Seminar

“ To these seminar rooms bring students, from every walk of life, to study under competent direction and to investigate subjects in which they are interested either from a material or cultural point of view. ”

“ The assumption is that the person who conducts a reading seminar is more mature than his students—more skilled in reading, and hence able to initiate them into its intricacies, as well as more learned in doctrine, and hence competent to discover the truth to those who seek it in the books. ”

“ The Seminar A book is one-half of a conversation, and good conversation, whether practical or theoretical in intention, is one of the highest performances in the liberal arts. Seminars of from ten to twenty students with at least two instructors or leaders, answer back, the other half of the conversations that great books demand. ”

“ The only institution bearing a resemblance to our recitation is the Seminar, a voluntary organization which many students never enter, and which varies greatly in character, according to the temperament of the professor in charge or to the subject-matter discussed. Being at times a society for the training of the members in the power of independent investigation and research, it becomes often a mere "quiz," or indeed but little more than a two hours' lecture on the part of the leader. ”

“ Under the Seminar system the members meet once a week for a two-hours' session, usually Monday afternoons. The student works largely by himself, spending weeks or months gathering material for a report, which is subjected to criticism by other members of the Seminar and by the professor in charge. Thus he learns what defective work is. While patience and industry are necessary for the production of a satisfactory report, it is not enough 'to lead laborious days.' The subject must be treated in a scholarly manner ”

“ A thorough investigation of such a course will soon convince the teacher that the seminar method, whatever its merits in university training, must be refined and diluted before it is applied to college teaching. Let us see why.
Successful reference reading requires a knowledge of the field studied, maturity of mind, discriminating judgment in the selection of material, and ability in organization. The university student is not only maturer and more serious but has a basis of broader knowledge than most under [Pg 77] graduates. ”

“ The Fine Arts seminar was held in a huge room, almost a hall, in a kind of office building near the Square. It was advertised to begin at half-past seven, and pretty much every one was there on time,—all the sports of the Freshman and Sophomore classes, some Juniors, and even a few Seniors. It was what the society reporter refers to as "a large and fashionable gathering." It certainly was a mighty nice-looking crowd of fellows; clean, well dressed, and (to quote Berri) "much more intelligent in appearance than we actually are, or we should n't be here at all." ”

“ The students in the advanced courses are obliged to carry on independent work under the supervision of the instructor. For seniors and graduate students the seminar has been found most satisfactory in developing a keen interest in the problems of politics. ”

“ Many university departments and research institutes run active visitors’ programs, often in the form of regular seminar series, which offer an ideal environment in which to meet and get to know international visitors. ”

“ The college seminar is usually unsuccessful because few students have ability to hold the attention of their classmates for a period of thirty minutes or more. Language limitations, lack of a knowledge of subject matter, inability to illustrate effectively, and the skeptical attitude of fellow students all militate against successful teaching by a member of the class. Students presenting papers often select unimportant details or give too many details. ”

“ Roger Ward got it up. Rather clever, I call it. You see, it's like this. Lots of fellows get along fairly well through the year, but when it gets around exam time, they all trail over to the Widow's and pay big prices for a seminar. ”

“ The remainder of the term is given over to seminar work: each student reads his paper and holds himself in readiness to answer all questions his classmates may ask on his topic. The aims of such a course are obviously to develop a knowledge of sources and an ability to use intelligently the unorganized data found by the student. ”

“ Its most frequent use is for a training college for the Roman Catholic priesthood, and in a transferred sense for a priest who has been trained in a foreign seminary, also often termed a “seminarist.” A German usage, adopted in America, applies the term seminar to a class for advanced study or research. ”

“ Morning, afternoon, and evening the city people united with the seminary members in crowding the lecture hall; school-teachers, women’s clubs, college professors and college students, librarians, esthetic clerks, intellectually inclined mill-workers, doctors, lawyers, and church people,—these were in evidence always, for the lecturers’ names, and the three poles of their thought—religion, social service, and letters—made a universal appeal. ”

“ Still less can they take the place of the most intimate teaching in laboratory and seminar, which ought not to be beyond the range of the ordinary course of a University education.........”. Every possible effort, therefore, should be made to provide arrangements by which all students will receive, at least, some individual attention. ”

“ It lay in the nature of the man. He did not have the power to bring his subject into vital contact with reality and with the life of his students.
The lecture plan also handicaps many a teacher in this important task of getting near the student and drawing him out. The seminar of our larger universities and graduate schools help much in individualizing the students. Students may be talked to death. They themselves often want to talk. ”

“ Niebuhr e.g. read, word for word, from his manuscript, and what a teacher was he!—The catechetical way of teaching is not demanded at the university except in special examinations; it belongs to the private work of the student, who must learn to be industrious of his own free impulse. The private tutor can best conduct reviews.—The institution which presupposing the lecture-system combines in itself original production with criticism, and the connected exposition with the conversation, is the seminary. ”

“ Much of the present research is done with small groups of students in a seminar where personal direction is given to investigations and where the methods of research are developed under direct supervision. ”

