and Laboratory Methods. 



1153 



furnish students with tables which become their permanent property for the 

 term's work. This has a great many advantages, as it is not necessary to clear 

 the table after every work period, and it is possible, in the case of enthusiastic 

 students, to put in more than their required time upon their laboratory work. 

 As a matter of fact, in many cases, more than double the amount of required 

 time is spent by many of the students in the laboratory. 



For laboratory tables, after a good deal of thought, we have used hard wood 

 kitchen tables. The essential points in a laboratory table for an under-graduate 

 student seems to be a sufficient amount of room, and stability. These tables 

 are well made — each has a drawer — and have the virtue of cheapness, and we 

 prefer to spend our money in other forms of apparatus rather than in elaborate 

 laboratory tables. The tops of the tables are painted a dull black. 



ELEMENTARY LABORATORY. 



For laboratory chairs, we have used a form which we have seen in no other 

 laboratory. Many of our best laboratories supply stools for their students. It 

 has always seemed to us rather hard that the student, who is working two hours 

 or more continuously at the laboratory table, should have nothing more com- 

 fortable than a stool without a back. It is very desirable that whatever chairs 

 are used should be adjustable in height, because of the varying heights of the 

 students as well as the requirements of the different kinds of work. We have 

 finally adopted in all of our biological laboratories a chair which is easily under- 

 stood from the illustrations. The base is a swivel stool, upon which is placed 

 the seat of an ordinary kitchen chair. These chairs are very comfortable, and 

 at the same time very durable, and we have found them extremely satisfactory 

 for the laboratory work. 



