TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE. 649 



rank given each member is made np equally from an average of the 

 term-'s work and the final examination. This course has proved 

 decidedly popular. The instruction was originally given in the 

 Geological Department of the Institute of Technology, in a room 

 adapted to seating thirty-six persons. This was gradually crowded 

 to accommodate fifty-six persons. At the beginning of the last four- 

 years' course the number of the applications was so large that each 

 applicant was required to sign a printed statement promising to be 

 present at all exercises for the four years, except for good and suffi- 

 cient reasons. One hundred and seventeen persons gave the re- 

 quired promise. In order to meet this demand, two divisions were 

 formed, and on each Saturday afternoon the same lesson was re- 

 peated. In order to defray the additional expense of the second 

 division the members of the class voluntarily contributed three dol- 

 lars each. The labor of repeating the lessons on the same after- 

 noon proving too great, provision was made the second year to 

 transfer the instruction to the large lecture hall of the ^Natural His- 

 tory building, where accommodations were made for one hundred 

 and twelve students. The work has since been carried on there, 

 and a complete new set of specimens, diagrams, etc., is gradually 

 being obtained. 



The membership of the class is, of course, principally made up 

 from Boston and the towns immediately surrounding, but a few 

 come from places as far distant as towns in Connecticut and Rhode 

 Island, from Bridgewater, Scituate, Framingham, Fitchburg, Low- 

 ell, Lawrence, and Beverly. 



One member of the class has made an exhaustive study of the 

 granites of eastern Massachusetts, and others are teaching geologv 

 in secondary schools outside of Boston. 



An important and influential outcome of the first lessons of Mr. 

 Barton was the formation, in the fall of 1888, of the Barton Chap- 

 ter of the Agassiz Association, by seven ladies who had been fellow- 

 students in mineralogy. Later, men and other ladies who had 

 attended Mr. Barton's field lessons were invited to join. For 

 ten years this club has flourished, and held weekly evening meet- 

 ings for nine months of the year, at which the members have done 

 much systematic work in the study of geology, mineralogy, chem- 

 istry, botany, entomology, and zoology. At some of the sessions 

 the individual members haA^e taken their share of the work by the 

 preparing of exhaustive papers which have been read to and dis- 

 cussed by the class, and sometimes a series of lessons has been given 

 by specialists in the several departments. Many of the first scien- 

 tists of Boston have aided this association by the giving of lectures 

 and advice regarding courses of lessons and opportunities for study, 



