266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



models of simplicity, and contain a general review of the subject treated. 

 They are intended to give just such accounts as are calculated to in- 

 spire the teacher with the truths of nature, and at the same time to 

 teach her the simplest and best way of impressing the facts upon the 

 minds of young pupils. In the introduction to the work on pebbles, 

 the author says : " When properly considered, the essay is a series of 

 suggestions, not an exact, cut and dried process. The memorizing of 

 a single part will spoil the effect of the design. If the older scholar, 

 when the lessons are finished, can not go through with the whole pro- 

 cess and show what he has been taught with the specimens, it may be 

 considered as proof that it has been done too quickly for him to fully 

 comprehend each of the various steps by which a pebble is formed." 

 The same plan as the one so successful in the Teachers' School has 

 been suggested for the public schools — that each pupil be supplied with 

 a specimen of the object, and that they be asked in turn to point out 

 its features. 



During the first few years after the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion was founded, Professor Hyatt spent his summers at the summer 

 station, being allowed by the kindness of the commissioner to collect 

 specimens to illustrate his lectures. Since then, with but one or two 

 exceptions, his summers have been spent at Annisquam, near Glouces- 

 ter, Massachusetts, where he can study in quiet seclusion. Previ- 

 ous to 1879 he had been in the habit of allowing a few students 

 from the Institute of Technology to study with him in his private 

 laboratory at Annisquam. Soon, however, the number of applications 

 became too numerous, and he could no longer accommodate all, so that 

 in 1879 steps were taken toward founding a general laboratory of nat- 

 ural history to be situated at Annisquam. Each summer the laboratory 

 has been open under the directorship of Professor Hyatt, assisted by 

 Professor Van Vleck, who has immediate charge of all the work. The 

 laboratory was founded and is supported by the Woman's Educational 

 Society of Boston, and is open to both sexes, investigators and 

 teachers being given the preference. Each year the tables are full, 

 sometimes there being as many as fifteen in the laboratory at a time, 

 including some original investigators. The student is given a speci- 

 men, and is told to study it carefully and see as much as he can ; then 

 to verify his results by referring to Mr. Van Vleck at first, and then 

 to books chosen by him. Professor Hyatt endears himself to all who 

 study with him by his kindness and the interest which he takes in 

 the individual work of the pupil. 



A museum as large as that of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory, under the charge of a man so full of original ideas and having 

 the interest of science-teaching at heart, and, at the same time, having 

 such an experience -at home and abroad, must of necessity undergo 

 important changes and become unique in its plan. To show the ideas 

 which Professor Hyatt entertains, we quote from his annual report as 



