110 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vi. 



medical sehools. This method consists of three elements 

 — lectures, demonstrations, and examinations. 



The object of lectures is, in the first place, to awaken 

 the attention and excite the enthusiasm of the student ; 

 and this, I am sure, may be effected to a far greater 

 extent by the oral discourse and by the personal influence 

 of a respected teacher than in any other way. Secondly, 

 lectures have the double use of guiding the student 

 to the salient points of a subject, and at the same 

 time forcing him to attend to the whole of it, and not 

 merely to that part which takes his fancy. And lastly, 

 lectures afford the student the opportunity of seeking 

 explanations of those difficulties which will, and indeed 

 ought to, arise in the course of his studies. 



But for a student to derive the utmost possible value 

 from lectures, several precautions are needful. 



I have a strong impression that the better a discourse 

 is, as an oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow 

 of the discourse carries you on without proper atten- 

 tion to its sense ; you drop a word or a phrase, you 

 lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you 

 strive to recover yourself, the speaker has passed on 

 to something else. 



The practice I have adopted of late yccars, in lecturing 

 to students, is to condense the substance of the hour's 

 discourse into a few dry propositions, which are read 

 slowly "and taken down from dictation ; the reading of 

 each being followed by a free commentary, expanding 

 and illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and 

 removing any difficulties that may be attackable in 

 that way, by diagrams made roughly, and seen to 

 grow under the lecturer's hand. In this manner you, 

 at any rate, insure the co-operation of the student to 

 a certain extent. He cannot leave the lecture-room 

 entirely empty if the taking of notes is enforced ; and 



