printed notes. He buys or borrows a set, and, trusting in the ability of the compiler, applies himself to the comparatively easy undertaking of absorbing the course in its new form.

The tendency of the lecture to stimulate the production of unauthorized or even illegitimate text-books in the form of printed notes is, I believe, the result of an attempt on the part of the lecturer to furnish subject-matter in the place of instruction. To render subject-matter available is not instruction. No one can maintain that the student who has heard a purely informative lecture goes from it instructed in the data therein set forth. The data have been merely placed at his disposal; the first step only has been taken toward learning: the material is in his notes, not in his head, and the lecture itself takes little part in the process of acquisition. But the lecture is seldom purely a matter of data; there must usually be a residuum, be it of good or evil, of what the lecturer himself imparts to his subject. And this is what the student carries away; this is the instruction. The lecturer should not be burdened with the infinite and wearing detail involved in the complete presentation of a subject. The time has passed when the professor was sole mediator between the student and the archives of learning, and books have long ceased to be inaccessible treasures. What, then, may hinder a lecturer from shifting the burden of subjectdetail from his own shoulders to an impersonal receptacle-the text-book? There is, it is true, a text-book danger; but a greater danger lies in the tendency of the lecturer to merge himself in the impersonality of his lecture material, and to degenerate into an automatic text-book. To avoid this, let the instructor see to it that the mass of his subject be made available to the student, not by dictation and thence by means of faulty or inadequate transcriptions, but in the form of reliable, well-written books. The lack of such books must not provide an excuse for the annual repetition of the same lectures. In such a case the instructor's duty lies in one path: he must furnish his own text-book as an earnest that he conscientiously believes the light vouchsafed him is clearer than that granted to any other. If means are wanting, then let him place at the disposal of his students an amplified and carefully

revised edition of his own lecture notes, which shall be neither a snare to the student nor a discredit to himself. The lectures may now be used, to mold as it were, the dead subject-matter into a living shape; to give it not only unity, but personality. The student will first possess the subject-matter in a form profitable for study-then will receive from the lecturer the scholarly incentive.

Another supplemental resource of the student is the "compend"—a form of literature often found on the shelves of dealers in text-books, and especially medical text-books. It consists of an epitome, frequently in catechetic form, setting forth the "essentials" of a subject. Some of these books are by trustworthy compilers, and are published by reputable firms; they are concise and useful outlines of systematic subjects. Instructors, however, sometimes frown upon the compend, regarding it as a temptation to the student to neglect more profitable sources. I think that an inquiry into the motives that underlie the use of such aids would show in most cases that in the persistent use of the compend the student is seeking to supply the lack of synthesis and correlation in the instruction afforded him.

The office which the compend thus assumes is in reality an important function of the lecture-one which too often is completely obscured by unnecessary presentation of subject-matter. Engaged in constant acquisition of details, the student is in danger of losing sight of the form, significance, and relations of a subject in the analysis necessary for this acquisition. It is therefore the duty of the lecturer, while urging accuracy in detail, to draw the student's eye, for the time being, away from detail and to direct it upon mass. He may accomplish this: first, by reviewing the subject in outline, placing a printed syllabus in the hands of every student; secondly, by emphasizing relations-the interrelation of parts and the relations of the subject to allied subjects; thirdly, by "explaining type as illustration of the general principle," showing thereby how the individual may represent and simplify the aggregate, in the sense that a man may epitomize his epoch or an animal its group; and, finally, by giving a concise but comprehensive

summary at the end of the course, which may furnish an enduring cement for details not firmly incorporated. Let the instructor make good use of this synoptic function of the lecture, causing his students day by day to see and to understand as a whole the structure which they are building, and he may have the satisfaction of finding their examination papers orderly and coherent presentations of knowledge, instead of unassorted scraps from intellectual junk-shops.

The usefulness of the lecture might be extended in offering to students the preliminary advice which they so much need on entering upon long courses of study. A student seldom completes a technical or professional course without regret that he did not realize early in his training the importance of fundamental subjects neglected or approached half-heartedly at a time when their bearing upon subsequent work was not fully understood. Students could be saved such misfortune if their teachers, at the beginning of extended courses which lead up to life work, would set forth explicitly the relation of fundamental to professional subjects. Lectures with this purpose, delivered in short courses by men whose advice would have instant weight, would impart to the student a right perspective of the work of coming years, and establish for him a logical basis of action. The lecture may be made, in other words, a means of dispelling that insidious illusion that practice may develop and flourish apart from its source of nourishment, theory.

The lecture should also be left untrammeled for the introduction of new matter not yet incorporated in books; and especially for reference to sources, and for encouragement in thus seeking knowledge at first hand. Its province is not so much to impart knowledge as to inculcate methods by which knowledge may be gained-methods of observation and interpretation, and methods in the use of literature. Students care much less for the completely informed teacher than for him who says frankly, "I do not know," but who can suggest at once a good way of finding out.

Deprived of these directive uses peculiarly its own, the lecture fails to develop its greatest power-the exercise of

personality. Didactic lecturing, with its constant tendency to become formal and impersonal, may cause students, in their desire for more direct influence, to take refuge in private instruction. Recourse to a tutor is generally supposed to be confined to students who are naturally or incidentally backward. This is not, however, always the case. The average student enters college from a school where the relation of teacher to pupil has been personal. The new atmosphere is widely different; the larger system appears to the freshman a maze of novelty. Into this maze he plunges, and soon finds himself resolving an apparent chaos to routine order, while various threads of contact with instructors lend confidence and lead him hopefully onward. But some courses (notably the noncontact lecture courses) offer blank walls. A subject that should from its nature be attractive and full of incentive proves merely a great machine. Some students, feeling the lack of encouragement and directive influence, seek out a tutor; and, with self-confidence renewed from a little sympathetic guidance, they overtake courses that were fast outstripping them, regain interest, take the examinations and pass them well. The tutor merely provides that which was wanting in the lecture instruction-personality-and the student demands no more.

Whether students seek help from a tutor individually, or in small classes (as in the justly denounced "reviews" of cramming establishments, and in the approved and useful “quizclasses" of medical schools), the motive, whatever it may seem, cannot be divorced from the natural craving of every student for personality in teaching. The student should not be left to seek this outside. He needs and justly demands in his university life, not only opportunity, but influence; and his instructor, in furnishing the one, should not forget the obligation of exerting the other. Obviously, personal relations, man to man, can attain their fullest development in laboratory, recitation, and conference; but, once rid of the crippling load of subject detail, the lecture has a true function to subserve in bringing the professor into influential relation with his students. Free from the necessity of covering a subject, the lecturer may direct, advise, stimulate, and inspire.

In addressing responsive hearers he will prevent the text-book from becoming a thing apart-cold and repellent. Students will leave his presence instructed. They will carry away as a permanent acquisition what has been said about the subject, instead of the subject itself, piecemeal in their notes. The lecture will thus accomplish what it has so far almost vainly striven after-" the substitution of personality for print." FREDERICK HAVEN PRATT

WORCESTER, MASS.