UNIVERSITY COURIER
Entered at Lawrence Post Office as Second Class Matter.
VOL. I.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, DECEMBER 6, 1882.
No. 7.
University Courier.
A SEMI-MONTHLY PUBLICATION DEVOTED TO THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS.
BOARD OF EDITORS.
EDITORIAL...C. C. DART.
TOPICS...J. D. McLAREN.
LITERARY...E. A. BROWN, ANNA MURPHY.
SCIENTIFIC...L. L. DYCHE.
NORMAL...G. E. ROSE.
EXCHANGE...ALBERT RIFFLE.
LOCAL...GLEN MILLER, MARY GILLMORE.
PERSONAL...CLARA GILLHAM.
MISCELLANY...W. S. WHIRLOW, ELLA V. KEIST.
BUSINESS MANAGERS. EDMOND BUTLER, B. K. BRUCE.
Subscription, One Dollar per Year, in Advance.
EDITORIAL.
It is said that in some of the colleges of the Old World instruction is given almost entirely in the form of lectures. The student is not required to study a subject beforehand, but need only be present at the lectures that pertain to questions in which he is interested. This may be a good method for those who have previously received the discipline obtained in an ordinary college, but that the lecture system of teaching is adapted to pupils in the Universities of this country is very doubtful. It is not productive of the best results, and the most that can be said in favor of it is that any new discoveries, made subsequent to the publication of the text book, can be presented to the student. This we grant may necessitate a lecture or two, but that the text book should be wholly discarded is, to say the least, unnecessary. It is strange that among the scores of books which have been written upon almost every subject, it is impossible for some instructors to find one that is suited to the wants of those whom they teach. The more so, since those books are written by men of ability—men who, as a rule, know whereof they speak. Any of these volumes contains the principal and main facts concerning the subjects of which they treat. Why then is it that these works are discarded? It is because they are too long or two short, or because of some other fancied reason, or it may be, as some think, because of
a desire to keep up the "tone" of an institution by "lecturing." None of these reasons have a hair's weight in favor of the lecture system. Now, what are the facts in relation to this method? Is anything gained by its use? Probably a majority of those who have received instruction both ways—by lecture and by text book—would answer, no. Students, armed with scratch book and pencil, take their places in the class room and the professor begins to "lecture." Pages are immediately covered with hieroglyphics unsurpassed by any of which John Chinaman ever dreamed. With frequent repetition by the professor, the day's lecture is at an end, and the student takes his way to his lodgings and spends from one to three hours in indeavoring to translate his scrawls into English. Ten chances to one, he has missed noting down some of the important points, so even if he succeeds in making out what he has taken down, on the following day, when called on to recite, he is asked questions relating to something of which he has practically never heard, and yet he is held responsible for the whole of the previous day's lecture. In this method a good part of the hour, which should be wholly devoted to recitation, is consumed in the delivery of the lecture, so that but little time is given the pupils for recitation. It is doubtless true that they have all the time that they wish, for they are not, as a general thing, extremely desirous of reciting at all. But is it not very probable, yes, morally certain that a person by carefully studying a good text book for two hours will learn twice as much as if he should spend a half hour in scribbling down a lecture, and then spend an hour and a half or two hours in trying to make out and learn what he has attempted to write down? The student, who masters a book, is likely to keep it for reference, and thus he is enabled to refresh his memory by merely turning to the page containing the topic in hand. This is done with readiness, since the owner knows just where each subject is discussed. Not so, however, with his lecture notes. The chances are that they will be destroyed or lost before a year or even a month has passed away, so any reference to them is entirely out of the question. So, although the lecture method has the advantage of presenting the latest facts on any question, it is nevertheless true that the new discoveries, not contained in the book, can be put into one lecture less than thirty minutes in length. So, if this is the only advantage gained by the method in question, there is no reason why the text book might not be used almost the whole of the time. It is perhaps difficult to determine the very best method of instructing a class, and what is adapted to one body of students may not be at all suitable for another. There can be little doubt, however, that, when it is possible to obtain suitable text books, they should be used in preference to the lecture method.