The lecture is at an end, and each prepares to enter another auditorium,
or wends his way home, to study out the notes taken, consult the
authorities quoted, complete or even copy his work anew. In the study of
these _hefts_ consists the main preparation for future examinations, as
text-books are rarely used, save in Austria, and the examiners are the
professors themselves, who will not ask the candidate much beyond what
they have embraced in their own lesson.

With a remarkable degree of skill, the practised German student can take
down, even when the delivery is by no means slow, the pith and essence
of a whole lecture. Yet there is much abuse in this; and it has called
forth, ever since the invention of printing has made the multiplication
of books by transcription unnecessary, much just, though at times unjust
criticism. A German writer has said, that the man of genius takes his
notes on a slip of paper, he of good abilities on a half-page, while the
dunce must fill a whole sheet. Now the reverse would be quite as true
in many cases. For though thoughtless writing may be little more than
wasted labor, yet there is nothing that can fix more steadily thoughts
and facts in the mind than the precision and constant attention required
in following a lecture with the pen, especially when the words of the
professor are not taken down with slavish exactitude, but when, as is
most generally the case, merely the thoughts are noted in the hearer's
own language. The ideas thus gained have been assimilated and become the
listener's own property. There is thus generated a steady transfusion,
the surest remedy against flagging mental activity. Many a foreigner
writes down the lecture in his own tongue, and values highly this
training of constant translation, though, before many months, the mere
transposition from one language into the other must become purely
mechanical. It is amusing to see the puzzled expression of countenance
of some Swiss student who takes his notes in French, when one of those