ABOLISH LECTURES? NO!

At the intercollegiate parley of students gathered at Middletown, Connecticut, to discuss problems of American college education, Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, former President of Amherst, advanced a remarkable proposal in his speech Friday evening. This well known educator advocated doing away entirely with the lecture system in American colleges and substituting in its place a complete tutorial method. More than sixty delegates, students from colleges in every part of the country, applauded him roundly for this suggestion.

From such hearty approval of so radical a proposal it seems safe to deduce two general truths: first, that the average college student in America is dissatisfied with lectures, such as he knows them; and second, that the same average student has a strong prepossession in favor of the tutorial system, as he has heard of it by report from the few colleges in which it has actually been tried. It may seem strange and incongruous, that students of Harvard, where the tutorial system has been tried with such great success, should hesitate and finally reject the proposal to extend that system to the exclusion of the lecture system. We believe, however, that such will be the general reaction at Harvard to Dr. Meiklejohn's suggestion.

If Harvard students recognize in the tutorial method something new in the way of making education stimulating and more human, something added to the old system in effectiveness, it is no less true that they recognize in the lecture system an educational device which is also useful and stimulating when rightly conducted, though, to be sure, useful and stimulating in a way peculiar to itself.

"What is the greatest benefit of Harvard education at its best?" If one were asked this question, perhaps the truest answer would be: "The awakening of the critical spirit." To arouse this critical spirit in young minds which look upon truth as something fixed and established to be handed down from above by "those who know" and taken on faith; to change a student's mental attitude from one of receptivity to critical activity--these are among the benefits conferred by lectures of the type which at Harvard are common, though, to be sure, not universal.

Everything depends upon the professor. His lectures may mean all that is here attributed to the lecture system at its best. Again, his lectures may be poor, perfunctory things, uninspired by philosophy and criticism, and hence lacking that necessary connection with the problems of life which marks the great difference between vital knowledge and statistics. When the latter is true, the fault lies with the man, not the system.

At the present time there is no reason to fear that the lecture system will be abolished at Harvard. It has proved too well its right to exist. The conjunction of lectures and tutorial methods confers benefits which can be secured by neither alone and reconciles most of the conflicts which spring from the dual necessities of educating large numbers and of providing at the same time for the needs of the individual student.

Dr. Meiklejohn's proposal may bear fruit in causing the spread of the tutorial idea throughout the colleges of America. It may also arouse college faculties to improve the quality of their lectures, and certainly there is room for improvement. To this extent his address may work good. It would be a great mistake, however, and one which seems altogether unlikely, to apply his suggestion in its literal force.