The improvised staffs which, in order to carry out the programme, had to furnish impromptu instruction in history, had no clear idea either of the reasons for such instruction, or of its place in general education, or of the technical methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of tradition, of pedagogic preparation, and even of mechanical aids, the professor of history found himself carried back to the ages before printing, when the teacher had to supply the pupil with all the facts which formed the subject-matter of instruction, and he adopted the mediæval procedure. Armed with a note-book in which he had written down the list of facts to be taught, he read it out to the pupils, sometimes making a pretence of extemporising; this was the "lesson," the corner-stone of historical instruction. The whole series of lessons, determined by the programme, formed the "course." The pupil was expected to write as he listened (this was called "taking notes") and to compose a written account of what he had heard (this was the _rédaction_). But as the pupils were not taught how to take notes, nearly all of them were content to write very rapidly, from the professor's dictation, a rough draft, which they copied out at home in the form of a _rédaction_, without any endeavour to grasp the meaning either of what they heard or what they transcribed. To this mechanical labour the most zealous added extracts copied from books, generally with just as little reflection. In order to get the facts judged essential into the pupils' heads, the professor used to make a very short version of the lesson, the "summary" or "abstract," which he dictated openly, and caused to be learnt by heart. Thus of the two written exercises which occupied nearly the whole time of the class, one (the summary) was an overt dictation, the other (the _rédaction_) an unavowed dictation. The only means adopted to check the pupils' work was to make them repeat the summary word for word, and to question them on the _rédaction_, that is to make them repeat approximately the words of the professor. Of the two oral exercises one was an overt, the other an unavowed repetition.