INANE SECTION MEETINGS

Undergraduates may not always spend as much time as they should in poring over their books and perhaps they do not attend their lectures with the utmost regularity, but whether they be students or not, men resent having their time wasted by others. To this they are obliged to submit in many of the weekly conferences which are common here, especially in history and economic courses. In these courses it is customary to devote half of one hour each week to a short paper on the assignment of reading and to spend the remainder of the time in discussion. Such discussion, if properly conducted, might well be profitable, but unfortunately it is often absolutely footless--a mere matter of form, and time thrown away. Obviously enough one question to be answered in twenty minutes can not always be a fair test of a hundred or more pages of scattered reading. Would it not be better, since the outlay for competent assistants is necessarily limited, either to have the short paper given in the regular lecture hour and omit inane discussion, or to devote the entire period to a more adequate test of the required work?