SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 83 



Laboratory on the first floor; two recitation rooms, and four 

 office rooms on the second floor; and the Library, Museum, and 

 three recitation rooms (two quite small) on the third floor. 

 The Chapel and Museum were sometimes used for recitations, 

 so that there were seven rooms available for class purposes— 

 not a bad showing for the Httle college of about a hundred 

 students, when it is remembered that there were at most not 

 more than four recitations each hour, and only six professors in 

 all to hold recitations. In fact, but four rooms in addition to 

 the Chapel were ordinarily used for classes. The chemical 

 classes always met in the Chapel, since it was possible to bring 

 apparatus to it very easily from the laboratory on the same floor. 

 The classes in botany met in a small room at the southeast corner 

 of the third floor. The other rooms were common, and were 

 used by classes in any subjects. All of the regular classrooms 

 were suppHed with blackboards and plain wooden chairs, and 

 these constituted the "appHances" of that day. In most cases 

 the professors had neither tables, desks, nor cupboards. Each 

 professor quite Hterally occupied a chair, and nothing further. 



It was emphatically the period of the textbook. Some of 

 the professors gave lectures, but in every subject the student 

 always had his textbook as the basis of his study, and daily 

 recitations were the rule. We learned things from books, and 

 were asked to repeat them orally at greater or less length to our 

 teachers. We were not asked to write out what we knew, but 

 were required to stand up and tell it under the keen eye of the 

 professor, and the brutally critical attention of the class. In 

 this way we learned to think on our feet, and I have always felt 

 that much has been lost by the general abandonment of the old- 

 time recitation, and the substitution of the written quiz and 

 examination. 



Chemistry, even at that early day, was taught by practical 

 work in the laboratory. We had one lecture or recitation a day, 

 and in addition two hours daily of laboratory work. In the 



