TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. xiil 



pression, sometimes scarcely striking upon their ears? 

 Who has not witnessed amongst young people, between fel- 

 low students, disputes about what the professor has said, or 

 has not said, upon what was, or was not the opinion of this 

 one or that, although all of them may have listened to the 

 lecture which gave rise to the dispute ? How many errors 

 have been propagated in this w r ay ; what baseless contro- 

 versies have thus arisen ; how many men have, in this man- 

 ner, been even brought to hate each other ! 



He who listens to a lecture without reading afterwards, 

 may be compared to a painter who, having fixed his eye 

 upon a passing object, retires to draw its portrait, without 

 having the original before him. 



There is nothing in this, however, which argues against 

 oral teaching. This mode of instruction has the advantage 

 of bringing forward strong images, of keeping the atten- 

 tion awake, of rendering descriptions more clear, if not 

 more correct than those given in books, by mingling ges- 

 ture with vocal intonation. In a lecture, the professor can 

 watch the eyes of his auditors, and pass at once that which 

 a word has sufficed to render intelligible, or repeat the 

 same thing when he perceives it was not at first understood. 

 Writings carry with them only to a small extent this sort 

 of license ; in a lecture the eye and ear work together. 

 The eye is the only sense that acts in reading ; the memory 

 retains more readily what it receives from oral lessons than 

 what it gets by simple reading. In listening, the impres- 

 sions are more numerous, more vivid, more agreeable, more 

 natural perhaps ; but they are less complete, less exact, less 

 pure, less clear than those received from reading : there- 

 fore, if one is wrong in listening without reading, he would 

 be equally wrong to read and not listen. These two modes 

 of instruction mutually assist each other, and are not reci- 

 procally exclusive. If you would profit by them, listen, 

 and retain as much as you can, and then study the subject 



