32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from carrying on the mental processes which he ought to go through 

 for himself. In fact, the clearer the exposition by the lecturer, the 

 less is left to the student the lecturer, in fact, is the chief gainer by 

 the system. Moreover, while listening to a connected and logical un- 

 folding of the principles, the student is lulled into a false belief that, 

 as he understands all that has been so clearly presented to him, he 

 knows the subject quite well enough ; and the result is to send out a 

 number of conceited men who really can not carry on a rational eco- 

 nomic discussion. They wholly miss the discipline which gives ex- 

 actitude, mental breadth, keenness, and power to express themselves 

 plainly and to the point. Then, not being forced to think over a 

 principle in its application to various phases of concrete phenomena, 

 they know the principle only in connection with the illustrations given 

 by the lecturer, while they utterly fail to assimilate the principles into 

 their own thinking. The subject then becomes to them a matter of 

 memory. They memorize the general statements without ever real- 

 izing their practical side, and that which is memorized for the day of 

 examination is forgotten more speedily than it is learned, and the sum 

 total of the discipline has been simply a stretching of the memory. In 

 fact, with the average student in almost any subject the lecture system 

 leads to cramming, At the best, it affords a constant temptation to 

 put off that kind of internal struggle which must be gone through 

 with a period of doubts and questions by which alone a clearer con- 

 ception of the subject ultimately emerges. In fact, it is doubtful if 

 the student ever gets much, if any, of that mental attrition on the sub- 

 ject which is the most valuable part of the work. An experience of a 

 year in lecturing to a class of two hundred and fifty, including the 

 best and the poorest men in the university, convinced me of the truth 

 of the above position ; and their examination-books were the most un- 

 satisfactory I had read for years. 



The usual alternative to the lecture system is the plan of recitations 

 from a text-book. Even the simplest form of recitations is, in my 

 opinion, better than listening to lectures. At least, the student is put 

 to it to express the sense in words under the criticism of the teacher. 

 But this plan has its evident difficulties. If the pupil is called upon 

 for only what is contained in the book, he falls into the habit of mem- 

 orizing, and fails to think for himself. If you give him the clew, he 

 can tell you on what part of the page the statement is found, and can 

 put the idea in the language of the book ; but he knows nothing of the 

 power of applying it to what he sees. If the learner is very clever 

 and inquisitive, he may do something for himself, but the average pupil 

 quite misses the real good of such a course. 



2. As it is evident that neither lectures nor formal recitations in the 

 old fashion are satisfactory, we are inevitably led to adopt a plan 

 which possesses the advantages of both. Some text-book is essential 

 as a basis for the instruction. In it the pupil should find an exposition 



