A recent visitor to Williams College thus describes a recitation as conducted by the venerable Professor Mark Hopkins: "The class was one which had made a speciality of the study of the professor's book, entitled 'Outlines of the Study of Man.' The professor's method was as follows: He called one of the students by name and asked him what had been done at the recitation on the previous day. The student immediately rose and gave an interesting synopsis of the preceding lesson, and connected it with the present lesson, with the same spirit that he might have displayed if he were making a short address to some philosophic convention. Another student was called and told to take the next topic. He proceeded in the addressive style, as had his classmate, and so others were called until all the appointed task had been recited. Then the class became a sort of debating society, in which the subject matter recited was the topic under consideration. All manner of puzzling and insinuative questions were put to the old professor for expounding, and he expounded each and every one to the satisfaction of all. In this way the interest of all was kept up, and there was nobody in the room whose thoughts seemed to wander from the matter in hand."