TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE. 



453 



sent to teachers which said that lessons were to be given by " pro- 

 fessors familiar with the object methods of teaching and skillful in 

 the use of chalk." Seven hundred teachers signed this circular, 

 and so signified their pleasure at the prospect of receiving such 

 instruction. 



AVhile Mr. Cummings was generously providing these courses 

 of lectures exclusively for the benefit of teachers, Mr. John A. 

 Lowell, trustee of the Lowell Institute Fund, made liberal pro- 

 vision for free courses on different branches of natural science, to 

 which teachers were specially invited and which were well adapted 

 to their wants, although not intended exclusively for them. Dur- 

 ing the winter of 1872-'73, on account of the large fire in Boston 

 and the absence of Professor Hyatt in Europe, the lessons in The 

 Teachers' School of Science were necessarily suspended. In the 

 autumn of 1874 they were resumed and supported by renewed do- 

 nations from Mr. Cummings. Mr. L. S. Burbank gave thirty les- 

 sons on minerals, and distributed the specimens used at the lectures 

 among the teachers. These minerals were then used in the schools 



Ox iiii: i;i<,iri. I'.rii.Dixi, c>K the I-'>u>T'>n S,mii;ty cf Natvkai. IIistuky: "N iui. i.i.ii, 

 KuGERs's Building of the Massachusetts Institute of TECiiNdLoiiv. 



for instruction. This was virtually the introduction of the teach- 

 ing of natural science in the public schools of Boston. The fol- 

 lowing winter Mr. Burbank continued his teaching by giving four- 

 teen lessons in lithology to a class averaging ninety in attendance. 

 One hundred sets of seventy-five specimens each were distributed, 

 and many of these sets placed in collections of the city schools. " A 

 supplementary course of field lessons about Boston was voluntarily 



