Journal of Applied Microscopy. 35T 



Each two workers are provided with a compound and a dissecting microscope, 

 a box containing scalpel, scissors, and forceps, a set of six reagent bottles, watch 

 glasses, bottles and slides, necessary for work. Students are required to furnish 

 pens, pencils, razors, paper, and note books. Each student is made individually 

 responsible for all apparatus used, and is required to keep the same, with table,, 

 clean and in good order. The result of thus imposing this responsibility is, that 

 although the students have almost unrestricted access to the laboratory for six days 

 in the week, there is seldom anything taken or misplaced. A sense of responsi- 

 bility soon begets in the students a pride in an orderly, well appointed work-rdbm, 

 in which they spend a year of consecutive daily work. 



The time given to the subjects of botany and zoology is not all that could be 

 desired, there being only half a year devoted to each. Botany begins with the 

 second semester of the second year, and zoology with the first semester of the 

 junior year. 



The two kingdoms are taken up similarly, so that what is said of one, in 

 regard to method, will apply to the other. In botany, the course is planned to 

 cover the entire plant kingdom, not exhaustively, of course, but yet in a syste- 

 matic and scientific manner. The different natural groups are taken up separ- 

 ately, and studied as to their classification, structure, and relation to other groups,, 

 with some work in physiology. 



The weekly programme (subject to some variation) is as follows : Monday, 

 a talk or lecture by the teacher, bearing on the group as a whole, on classifica- 

 tion, and a general outline of the group to be studied, in which blackboard and 

 wall charts are used ; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, two hours each day 

 are spent in laboratory work on some typical specimen of the group under con- 

 sideration ; Friday is devoted to a quiz or written work covering the lecture and 

 laboratory work of the week. 



The writer has also prepared a series of lantern slides representative of each 

 group of plants and animals studied, embracing many forms not obtainable for 

 laboratory work. These are generally used after the study of a group, to give a 

 general review and more comprehensive idea of the whole subject. For this 

 purpose a good stereopticon, with which may be used either sunlight or an 

 electric arc, is always in readiness, and can be used without special preparation. 

 This is found very helpful, and amply repays the great amount of labor and time 

 expended in the making of lantern slides, etc. Thus, the work of the week 

 consists of a sort of pre-view laboratory work, a summing-up, and a general 

 review after each group studied. 



In the last decade, school and college curricula have undergone a gradual 

 but marked evolution. People in general demand more and more training in 

 science, some because they believe it to be what is termed " practical education," 

 others because they are satisfied that it is the best, and prefer that the mind shall 

 be trained by these natural laws. Whatever the reason may be, the demand cer- 

 tainly exists, and recitation rooms and text-books must give way, to some extent 

 at least, to laboratories. 



It is not infrequent, however, to find a subject in science, or even a " scien- 

 tific course," introduced into the curriculum, where no laboratory at all has been 



