AN EXPERIENCE IN SCIENCE-TEACHING. 243 



experience may not prove valueless or uninteresting to teachers and 

 others. 



The summer of 1878 was spent at Salem, at the Summer School of 

 Biology connected with the Peabody Academy of Science, and, while 

 there, the ideas on teaching gathered from Huxley, Mill, Bain, and 

 Spencer, took a tangible shape ; and I determined that classes in 

 physiology that came under my charge should have the benefit of 

 practical work so far as lay in my power to give it. In September of 

 that year I organized a class in physiology, made up of young ladies 

 and gentlemen between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. With 

 this material I went to work. My plan was briefly this : Teach as 

 many facts in this study and those connected with it as possible ; then 

 for direct use have the pupils get some idea, if but slight, of the prog- 

 ress of science, and develop mental discipline by pursuing the work 

 according to the scientific method, so far as time and material will per- 

 mit. To accomplish these results seemed to be worth striving for ; 

 and, without making any pretensions to exhaustive work, I followed a 

 programme substantially as follows : A suitable text was provided, 

 and, with this in hand and a human skeleton, we considered the loca- 

 tion, use, form, structure, articulation, etc., of the bones ; the same 

 was done with many of the muscles, being aided in this by an excel- 

 lent series of plates ; the skin next claimed attention, and in succession 

 followed the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems. During 

 this time there were no regular recitations, but each scholar was free 

 to ask any question on the preceding lesson to any member of the 

 class he saw fit ; in this way we took a cursory view of the human 

 frame outside of the nervous and reproductive systems. After we 

 had seen something of the mechanism in its entirety, and had a gen- 

 eral idea of it, I chloroformed a cat and dissected it before the class ; 

 this was not performed in my regular school-room, but in a small 

 room off, which had been used for recitations by one of my teach- 

 ers. During the operation the class asked questions, and were at 

 perfect liberty to discuss any topic connected with the subject, or 

 to ask explanations concerning the structure or use of any part exam- 

 ined. The dissection did not aim to be exhaustive, the idea being 

 more to clinch the facts which had before been given, and to present 

 in a clearer light the form of the body interiorly. After this dissec- 

 tion the class recited from the text, and were aided with plates, speci- 

 mens, and informal talks, through the whole course. After finishing 

 the work another animal was procured, and several members of the 

 class took turns in dissecting, sometimes several working at once and 

 sometimes one only ; here I endeavored to give the pupils their own 

 way, the object being not to make skilled dissections, but to teach 

 them to study nature at first hand. In this work they followed Fos- 

 ter and Langley as closely as possible. We then made a thorough 

 review of the whole text, this work being supplemented by bringing 



