[Letter] August 17,1888,Summit House, Mt.Washington,N.H. [to F.H. Giddings]

August 17, 1888, Summit House, Mt. Washington, N.H.

Dear Friend,
         You see I am not
yet where you supposed
when writing your letter
which came to me just
as I was packing for a
second trip to this summit.
Prof. Morse and I tramped
over the range in a storm
last week, but had a good
cloud view, and some landscape
from the summit. Day before
yesterday all of our party started
lured by clear weather after
long continued rain. Several
hundred people thought the
time for clear views had
come, and six trains were
run to the summit. At
the base of the ascent my
wife and I were discouraged
by the settling of clouds
on the main range, and the
cloudy condition of the western
sky, and staid below, to
wait for another chance. The
others went on, and were
taken into a dense cloud,
from which they saw nothing.
Yesterday my wife and I came
up - also into a cloud,
with rain and lightening;
but this morning we had
an hour or two of beautiful
views. We saw Portland and
the sea, and the nearer mountains
in sharpest outline. Now it
storms again; such are the
changes. We descend this P.M. to
Jackson N.H., where we stay a
week a more. I fear you will
be in Berkshire before we
reach Northampton but hope
we may have one visit all the
same. Please keep me posted
as to your address. Your letter
partly forestalled a grandfatherly
epistle I had in mind to write,
urging that you so lay out your
work as to have only a limited
amount of lecturing to do. Eight or
ten lectures a week will kill
any man who has not a barrel of
them in stock. I infer that lectures
are expected. Do you need to give
them throughout, to graduates and
all? Of course they are the staple
of the course. Women take lectures
better than men. Men tire of note-
taking. Mr. Tuttle began at Amherst
with lectures straight. They were heavy,
the students rebelled, and Prest. Seelye
cautioned him to revert to the
text book, with lectures as entrees,
which he did with increasing
success. I have had a rather
different experience. With mixed
methods in History I have had poor
success, largely I think because of personal
awkwardness in the art. In History I have
wanted to lectures nearly straight, while
in Economics I use the book considerably.
In any logical study I think the minds
of the pupils should be more actively
enlisted than they are likely to be
by the straight lecture method. If I
lectured much of the time I would have
a lot of discussions intermingled with
the dictations. The main point is to
plan only for such a load, in the way
of preparation, as you are sure you
can easily carry. With health, and
vigorous mental energy, and confidence,
and only moderate preparation for each
lesson. I count on a success for you
that will carry you along by its own
impetus. Don't feel the least bit of doubt
and don't allow yourself to ever look at a
class with less of confidence than you
would feel in talking to Miss Bowles. I have
occasionally been inwardly a little frightened and
have foolishly lost ground by it. I have learned to suffer
all that. I fear I do not know the book on administration
that you want. Prof. James is strong in that dept. Excuse
all the above exhortation.

                Yours Very Truly,
                      J. B. Clark