SCIENTIFIC DRAWING AND DESCRIPTION 75 



is made voluntary, and most of this work must be done 

 outside of the laboratory ; but almost invariably the best 

 students, after they have once tried it, take to its use 

 altogether. The improvement made by use of the ink 

 tends greatly to foster the very desirable pride of 

 students in the appearance of their books or notes. Of 

 course the outlining must first be done in pencil, the 

 marks being erased after the ink has been added. 

 Every encouragement should be given to individual 

 artistic tastes in drawing, even to the point of allowing 

 some use of color. But it is constantly necessary to guard 

 against the eclipse of the naturalist by the artist, and 

 the beautiful drawings must be allowed to be no less 

 accurate than those which are merely diagrammatic. 

 Students should be encouraged to work in physical 

 comfort and with a feeling of leisure, with indepen- 

 dence yet readiness to profit by the excellences of their 

 neighbors. It is well to allow the poorer students 

 frequently to see the drawings and notes of the better 

 ones. 



For the drawings a good smooth paper, which will 

 take both pencil and ink, is necessary. It should never 

 have a perfectly smooth nor glossy surface, nor yet be 

 rough like that used for sketches by artists. The kind 

 called ledger paper is very good. There are different 

 methods of keeping the drawings, one of the commonest 

 being to make them on separate sheets of drawing card- 

 board of uniform size (usually 6x4 inches) which are 



