EDITORS TABLE. 



"3 



reverse position ; they invariably hang in 

 the web head downward. 



Surely it is a little incongruous that a 

 magazine which lectures The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly for occupying too much space 

 with such " pseudo-science " as that " most 



high-flown speculation," Evolution, should 

 expend money as well as space for an en- 

 graving which is not only controverted by 

 every accurate observation, but which might 

 have been corrected by a glance into Web- 



ster's Unabridged. 



Burt G. "Wilder. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SCIENTIFIC NORMAL SCHOOLS. 



THE idea suggested by this title has 

 long been with many a matter of 

 vague and distant anticipation ; but 

 there is promise that something of the 

 kind may soon become a realized fact. 

 Eather, perhaps, we are to have a high- 

 class Teachers' Institute on a strictly 

 scientific basis. Professor Agassiz is 

 expected to open, next summer, a 

 school of natural history for the 

 benefit of teachers during their vaca- 

 tion. He has associated with him 

 twenty professors of high character to 

 carry out the plan, and the object is, to 

 afford ample facilities for studying spe- 

 cimens and becoming familiar with the 

 actual properties and relations of living 

 things. In an address before a com- 

 mittee of the Massachusetts Legislature 

 on the claims of the Cambridge Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology, Prof. 

 Agassiz explained the nature and pur- 

 pose of the contemplated project, which 

 is kindred to the object for which the 

 museum itself was founded. Educa- 

 tion must have its storehouses of im- 

 plements. For philosophy, history, and 

 literature, public libraries are estab- 

 lished, because these subjects are to be 

 studied by means of books. But, in 

 science, books are not sufficient ; speci- 

 mens are indispensable. "We want, 

 said Prof. Agassiz, to educate men who 

 shall be able to read Nature, and this 

 can only be done by studious familiarity 

 with natural objects. The school is to 

 carry out this plan. Nantucket Island 

 has been selected as the location, and 

 provision is made for-a very thorough 

 vol. in. 8 



and comprehensive course of instruc- 

 tion. 



This idea is certainly capable of ex- 

 tension, and the time, we think, has 

 come when it should be taken up and 

 carried out in different parts of the 

 country. The Nantucket scheme could 

 not be copied in the interior, because 

 one-half of its subjects pertain to the 

 natural history of the sea. The scheme 

 is constructed from Prof. Agassiz's 

 point of view, and is devoted mainly to 

 zoology. The botany of land-plants is 

 not included ; entomology gets but lit- 

 tle attention, and physics none at all. 

 This is not intimated as a deficiency of , 

 the programme, which is sufficiently 

 broad, and lays out more work than 

 there will be time to do it in. It is 

 evidently designed for the advantage 

 of professors and teachers of science in 

 educational institutions who already 

 know something of the subjects, and 

 desire the opportunity of perfecting 

 their knowledge of natural history un- 

 der the ablest instructors. 



But the time has come for entering 

 upon similar arrangements in behalf 

 of the multitude of teachers in our 

 common schools. "We have normal 

 schools for their preparation, but they 

 are fashioned upon the old academic 

 and collegiate pattern, and furnish only 

 a book-education. The little science 

 they pretend to give is book-science, 

 and not the knowledge of things. 

 Throughout nearly all of the common 

 schools of the country, physics, chem- 

 istry, botany, and zoology, are taught, 

 if taught at all, by the same method as 



