JONE 20, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



931 



exercises is the more popular system of teach- 

 ing. This system has factors in its favor as 

 well as some objections. The reason why this 

 system is more popular in this country is, no 

 doubt, due primarily to the democratic nature 

 of all institutions. There is a tendency to 

 bring the instructors in the classroom nearer 

 to the students and to do away with the aloof- 

 ness in which English or German professors 

 hold their students, and while this has certain 

 advantages it also often has disadvantages in 

 lowering the faculty from a dignified position 

 in the eyes of the students. Along with this 

 condition there exists a popular sentiment 

 that many students should be graduated from 

 the state institutions whether they wish to go 

 through college or not. It is not at all to be 

 inferred from this statement that all these 

 state institutions have low standards of schol- 

 arship, but rather that a student who is con- 

 tinually coached along by an instructor will 

 finally graduate who never would graduate if 

 left to his own resources. It is believed, how- 

 ever, that a rigid examination system would 

 cull out a lot of these men and that a lower 

 percentage of mentally poor students would 

 graduate under such a system. Another rea- 

 son suggested for the popularity of the recita- 

 tion method in this country is the fact that 

 many of the students entering college are 

 younger and less mature, from an academic 

 standpoint, than in some other countries and 

 they therefore require more personal assist- 

 ance from their instructors. The greatest 

 factor in favor of the recitation method — and 

 there are those who regard this of sufficient 

 importance to offset all objections — is that if 

 a teacher be at all efficient even a slow student 

 must get a fairly clear idea of the subject 

 studied. On the other hand, the recitation is 

 liable to degenerate in colleges to a grade-school- 

 system of instruction. Where daily recitations 

 are required the student who recites satisfac- 

 torily is quite justified in demanding that the 

 results of these responses play an important 

 part in the calculation of his credits and the 

 result is that many instructors spend too much 

 of their time grading the students instead of 

 giving them the fundamentals of the subject. 



If the professor requires recitations on an as- 

 signed exercise he must demand that every 

 student respond to a satisfactory degree, be- 

 cause a student's failure to recite for several 

 successive periods has a demoralizing influ- 

 ence on the class as a whole. The professor is 

 therefore obliged to resort to some means of 

 forcing an inefficient student to prepare his 

 work, and in many institutions rash criti- 

 cisms or severe sarcasm are employed even in 

 dealing with mature postgraduate students. 

 Influences of this sort tend to lower the dig- 

 nity of the faculty, and, as a rule, little is 

 gained, because a man who will not do his best 

 in college, at least after he has passed his first 

 year, is seldom of much use after he leaves 

 the institution. If he be doing his best noth- 

 ing more should be expected of him; the re- 

 sults of his work reflect upon himself. The 

 system of questioning students is being car- 

 ried to such an extreme in this country that 

 text-books are sometimes issued which contain 

 the interrogatives, " why " and " how," in- 

 serted in the body of the text, thus taking 

 away from the instructor the credit for hav- 

 ing enough ability and initiative to ask neces- 

 sary questions and develop the subject as a 

 teacher with any enthusiasm or knowledge of 

 the subject might wish to develop it. Fortu- 

 nately such texts are designed chiefly for use 

 in the grade schools. 



In conclusion it may be said, as a result of 

 observations in the different countries men- 

 tioned, that the chief objections which can be 

 made to the lecture and rigid examination 

 system are that it is hard on the weak student 

 and gives the profligate too much freedom. 

 As a rule it cultivates a greater independence 

 of action and at the same time places the fac- 

 ulty in a more dignified position in the eyes 

 of the students. It is the best system for im- 

 parting a broad knowledge and promoting en- 

 thusiasm for a subject. 



The recitation of assigned test-book exer- 

 cises assists the student who is mentally weak, 

 as he can thus get a clearer grasp of the sub- 

 ject. This method is the most desirable for 

 teaching subjects in which reference is made 

 to a large amount of technical details, and it 



