AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

In view of the more or less general dissatisfaction with the present lecture system, the experiment which has been tried recently in Economics 1 acquires particular interest. In the past in this course two hours a week had been devoted to lectures, and one to section meetings. After the fall hour examinations this plan was reversed, section meetings occupying two hours and lectures only one hour each week. Recently, the class voted in favor of the new plan, but it was announced that the old system would be used henceforth.

Provided competent instructors can be secured, there are many arguments in favor of having two section meetings a week, and not least among these is the opportunity for teaching the use of books. In his speech before the New England Federation of Harvard Clubs, President Lowell made the following remarks about Freshmen and the use of books:

"I know of nothing so interesting as meeting the mind fresh as it comes into the College, and trying to impress it as well as you can with the habit of thought, trying to stimulate its imagination, trying to get it into the university way. And it is also illuminating, it shows you a good many things. One of the things that it has shown me is that few of the boys who come to us from schools can read books; they can read the printed page, of course, a sentence or a paragraph, but they cannot read a book. The real line of thought which runs through it they are ignorant of."

This is a situation which Economics 1 and several other courses composed largely of Freshmen are peculiarly adapted to remedy. In such elementary courses there is little material which cannot be found set forth more clearly and more fully in books than it can be in a lecture, and the value of the lecture lies more in comment and explanation than in a repetition of exposition found in the reading. If, however, the two section meetings were used, not only to test the men on the reading, but to discuss it, to point out the main lines of thought, and to teach the men how to "tear the heart out of a book," we believe that they would prove much more profitable than the same amount of time devoted to lectures.