930 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 964 



structor and the students because lecture 

 classes are frequently very large. It is also 

 often erroneous because the student is sur- 

 prised to find later how familiar a discerning 

 lecturer has become with his characteristics, 

 from seeing him day after day in the lecture 

 hall. 



The fact that the student feels free during 

 the year to follow his own desires, but at the 

 same time knows that the responsibility for 

 his conduct falls upon his own shoulders, has 

 much in its favor for most students, although 

 it is detrimental to some. In the better class 

 of students it develops a certain independence 

 of action and thought which better fits them 

 for the responsibilities they must assume 

 after leaving college, while in the students who 

 are weak morally it often cultivates undesir- 

 able habits which lead to excesses. In Ger- 

 many, where the university students are left 

 almost entirely to themselves during the first 

 two years of their academic life, the results of 

 absence of restraint are expressed in the large 

 amount of social immorality which is said to 

 exist among German students. No doubt this 

 freedom in college life is largely responsible 

 for the conditions which led Bismarck to say 

 that one third of the German students are 

 never heard of, one third " gehen zum Teufel " 

 and the other third rule Germany. 



An objection to the lecture-examination 

 system which is frequently raised, is that too 

 much stress is laid on the final examination. 

 It is said that good students often do not do 

 themselves justice because of undue mental 

 and physical strain and that the work is ne- 

 glected until the last few weeks or months of 

 the term, then crammed up for the final ex- 

 amination and immediately forgotten. It is 

 no doubt true that most students can make a 

 much better showing on daily recitations than 

 when called upon to discuss a whole term's 

 work, but, after all, the test which tries out a 

 man for the larger spheres of his future life, 

 is not that of holding enough matter in his 

 mind to recite one day's assignment, but 

 rather at the end of a term, or year to be able 

 to sum up and round out the whole season's 

 work. The greater benefits derived from a 



college course consist not in the abundance of 

 details remembered from the text-books — be- 

 cause that is necessarily small — but rather in 

 the inspiration for achievement and the ca- 

 pacity for work which a man develops by 

 studying under enthusiastic and capable in- 

 structors. In preparing for the final examina- 

 tions, during the last few weeks or months of 

 the year, the student cultivates the ability to 

 do the greatest amount of work in the least 

 possible time, and a man now connected with 

 a large conunercial firm in Chicago once re- 

 marked to the writer that the best training 

 for his future business career which he ever 

 received was in preparing for the severe final 

 examinations in one of the universities where 

 the lecture-examination system is used. 



There are certain features in the lecture 

 system which are of advantage in the develop- 

 ment of the instructor. To lecture properly 

 a professor must have his subject well in 

 hand, and, on the whole, he requires a much 

 broader grasp of it than he who teaches from 

 a text-book. While only few men make first- 

 class teachers, I believe there are many men 

 who might pass as teachers who would be com- 

 plete failures at lecturing. A lecturer, as a 

 rule, aims to eliminate all material not essen- 

 tial to the proper exposition of his subject, and 

 when the subject is properly presented the 

 student carrying a heavy course absorbs and 

 remembers the outstanding features of the 

 subject without having them obliterated by a 

 great mass of unnecessary text-book details. 

 It may be said that when the material is thus 

 presented the student neglects collateral read- 

 ing and the charge may be made that students 

 educated under the lecture system are defi- 

 cient in this line of study because the lectures 

 usually contain the information demanded by 

 the examination papers. If the lecture course 

 is properly conducted, however, it is easier to 

 require collateral reading than when a text- 

 book is used, because the student may become 

 familiar with the text assigned, but it is diffi- 

 cult to persuade him to go beyond its covers. 



While the lecture system is employed in 

 many of the universities and colleges of the 

 United States the daily recitation of assigned 



