arise in the course of his studies.

But for a student to derive the utmost possible value from lectures,
several precautions are needful.

I have a strong impression that the better a discourse is, as an
oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow of the discourse
carries you on without proper attention to its sense; you drop a word
or a phrase, you lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you
strive to recover yourself, the speaker has passed on to something
else.

The practice I have adopted of late years, in lecturing to students, is
to condense the substance of the hour's discourse into a few dry
propositions, which are read slowly and taken down from dictation; the
reading of each being followed by a free commentary expanding and
illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and removing any
difficulties that may be attackable in that way, by diagrams made
roughly, and seen to grow under the lecturer's hand. In this manner
you, at any rate, insure the co-operation of the student to a certain
extent. He cannot leave the lecture-room entirely empty if the taking
of notes is enforced; and a student must be preternaturally dull and
mechanical, if he can take notes and hear them properly explained, and
yet learn nothing.

What books shall I read? is a question constantly put by the student to
the teacher. My reply usually is, "None: write your notes out
carefully and fully; strive to understand them thoroughly; come to me
for the explanation of anything you cannot understand; and I would
rather you did not distract your mind by reading." A properly composed