TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE. 459 



treated, but from fatigue on the part of the teachers, and this state 

 of affairs caused him to say in his annual report that " proper and 

 wise forethought should long ago have given teachers a portion of 

 every week besides the usual Saturday holiday for the pursuit of 

 information needed for teaching new subjects." He believed that 

 the efficiency of the individual teacher would be greatly increased 

 by this expedient, and that the pupils would gain more than they 

 lost by the shortening of the school hours. 



At the request of the Superintendent of Schools the curator gave 

 the following year ten lessons, which were directed mainly to the 

 subjects put down in the course of study under the title of Ele- 

 mentary Science Lessons. In his course in Elementary Mineralogy, 

 Professor Crosby followed the plan indicated by Mrs. E. H. Rich- 

 ards in one of the science guides First Lessons in Minerals. The 

 curator, for his course on Structure and Habits of Worms, Insects, 

 and Vertebrates, used many specimens which had been tanned by 

 a process which was then in use. Over twenty-eight thousand 

 zoological specimens were given away in two years. Professor 

 Crosby, with a class of sixty, continued the course of the previous 

 year, giving lessons in the mineralogical laboratory of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, and the specimens there studied 

 were retained by the teachers. 



In the winter of 1888 '89 Professor Crosby, using for his audi- 

 torium .Huntington Hall, gave a course of ten lessons on the geol- 

 ogy of Boston and vicinity. " The object of the lessons was to ac- 

 quaint the teachers of Boston and vicinity with natural opportuni- 

 ties by which they are surrounded, and specially to show them how 

 to use these opoprtunities for their own culture and the benefit of 

 their pupils. The subject was treated in accordance with the fol- 

 lowing scheme : (I) A general study of the physical features of the 

 Boston basin and of the geological changes now in progress in this 

 region; (2) a systematic study of the various minerals and rocks 

 found in the Boston basin, together with the more characteristic 

 kinds of structure which they exhibit; (3) a summary of the geo- 

 logical history of the district so far as that is plainly recorded in 

 the rocks. The course was freely illustrated by maps and dia- 

 grams, also to a large extent by specimens, more than ten thousand 

 of which were distributed. Special pains were taken at every step 

 of the work to indicate the localities where phenomena such as were 

 described in the lessons might be most advantageously studied. 

 This comprehensive course formed suitable preparation for a sec- 

 ond series of lessons, the principal object of which was to apply the 

 principles taught by the first series to a thorough and detailed study 

 of the physical history of the Boston basin. Each important lo- 



