xii TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. 



as to having rightly understood the text, before confiding 

 it to the memory, we have it in our power to review those 

 passages which seem to us either obscure or extravagant ; 

 the book is still there, opening its leaves to whomsoever 

 would consult it again, patiently submitting to all kinds 

 of questions that it may be thought necessary to propound. 

 But the lecture is fugitive and instantaneous. In reading, 

 on the contrary, nothing hinders comparison, or prevents 

 the judgment from being exercised almost at the same 

 time with the memory ; for here we have the expressions 

 of the author remaining unchanged. In a lecture, of all 

 the faculties of the mind, scarcely any other than that of 

 memory is in active play ; for, it is absolutely necessary, 

 first to catch the words of the professor ; and then, how is 

 one to be certain that he has not misunderstood what he 

 believed he heard? A word, or a phrase lost, a paren- 

 thesis badly placed in the discourse, a second of inat- 

 tention, are enough to lead the auditor into gross mistakes. 

 To what individual has it not happened, in a simple con- 

 versation, to be under the necessity, before clearly compre- 

 hending, to require the repetition of the same thing once, 

 or even oftener by his interlocutor ? 



How then is it possible not to be mistaken in simply lis- 

 tening to a lecture, in which all cannot be clear, where the 

 thoughts and phrases succeed each other with such rapidity, 

 where the words require, as it were, to be seized upon at 

 the moment of utterance and placed in reserve by the me- 

 mory, and not to be submitted, until after a lapse of time, 

 by the pupil, to all the intellectual operations necessary 

 for judgment or deduction of opinion ? If it is sometimes 

 difficult and even impossible for grave and intelligent men 

 to agree upon the sense designed to be conveyed in the 

 written phrases of an author, which are under their eyes, 

 how can you expect students to be more successful in ac- 

 quiring the meaning of words which make a passing iin- 



