Mechanical repetition in childhood builds the psychophysical habits scholarship later requires.

Evidence

Latin and Greek were learnt through their grammar, mechanically; but the accusation of formalism and aridity is very unjust and inappropriate. In education one is dealing with children in whom one has to inculcate certain habits of diligence, precision, poise (even physical poise), ability to concentrate on specific subjects, which cannot be acquired without the mechanical repetition of disciplined and methodical acts. Would a scholar at the age of forty be able to sit for sixteen hours on end at his work-table if he had not, as a child, compulsorily, through mechanical coercion, acquired the appropriate psycho-physical habits? — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 358

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is Gramsci’s account of how bodily-mental discipline is inculcated through mechanical education — a mechanism relevant to how norms and dispositions get embodied in subjects.