RECORDS. ^51 



lack is gradually but surely being supplied. Within the last 

 twenty years, a great change has taken place in the boards of 

 instruction in High Schools and Academies. Twenty years ago 

 the faculty of an average Higli .School in a second-class town 

 consisted of one College graduate, who taught Latin and Greek, 

 and a number of young ladies, graduates only of the High 

 School itself, who taught all the other branches. Now, thanks 

 to the work of the women's Colleges and the co-educational 

 Colleges, the teachers in the High Schools and Academies are 

 coming to be almost exclusively College graduates. High 

 School teachers who have had Laboratory training themselves 

 in some of the Sciences, will not be content to teach those 

 Sciences without giving some Laboratory work to their pupils. 

 Hence it is gradually coming to pass that the graduates of High 

 Schools, Academies, and Normal Schools, from whose ranks 

 the teachers of the Primary and Grammar Schools are chiefly 

 supplied, possess an acquaintance with Science which, though 

 limited in scope, is in considerable part sound in method. The 

 Summer Schools and Sea-side Laboratories aflbrd the opportu- 

 nity for scientific instruction of the right sort to those ambitious 

 teachers whose opportunities of early education are recognized 

 by themselves as inadequate. Let it be clearly recognized that 

 the teacher of Science demanded even in the Primary Schools is 

 not one who has committed to memory some verbal propositions 

 about Science, but one who has learned to observe and experi- 

 ment, to compare and reason, — and the conditions are already 

 in existence which will not fail to supply that demand. 



The work of the Committee during the year has involved some 

 expense in j^rinting, postage, etc., which expense the Committee 

 ask the Society to assume. 



We also ask to have authorized the publication of a special 

 edition of five hundred copies of this report for distribution in 

 educational circles. 



The above is respectfully submitted. 



Samuel F. Clarke, 



Chairuiaji . 



The report was accepted, with expressions of appreciation on 

 the part of the Society for the work done by the Committee, and 

 the Committee was continued. 



