the textbook, with recitations in small classes. (2)
Next, the lecture gradually takes a larger place as the classes grow,
until, supplemented by required readings, it becomes the main tool of
instruction, this being the cheapest and easiest way to take care of
the rapidly growing enrollment. (3) Then, when this proves
unsatisfactory, the lectures are perhaps cut down to two a week, and
the class is divided into quiz sections for one meeting a week under
assistants or instructors, the lecture still being the main center of
the scheme of teaching. (4) This still being unsatisfactory (partly
because it lacks oversight of the students' daily work, and partly
because the lecture is unsuited to the development of general
principles that require careful and repeated study for their mastery),
a textbook is made the basis of section meetings, held usually twice a
week, and the lectures are reduced to one a week, given to the
combined class, and so changed in character as to be merely
supplementary to the class work. The lectures are given either in
close connection week by week with the class work or bearing only a
general relation with the term's work as a whole. This may be deemed
the prevailing mode today in institutions where the introductory
course has a large enrollment.[24] (5) Another change completes the
cycle; the lecture is dropped and the class is divided, each section,
consisting of twenty to thirty students, meeting with the same teacher
regularly for class work. This change was made after mature
consideration in "the College" in Columbia University; is in operation
in Chicago University, where the meetings are held five times a week;
and has been adopted more recently still in New York University. There
have been for years evidences of the growing desire to abolish the
lecture from the introductory course and also to limit its use in some
of the special undergraduate courses. The preceptorial plan adopted in
1905 by Princeton University is the most notable instance of the
latter change.[25] Even in graduate teaching in economics there has
been a growing opinion and practice favorable to the "working" course
or "seminar" course to displace lecture courses.[26] Thus the lecture
seems likely to play a less prominent role, especially in the
introductory courses, but it is not likely to be displaced entirely in
the scheme of instruction.

=Selection of a textbook=

Numerous American textbooks on political economy (t