NATURE STUDY. 



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Pictures and small busts of many naturalists adorn both of the 

 rooms. Of these the most notable is an artist proof of Mercier's 

 beautiful etching of Darwin. Every available inch of wall space 

 is thus occupied, or else, in the botanical laboratory, has on it 

 mounted fungi, lichens, seaweeds, leaf cards, pictures of trees, 

 grasses, and other botanical objects. 



The windows are beautiful with hanging plants from side 

 brackets meeting the wealth of green on the sill. Here are found 

 in one window ferns, in another the century plant; in others still, 

 specimens of economic plants — cinnamon, olive, banana, camphor. 

 On the tables are magnificent specimens of palms, cycads, dracsenas, 

 and aspidistras, and numerous aquaria filled with various water 

 plants. Most of these plants are four years old, and all of them are 

 much handsomer than when they first became the property of the 

 laboratory. How much intelligent and patient care this means only 

 those who have attempted to raise plants in city houses can know. 



The zoological laboratory is quite as beautiful as the botanical, 

 for it, too, has its plants and pictures. It is perhaps more interesting 

 because of its living elements. Think of a schoolroom in which are 

 represented alive types of animals as various as these: amoeba, vor- 

 ticella, hydra, worms, muscles, snails and slugs of various kinds, 

 crayfish, various insects, including a hive of Italian bees, goldfish, 

 minnows, dace, catfish, sunfish, eels, tadpoles, frogs, newts, salaman- 

 ders, snakes, alligators, turtles, pigeons, canaries, mice, guinea-pigs, 

 rabbits, squirrels, and a monkey! Imagine these living animals sup- 

 plemented by models of their related antediluvian forms, or fossils, 

 by carefully labeled dissections, by preparations and pictures illus- 

 trating their development and mode of life; imagine in addition to 

 this books, pamphlets, magazines, and teachers further to put you in 

 touch with this wonderful world about us, and you will then have 

 some idea of the environment in which it is the great privilege of our 

 students to live for five hours each week. 



In addition to these laboratories there is a lecture room furnished 

 with an electric lantern. Here each week is given a lecture on general 

 topics, such as evolution and its problems, connected with the work 

 of the laboratories. 



The Course of Study pursued by the Normal. Students. — 

 Botany: In general, the plants and the phenomena of the chang- 

 ing seasons are studied as they occur in Nature. In the fall there 

 are lessons on the composites and other autumn flowers, on fruits, 

 on the ferns, mosses, fungi, and other cryptogams. In the winter 

 months the students grow various seeds at home, carefully drawing 

 and studying every stage in their development. Meanwhile, in the 

 laboratory, they examine microscopically and macroscopically the 



