A FEW HINTS ON HISTORY.

THE number of men, and at the same time the kind of men, that elect History in college, make it one of the most important of the branches that are open to us; and it may be interesting to compare the opinion of students as to the most profitable manner of conducting an elective in History. I have taken several of the electives, and have discussed the matter with a number of the students, and can, perhaps, express the views of many historical students.

There seem to be three ways in which electives are carried on, - one by lectures from the professor, another by lectures from the students themselves, and still another by setting lessons and having the students recite, to which is added now and then a lecture by the instructor. Which of these methods is the best I will not attempt to say. When the lectures are delivered by the instructor, the average students, in fact I may say all except a few of the most faithful, are apt to neglect the daily work, and simply to cram their knowledge just before the examinations. As to the second method, it is certain that the preparation and delivery of a lecture by a student does him great good; but whether his hearers get as much advantage from this as they would if the same ground were gone over by the instructor, is not so certain, and of course the benefit of the whole class is what is aimed at. The inexperience of the men in writing a lecture, and their seeming inability at times to catch and make prominent the important points is one of the disadvantages; but a still greater and more annoying one is the practice of dragging into a lecture every little insignificant fact possible, taking an hour or more for what might be delivered in ten or fifteen minutes, and doing all this in order to give the instructor the impression that the lecturer is working night and day on his course, and deserves his good-will, - deliberate "swiping." The third method is little more than a common school-boy recitation, and needs no comment.

Now, why not combine the three, at the same time making certain restrictions? If, for example, a rule were made that no student's lectures should last longer than ten or twenty minutes, or if the instructor were to set a time for each lecture, according to the importance of the subject given, the student himself would gain fully as great a benefit as he does now, and his auditors, in most cases at least, a much greater. If, in connection with this, the instructor would give lectures now and then on matters that seem to him of special importance or of special difficulty, and if he would at the same time expect the students to be prepared to answer questions that he might put to them during the recitation on the ground they had already gone over, making it a point to ask a few questions during each hour, and letting students know that they were marked on their answers, I think that nine tenths of those that now take History would make greater improvement, and find it easier to do faithful work than at present.

Men make the best resolutions, but, unfortunately, few carry them out, and as these few would learn equally much whether the elective were conducted in one way or another, it seems to me that it should be so conducted as to give the greatest advantage possible to the men who make up the larger part of the elective.

The hour examinations that we now have in most of the courses also tend to make the students knowledge real, and not an artificial knowledge crammed for the occasion, and mostly forgotten in a few days.

F.