SKETCH OF MARIA MITCHELL. 549 



tical Almauac, in order to devote lierself more exclusively to this. 

 In October, 1888, we fiad this entry in her diary : " Resolved, in 

 case of my outliving father and being in good health, to give my 

 efforts to the intellectual culture of women, without regard to 

 salary ; if possible, connect myself with liberal Christian institu- 

 tions believing, as I do, that happiness and growth in this life 

 are best promoted by them, and that what is good in this life is 

 good in any life." She had her own views about the way teach- 

 ing should be done, and did not hesitate to express them. Thus : 

 "Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect; we do 

 things that other colleges have done before. We wait and ask 

 for precedent. If the earth had waited for a precedent, it would 

 never have turned on its axis ! " She thought teachers were in- 

 clined to talk too much ; that to read a book, to think it over, and 

 to write out notes, was a useful exercise ; that " the greatest ob- 

 ject in educating is to give the right habit of study ; . . . not too 

 much mechanical apparatus, let the imagination have some play; 

 a cube may be shown by a model, but let the drawing upon the 

 blackboard represent the cube, and, if possible, let Nature be the 

 blackboard ; spread your triangles upon land and sky ; . . . a small 

 apparatus well used does wonders. ... I find a helping hand lifts 

 the girl as crutches do ; she learns to like the help which is not 

 Belf-help." The relation between herself and her pupils is de- 

 scribed as having been very cordial and intimate, and she re- 

 marked to one of her classes entering upon its study for the last 

 year, " We are women studying together." According to her own 

 description of her teaching, her beginning class used a small 

 portable equatorial, which stood out of doors from seven o'clock in 

 the morning till nine o'clock in the evening. They were expected 

 to determine the rotation of the sun upon its axis by watching 

 the spots; "the same for the planet Jupiter." They determined 

 the revolution of Titan by watching its motions, the retrograde 

 and direct motion of the planets among the stars, the position of 

 the sun with reference to its setting in winter and summer, and 

 the phases of Venus. "All their book learning in astronomy 

 should be mathematical. The astronomy which is not mathe- 

 matical, in what is so ludicrously called ' geography of the heav- 

 ens,' is not astronomy at all." The senior girls in practical astron- 

 omy were taught separately : to obtain the time for the college by 

 the meridian passage of stars ; to find a planet at any hour of the 

 day; to make drawings of what they see, and to determine posi- 

 tions of planets and satellites; to determine differences of right 

 ascension ; to know the satellites of Saturn by their physiognomy, 

 as if they were persons ; and they sometimes measured diameters. 

 She held the marking system in contempt, would not drill, and 

 could not drive. 



