282 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHAIR OF 



United College. 1 Plans were drawn out by the Board of 

 Works 2 showing how easily this and the extension of the 

 museum could have been accomplished, but the proposal was 

 not carried into execution. 



In 1882 the Senate had nothing to offer as a practical 

 room but the muniment-room with its stone floor and its 

 stone roof, and this served as a practical class-room for two 

 sessions ; then, on the suggestion of Lord Dalhousie, the glass- 

 top of a large table-case in the next room (originally intended 

 as the retiring-room of the United College Hall, and long the 

 sole class-room of Professor Macdonald) was removed, drawers 

 for instruments fitted in, and both apartments were thus 

 rendered available. No one disputed the Secretary for 

 Scotland's authority. The same rooms were used for teaching 

 practical botany two days a week on the institution of the 

 lectures on botany in 1887. These rooms were ill-adapted for 

 a practical class of any kind, both in regard to heating and 

 lighting, yet they were better than those assigned by the 

 University Court for zoology twenty years later. In the 

 practical class (1882 to date) a regular course of instruction 

 in the various types from Protozoa to mammals is carried out, 

 specimens being supplied to students free. Each is taught 

 microscopic manipulation and mounting, and encouraged to 

 describe and to draw from nature, prizes being given for the 

 best series of drawings, descriptions, and microscopical 

 preparations. Remarkable forms are brought from the sea 

 or the marine laboratory to the practical class or the lecture- 

 room for examination and explanation. Students of St 

 Andrews are freely permitted to work in the marine laboratory 

 for study or research, and the same privilege is occasionally 

 given to others. In the earlier years of the practical class, 

 the demonstrator Dr Wilson, now lecturer on agriculture, 



1 Vide printed document ' Biological Laboratories and the Extension of the Museum,' 

 St Andrews, 1884. 



2 Prepared by Mr Robertson, of H.M. Office of Works, Edinburgh. 



