posed to put into our note books every golden word that dropt from
his inspired lips. And the most of us tried to do so, and in the effort
got down some that were not golden. I did as the rest did till one day,
fresh from the lecture, I went into the library and chanced upon a copy
of Burt's "History of Greek Philosophy." I opened it and shortly found
the very discussion, and some of the very sentences, word for word, that
I had just copied with so much labor into my note book. And they were in
print, too, so much easier to read than my note book writing! I at once
sent to the publisher for a copy of the book and took no more notes in
that course. Nor did I take any more courses under that instructor.

And so it was in a course in history--only there the kind old professor
was naive enough to tell us the name of the book from which he got his
lectures. And again, let me say that history repeats itself. Am I wrong
in my criticism? Let me quote from one whose words carry more weight
than do mine--Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia
University--(Ed. Rev. Apr., 1915, p. 399): "To use--or rather to
abuse--the academic lecture by making it a medium for the conveyance of
mere information is to shut one's eyes to the fact that the art of
printing has been discovered. The proper use of the lecture is the
critical interpretation by the older scholar of the information which
the younger has gained for himself. Its object is to inspire and to
guide and by no means merely to inform."

I do not mean to condemn the lecture method absolutely. There are
certain lines of work in which it is quite necessary. This is true in
some advanced courses, especially in the sciences, where an instructor
is doing both lines of university work--carrying on research and giving
his advanced students the results of his findings. Of course these have
not yet been embodied in a text or other printed form and cannot be thus
given.

And this same justification can be urged for some of the work in our
professional schools where both the material used and the end sought are
different. In still another line of work the lecture is permissible--if
it deal with a relatively new subject or with new phases of an old
subject not yet covered by a satisfactory text. But here it need not
continue long because some enterprising instructor will soon satisfy the
need. The formal lecture has therefore no place in the earlier and but
slight place in the later ye