“ After the initial presentation of the est standard training in 1971, other forms of training were developed and offered to the public for compensation during the year here involved, including communications workshops, the relationships program and graduate review seminars. Generally, seminars consist of 10 sessions, each lasting three hours and 15 minutes, conducted over a four-month period and geared to a particular subject which has been previously discussed in broader terms in the course of the est standard training. ”

“ It requires inspiration and example to kindle into flame the spark which may exist in men beginning their life-work."
The influences of departmental clubs, with their learned papers and discussions, is a factor making for critical scholarship. Another agency that promotes the acquisition of the scientific method is the Seminar. ”

“ A successful hour is rare. The student who prepared the topic of the day undoubtedly is benefited, but those who listen acquire little knowledge and less power. The course ends without a comprehensive view of the entire subject, without that knowledge which comes from the teacher's leadership and instruction. This type of reference reading and research has value when used as an occasional ten or fifteen minute exercise to [Pg 78] supplement certain aspects of class work. But as a steady diet in a college course, the seminar usually leaves much to be desired. ”

“ In remarking upon their advantages, the same high authority says, "These training seminaries would not only teach the masters the branches of learning and science they are now deficient in, but would teach them what they know far less—the didactic art—the mode of imparting the knowledge which they have or may acquire; the best mode of training and dealing with children in all that regards both temper, capacity, and habits, and the means of stirring them to exertion, and controlling their aberrations." ”

“ The interests of the professors having become identical with those of the seminary, there now existed, in the faculty of arts, a body of men watchful over its concerns, quick-sighted in detecting all the weak parts of its structure, sagacious in discovering remedies for present evils and sources of new vigour, and eager to bring their views into practical application. ”

“ Another form of intellectual activity is shown in the seminaries and scientific associations which have more or less of an official character. In the seminary, the professor engages with a small company of advanced students, in some line of investigation—the results of which, if found important, are often published. The relations of the head of a seminary to those whom he admits to this advanced work, are very close. The younger men have an opportunity of seeing the methods by which older men work. The sources of knowledge, the so-called authorities, are constantly examined. ”

“ The best concrete instance of the life of a community with which I have had the privilege to become well acquainted has been furnished to me by my own Seminary, one whose meetings you have so kindly and graciously permitted me to attend as leader, on this to me so precious occasion. ”

“ This, in brief, is the practical idea of the Professorial Seminaries, philological, philosophical, scientific, and theological, through which the stream of future Professors is continually passing. Each one is subject, at every stage, to examination tests which include the most distinct reference to professorial capacity. ”

“ They hear whom they please. Their chief study, whatever they acquire in the lecture-room, is done when alone. They attend on an average for three or four hours a day, spending as much time in the libraries, from which they have the privilege of taking out books. As a completion to their lectures, the professors generally have Seminaren once or twice a week, or Exercitationes in history, philology, etc., in which the Socratic method of teaching in dialogue is made use of. Museums and scientific collections are richly provided in the larger institutions. ”

“ They undergo a previous distortion in academies, intended as so many seminaries for these clubs, which are set up in all the places of public resort. In these meetings of all sorts, every counsel, in proportion as it is daring and violent and perfidious, is taken for the mark of superior genius. ”

“ The mode of study includes lectures, essays, and practical observations. There are also three "seminaries" for advanced students—a psychological, a metaphysical, and an ethical—and guidance will be furnished to students who wish to take up individual investigations of questions in ethics. In the psychological seminary the subject for the current year is Pleasure and Pain, and it will be studied by means of lectures, essays, and laboratory work. ”

“ It is especially, however, in relation to the lectures on physical science, and the cultivation of other general branches distinct from the routine of class recitations, that the university has the advantage over the seminary. ”

“ These are too serious a range of duties to be taken care of as a side-issue, by a seminary of learning, the members of whose faculty, if they are fit for their own special work, are not men of affairs or adepts in worldly wisdom. ”

“ It makes the seminaries the nursery of the service, and the service the stimulant of the seminaries. It introduces the enlightened principles adopted by European governments, of recruiting the public service in every department from those who have earned distinctions in the public schools. ”

“ All that could possibly be done would be to establish a closer relation between professors and undergraduates, to increase, in fact, the number of seminaries and societies, and to make it obligatory on each professor to have some personal intercourse with the students who attend his lectures. ”

“ REV. PHILIP STRONG, Pastor Calvary Church, Milton:
DEAR SIR AND BROTHER:—The Seminary at Fairview has long been contemplating the addition to its professorship of a chair of Sociology. The lack of funds and the absolute necessity of sufficient endowment for such a chair have made it impossible hitherto for the trustees to make any definite move in this direction. A recent legacy, of which you have doubtless heard, has made the founding of this new professorship possible. ”

“ In the comparative method, like phases of history are studied connectedly. In the co-operative method, each student makes a thorough study of a single branch of the subject, and the work of all is so co-ordinated in the class that each member may, to some extent, reap the benefit of the labors of his companions. The seminary method is adapted from the old scholastic methods of the ecclesiastical and philosophical seminaries, and has been applied in numerous German and some American institutions.
The Bible analyzed in Twenty Lectures. By John R. Kelso, A. M. New York: "Truth-Seeker" office. ”