The Education Joke Page

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."

--English professor's written comment on student's paper.

Logic 101

Two rednecks agreed that they weren't going anywhere in life and decided they should go to college to get ahead. The first redneck then went and saw an undergraduate advisor, who told him to take math, history, and logic.

"What's 'logic'?" the first redneck asked.

The professor answered by saying, "Let me give you an example. Do you own a weed-eater?"

"I sure do."

"Then I can assume, using logic, that you have a yard," replied the professor.

"That's real good!" said the redneck.

The professor continued, "Logic will also tell me that since you have a yard, you also own a house."

Impressed, the redneck said, "Amazin!"

"And since you own a house, logic dictates that you have a wife."

"That's Betty Mae! This is incredible!" The redneck was obviously catching on.

"Finally, since you have a wife, logically I can assume that you are heterosexual," said the professor.

"You're absolutely right! Why that's the most fascinatin' thing I ever heard! I cain't wait to take that logic class!"

The redneck, proud of the new world opening up to him, walked back into the hallway, where his friend was waiting.

"So what classes are ya takin'?" asked the friend.

"Math, history, and logic!" replied the first redneck.

"What in tarnation is 'logic?'" asked his friend.

"Let me give you an example. Do ya own a weed-eater?" asked the first redneck.

"No," his friend replied.

"You is queer, ain't ya?"

A Supposedly True Story

Harvard....

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into president's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods country hicks had no business at Harvard, and probably didn't even deserve to be at Cambridge. She frowned.

"We want to see the president," the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait," the lady replied. For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away.

They didn't.

The secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was something she always regretted doing.

"Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him.

And he sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus".

The president wasn't touched, he was shocked. "Madam," he said gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery".

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly, "we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard".

For a moment the lady was silent.

The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now.

And then the lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded.

The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

And Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the university that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them." --Malcolm Forbes

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

This is reputed to be a true story from the Engineering Dept. of Texas A&M University.

A physics professor had written a take-home exam for his graduate students. The exam consisted of only one question: "Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."

Most students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed), or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing with time. Thus, we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell, and the rate they are leaving. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people don't belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we must look at the rate of change of the volume of Hell, because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to remain the same, the volume of Hell must expand as souls are added. This produces two possibilities:

(1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure of Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

(2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase in the number of souls entering Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So, which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my freshman year, "It will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you!" and taking into account the fact that I have not succeeded in sleeping with her, then #2 cannot be true, so Hell is exothermic.

The student received an "A" in the class.