purpose of a lesson in elementary classes.
There the more important purposes are to train pupils to acquire
knowledge by thinking for themselves, and to express themselves, both of
which are well-nigh impossible if the purely lecture method is followed.

=Does not Insure Selection.=--The weakness of such a method is well
illustrated in the case of the young teacher who, in giving her class a
conception of the equator, followed the above method, and carefully
explained to the pupils that the equator is an imaginary line running
around the earth equally distant from the two poles. When the teacher
came later to review the work with the class, one bright lad described
the equator as a menagerie lion running around the earth. Here evidently
the child, true to the law of apperception, had interpreted, or rather
misinterpreted, the words of the teacher, by means of the only ideas in
his possession which seemed to fit the uttered sounds. It is evident,
therefore, that too often in this method the pupils will either thus
misinterpret the meaning of the teacher's words, or else fail to
interpret them at all, because they are not able to call up any definite
images from what the teacher may be telling them.

=When to be Used.=--It may be noted, however, that there is some place
for the method in teaching. For example, when young children are
presented with a suitable story, they will usually have no difficulty in
fitting ideas to words, and thus building up the story. It requires, in
fact, the continuity found in the telling method to keep the children's
attention on the story, the tone of voice and gesture of the reciter
going a long way in helping the child to call up the ideas which enable
him to construct the story plot. Moreover, some telling must be done by
the teacher in every lesson. Everything cannot be discovered by the
pupils themselves. Even if it were possible, it would often be
undesirable. Some facts are relatively unimportant, and it is much
better to tell these outright than to spend a long time in trying to
lead pupils to discover them. The lecture method, or telling method,
should be used, then, to supply pupils with information they could not
find out for themselves, or which they could find out only by spending
an amount of time disproportionate to the importance of the facts. The
teacher must use good judgment in discriminating between those facts
which the pupils may reasonably be expected to find out for