laiiiiary, 



1111 



SC 1 K N 'I' I I' I (' A (i l; 1 (■ r LT I) R K 



r.\ 



riKii'e kiKiwiedge and thereby to Imild still more. In 

 our educational institutions the teacher is tlie inter- 

 mediary between tlie knowledge and the absorber of 

 knowledge. It is his i'unctiori to see that the knowledge 

 is made available but it is impossible for him to func- 

 tion in the absorption of that knowledge. Many mis- 

 taken teachers try to do this by "spoon-feeding" with 

 the inevitable results that the spoon-fed individual is 

 a helpless incompetent specimen. The major fact that 

 knowledge is power only when obtained by personal 

 effort is entirely forgotten. How often one hears the 

 lament "I am sure I explained it clearly enough 1" The 

 explanation may have been as lucitl as possible but the 

 unfortunate student either did not pa^^eissthe necessai\y 

 liackground of knowledge or he did not enter actively 

 into the thinking participation. If the former is the 

 case he should not be "taking" the subject, if the 

 latter, the fault is wnth the system. 



Theaveragesitudent comes to College, with a big "C," 

 but does not know exactly for wjiat he comes except 

 that he would like a B.S.A. He knows he has tio put in 

 four years, take many hundreds of lectures and pasi al- 

 most as many examinations. If he comes out alive, well 

 and goofl. He gi-ows from Freshman to Sophomore, to 

 Junior and finally to Senior and Graduate, but that he 

 grows commensurately in thinking ability is an open 

 ([uestion as far as College education goes. It is usually 

 after lie graduates that the thinking begins and it is to 

 be hoped he is charitable in disposition. 



It is very easy to be critical destructively and such 

 criticism is useless unless a remedy is offered, which 

 the writer will attempt to do. 



In laboratory exercises the last ten \-ears has seen 

 a radical change so that now it is usual to arrange a 

 complete series of studies each of which entails careful 

 thought and decision as to facts in relation to known or 

 given facts. 



But this cannot be said of lectures, in which there 

 are common and outstanding faults. The student is 

 given a liody of facts, beautifully arranged perhaps, 

 but involving the takmg of voluminous notes (or none 

 in despair). Later comes a recitation in the process 

 of which the lecturer gets back his own words from the 

 student. This has been well-desci-il)ed as a "cram and 

 emetic" system. 



There is absolutely no vitality in it and it is merely 

 a mechanical preparation for tiie passing of the author- 

 ized examinations. It is an accepted fact among edu- 

 cators that there is no impression without corresponding 

 expression, and thatit is not in its apprehension but in 

 its expression that a truth finally becomes a part of our 

 body of knowledge. It follows from this that there 

 must be a very active partici|nition on the part of the 

 student in the ab.sorption of knowledge. Inst<»ad of 

 lieing given a mass of facts which are usually in- 

 digestible and correspondingly discouraging he must be 

 made able to handle the facts. The suggestion is offered 

 that students deliver more "lectures" than the teacher. 

 Certain topics ma.v be directly assigned to specific 

 members of the class, others may be general so that 

 no student knows upon whom the office of lecturer will 

 fall for that topic, and again the teacher may lecture 

 without notice. The danger in too many assigned 

 topics is that other members of the class will not pre- 

 pare those topics. This is balanced by the second method 

 of calling n])oji any member of the class. Then the lec- 

 tures b\- the teacher interiiersing those b\' the students 



should tend to show them the best way to handle a 

 given topic. 



Tliei-e are some obvious advantages in this method. 

 Lf a student knows that he may be called upon to dis- 

 cuss or explain a given fact or topic he will, in justice 

 to himself, think about it. He will ask himself wheit/ier 

 he understands it sufficiently well to explain it to his 

 fellows. This will require more thinking and will give 

 him new lin'ht on the .subject. Ten minutes of such 

 thinking will be of more value to that student than one 

 hour of fact-cramming in a lecture, or fact-emitting in 

 a recitation. He will be obliged to co-ordinate his 

 ideas and handle them before the class, satisfactorily 

 to the class. His fellow members will question him far 

 more than they would the teacher as a rule. In case of 

 difficulty the teacher is at hand to guide and suggest 

 but not to spoon-feed. He will already have prescribed 

 the necessary literatui-e whether text, pamphlet or 

 bulletin, etc., and it may be necessary to modify the 

 prescription or add to it. In anj' case one serious dif- 

 ficulty, is overcome. We are very apt to forget our 

 student days and our mental struggles when attempting 

 to assimilatte certain required subjects. Our pers- 

 pective is now essentially modified by our added knowl- 

 edge and try as we will it is impossiitle actually to 

 assume the student's perspective. We take facts for 

 granted and complete a lectixre feeling that we have 

 done creditably. Perhaps a week or more later we are 

 asked a simple question showing that by taking the 

 fact for granted we had made a mistake. By having 

 members of the class try the explaining we see more the 

 viewpoint of the student and should modify our ideas 

 accordingly. This is especially necessary for those who, 

 whilst .still doing some teac/iing, are engaged on special 

 research: 



To my mind, altho' perhaps I am somewhat biassed, 

 the success or non-success of a college in its educational 

 function is shown by the use made by the students of 

 its Library-. Good and increa.sing use would he made 

 of the literature available by the method suggestied. 



Finally this method wouhl effectively do away with 

 that joy of the dogmatic "scholasticist" and that bane 

 of education — " the examination." Any teacher who 

 could not determine whether his student was fit or 

 not to pass on after that student had lectured perhaps 

 ten or fifteen times during the term, should be laying 

 bricks. In any case tests could always be set without 

 prior notice and these would, in conjunction with the 

 lectures and laboratory work, give a far fairer estimate 

 of the students, thinking ability than a final examina- 

 tion. 



Sir John Lubbock says of British education: "Our 

 great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the 

 worship of book-learning — the confusion of instruction 

 with education. We strain the memory instead of cul- 

 tivating the mind." — (The Plea.sures of Life). 



This criticism is just as ajiplicable to nnu'h of our 

 Canadian education todav. 



BOTANICAL ABSTRACTS. 



A request has been received from the Board of Con- 

 trol of "Botanical Abstracts" that the Canadian Society 

 of Technical Agriculturists should participate in the 

 nuinagement of that publication. The matter is now in 

 the hands of the Dominion Executive Committee of 

 the C. S. T. A. and it is likely- that two members of the 

 Society will be appointed at an early date to hold office 

 for two and four years respectively on the Board of 

 Control of Botanical Abstracts. 



