an effective lecturer, possessed of commanding personality, the lecture gives a point of view of a subject and an enthusiasm for it which other devices fail to achieve. The lecture method makes for economy of time and enables one to present his subject to his class with a succinctness absent from many textbooks. Where much must be taught in a limited time, where a comprehensive view of an extensive field must be given, when certain types of -responses or mental attitudes are desired, the lecture serves well.

of lecture

method

Experience teaches that an exclusive lecture system is, mal worth not conducive to efficient work; that lectures to regular classes ought to be punctuated by questions whenever interest lags; that the occasional and even the unannounced lecture is more effective; that supplementary devices for checking up assignments and regular collateral study are of vital importance. Where regular lectures are followed by detailed analyses in quiz sections the best results are obtained when the lecturer himself is the questioner. Where quiz sections are turned over to assistants, wise procedure requires that quiz leaders attend the lectures and decide, in conference with the lecturer, the specific aims which must be achieved in the quiz work and the assigned readings which must be given to students in preparation for each quiz hour. Unless this is done, the student is frequently confused by the divergent points of view presented by lecturer, quiz master, and textbook.

The development method has much to commend it. It stimulates activity by its repeated questions. Few or no notes are taken. There is constant contact with the student. At every point the mental content of the pupils is revealed. The teacher sees the result of his teaching by the intelligence of successive responses. The pupil is being trained in systematic thought and in concentration. But it must be remembered that the development method is often costly in time because answers may be wrong or irrelevant. It may encourage wandering; a student's reply reveals ignorance of a basic principle, and the aim

Place of reference reading in college teaching

Evaluation

of development-Socratic or heuristic method

of the lesson is often forgotten in the eagerness to patch up this misconception. Then, too, in subject matter that is arbitrary, as in descriptive and narrative history, no development is possible. In such cases the questions are designed to test the student's knowledge of the text, and the lesson becomes a quiz rather than a development.

It is plain, therefore, that a judicious combination of the lecture and development methods will give better results than the exclusive use of either one. The analysis of the pedagogical advantages of each leads to the conclusion that the development method should predominate and that the lecture method should be used sparingly and always with some of the checking devices described.

A common method employed in advanced courses in college subjects emphasizes reference study and research. The entire course is reduced to a series of problems, each of which deals with a vital aspect of the subject. Each student is made responsible for a topic. The initial hours are devoted to an examination of the common sources of information in this specific subject, the modes of using these, the standards to be attained in writing a paper on one of the topics, and similar matters. The remainder of the term is given over to seminar work: each student reads his paper and holds himself in readiness to answer all questions his classmates may ask on his topic. The aims of such a course are obviously to develop a knowledge of sources and an ability to use intelligently the unorganized data found by the student. The results of these pseudoseminar courses are far from what was anticipated. A thorough investigation of such a course will soon convince the teacher that the seminar method, whatever its merits in university training, must be refined and diluted before it is applied to college teaching. Let us see why.

Successful reference reading requires a knowledge of the field studied, maturity of mind, discriminating judgment in the selection of material, and ability in organization. The university student is not only maturer and more serious but has a basis of broader knowledge than most under

graduates. Without this equipment of mental powers and knowledge, the student cannot judge the merits of contending views nor harmonize seeming discrepancies. A student who has no ample foundation of economics cannot study the subject by reference reading on the problems of economics. To learn the meaning of value he would read the psychological explanations of the Austrian schools and the materialistic conceptions of the classical writers. He would then find himself in a state of confusion, owing to what seemed to him to be a superfluity of explanations of value. When one understands one point of view, an added viewpoint is a source of greater clarity and a means of deeper understanding. But when one is entirely ignorant of fundamental concepts, two points of view presented simultaneously become two sources of confusion. In the university only the student of tried worth is permitted to take a seminar course. In the upper classes in college, mediocre students are often welcomed into a seminar course in order to help float an unpromising elective.

of seminar

graduate

The college seminar is usually unsuccessful because Limitations few students have ability to hold the attention of their method in classmates for a period of thirty minutes or undermore. Language limitations, lack of a knowledge of subject teaching matter, inability to illustrate effectively, and the skeptical attitude of fellow students all militate against successful teaching by a member of the class. Students presenting papers often select unimportant details or give too many details. The rest of the class listen languidly, take occasional notes, and ask a few perfunctory questions to help bring the session to a close. A successful hour is rare. The student who prepared the topic of the day undoubtedly is benefited, but those who listen acquire little knowledge and less power. The course ends without a comprehensive view of the entire subject, without that knowledge which comes from the teacher's leadership and instruction. This type of reference reading and research has value when used as an occasional ten or fifteen minute exercise to

Value of laboratory method

supplement certain aspects of class work. But as a steady diet in a college course, the seminar usually leaves much to be desired.

The laboratory method is growing in favor today in college teaching. It is employed in the social sciences, in sociology, in economics, in psychology, in education, as well as in the physical and the biological sciences. Where it is followed the aim is clearly twofold; viz., to teach the method by which the specific subject is growing and to develop in the students mental power and a scientific attitude towards knowledge.

-Let us illustrate these two aims of the laboratory method. A laboratory course in chemistry or biology or sociology may be designed to teach the student the use of apparatus and equipment necessary for work in a respective field; the method of attacking a problem; a standard for distinguishing significant from immaterial data; methods of gathering facts; the modes of keeping scientific records,— in a word, the essence of the experience of successive generations of investigators and contributors. But no successful laboratory results can be obtained without a proper mental attitude. The student must learn how to prevent his mental prepossessions or his desires from coloring his observations; to allow for controls and variables; to give most exacting care to every detail that may influence his result; to regard every conclusion as a tentative hypothesis subject to verification or modification in the light of further test. Unless the student acquires a knowledge of the method of science and has achieved these necessary modes of thought, his laboratory course has failed to make its most significant contribution.

In courses where the aim is to teach socially necessary information or to give a comprehensive view of the scope of a specific subject, it is obvious that the laboratory method will lead far afield. It is for this reason that introductory courses given in recitations, with demonstrations by instructors, and occasional lecture and laboratory hours, are more liberalizing in their influence upon the

beginners than courses that are primarily laboratory in character.

the use of

Most laboratory courses would enhance their usefulness Cautions in by observing a few primary pedagogical maxims. The the labora first of these counsels that we establish most clearly the tory method distinctive aim of the course. The instructor must be sure that he has no quantitative aim to attain but is occupied rather with the problems of teaching the method of his specialty. Second, an earnest effort must be made to acquaint the students with the general aim of the entire course as well as with the specific aim of each laboratory exercise. The students must be made to realize that they are not discovering new principles but that by rediscovering old knowledge or testing the validity of well-established truths they are developing not only the technique of investigational work, but also a set of useful mental habits. Much in laboratory work seems needless to the student who does not perceive the goal which every task strives to attain.

A third requisite for successful laboratory work requires so careful a gradation that every type of problem peculiar to a subject is made to arise in the succession of exercises. It is wise at times to set a trap for students so that they may learn through the consequences of error. For this reason students may be permitted to leap to a conclusion, to generalize from insufficient data, to neglect controls, to overlook disturbing factors, etc. An improperly planned and poorly graded laboratory course repeats exercises that involve the same problems and omits situations that give training in attacking and solving new problems.

Effective laboratory courses afford opportunity to students to repeat those exercises in which they failed badly. If each exercise in the course is designed to make a specific contribution to the development of the student, it is obvious that merely marking the student zero for a badly executed experiment is not meeting the situation. He must in addition be given the opportunity to repeat the