pose to furnish you
with the information I refer to.

My own impression is, that the best model for all kinds of training in
physical science is that afforded by the method of teaching anatomy, in
use in the medical schools. This method consists of three
elements--lectures, demonstrations, and examinations.

The object of lectures is, in the first place, to awaken the attention
and excite the enthusiasm of the student; and this, I am sure, may be
effected to a far greater extent by the oral discourse and by the
personal influence of a respected teacher than in any other way.
Secondly, lectures have the double use of guiding the student to the
salient points of a subject, and at the same time forcing him to attend
to the whole of it, and not merely to that part which takes his fancy.
And lastly, lectures afford the student the opportunity of seeking
explanations of those difficulties which will; and indeed ought to,
arise in the course of his studies.

But for a student to derive the utmost possible value from lectures,
several precautions are needful.

I have a strong impression that the better a discourse is, as an
oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow of the discourse carries
you on without proper attention to its sense; you drop a word or a
phrase, you lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you strive to
recover yourself, the speaker has passed on to something else.

The practice I have adopted of late years, in lecturing to students, is
to condense the substance of the hour's discourse into a few dry
propositions, which are read slowly and taken down from dictation; the
reading of each being followed by a free commentary, expanding and
illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and removing any
difficulties that may be attackable in that way, by diagrams made
roughly, and seen to grow under the lecturer's hand. In this manner you,
at any rate, insure the co-operation of the student to a certain extent.
He cannot leave the lecture-room entirely empty if the taking of notes
is enforced; and a student must be preternaturally dull and mechanical,
if he can take notes and hear them properly explained, and yet learn
nothing.

What books shall I read? is a question constantly put by the student to
the teacher. My reply usually is, "None: write your notes out carefully
and fully; strive to understand them thoroughly; come to me for the
explanation of anything you cannot understand; and I would