENT|What does this remind you of? 

It&#039;s from Tom Sawyer [1876] and it describes the compositions that were declaimed on &#039;Examination Day&#039; in a small-town school in Missouri in the time of Mark Twain&#039;s childhood in the 1840s:

&#039;...A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of &quot;fine language&quot;; another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a peculiarity that conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them. No matter what the subject might be, a brainracking effort was made to squirm it into some aspect or other that the moral and religious mind could contemplate with edification. The glaring insincerity of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the banishment of the fashion from the schools, and it is not sufficient today; it never will be sufficient while the world stands, perhaps....&#039;

Anne Atkins, anyone?|EMAIL|tomdeveson@gmail.com|IP-ADDRESS|82.44.154.237|MODERATIONFLAG|