not only increases the understanding
of the listener, but also calls up feeling responses. It is in this
telling that the personality of the teacher, his experiences, his
ideals, make themselves felt. One can often win appreciation of and
allegiance to the best in life by the use of the telling method in the
appropriate situations.

Fifth, the lecture method should sometimes be used as a means of getting
the desired mental attitude. The general laws of learning emphasize the
importance of the mind's set as a condition to readiness of neurone
tracts. Five or ten minutes spent at the beginning of a subject, or a
new section of work, in introducing the class to it, may give the
keynote for the whole course. A whole period may be profitably be spent
this way. Not only will the telling method used on such occasions give
the right emotional attitude towards a subject, but also the right
intellectual set as well.

It is evident then that the lecture or telling method has its place in
all parts of the educational system, but its place should be clearly and
definitely recognized. The danger is not in using it, but in using it at
the wrong time, and in overusing it. Bearing in mind the dangers that
adhere to its use, it is always well, whether the method is used in
grades or in college, to mix it with other methods or to follow it by
another method that will do the things that the lecture method may have
left undone.

_The Recitation Lesson._ As has been suggested in the opening of this
chapter, the recitation lesson is not a type involving any particular
psychological process. It is, rather, a method of procedure which may
involve any of the other types of work already discussed. When the
recitation lesson means merely reciting paragraphs from the book with
little or no reference to problems to be solved or skill to be
developed, it has no place in a schoolroom. When, however, the teacher
uses the recitation lesson as an exercise in which he assures himself
that facts needed for further progress in thinking have been secured, or
that habits have been established, or verbatim memorization
accomplished, this type of exercise is justified. It is well to remember
that the thought process involved in the development of a subject, or
the solution even of a single problem, may extend over many class
periods. The recitation lesson may be important in organizing the
material which is to be used in the larger thought whole. Again, this