754 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 697 



students are pretty well fagged out by the 

 beginning of the summer vacation, and there 

 is imperative need of rest. In spite of this, 

 many teachers find it necessary to add to their 

 stock of knowledge during the vacation, and 

 so they flock to the summer schools, and add 

 six or eight weeks of strenuous work to their 

 school year of teaching. No wonder that so 

 many teachers, especially in the high schools, 

 so soon acquire the look that we recognize as 

 the " teacher's face." The wonder is that 

 more of them do not break down mentally and 

 physically. 



When Agassiz thirty-five years ago started 

 the Penikese summer school he did more than 

 any one then thought for the tired teachers 

 of the country, for he showed them how they 

 might rest and study at the same time. He 

 showed them that " better way " of finding out 

 about nature and all the world of living 

 things. His secret was the simple one of 

 learning of nature by being in it, of learning 

 about the world of living things by becoming 

 a part of that world of life. And this was 

 the beginning of the out-of-doors schools in 

 America. In these new schools, instead of 

 trying to bring mutilated fragments of nature 

 into the laboratory the student lives in the 

 forests, fields and meadows, with the birds, 

 insects and plants. He lives much in the 

 open, wandering through the fields and wood- 

 lands, searching the brooks, rowing over the 

 ponds and bays, always with nature, because 

 always in nature. And at the end of his 

 vacation school he returns to his teaching re- 

 freshed and strengthened in body and mind, 

 and vtdth a satisfying store of knowledge 

 about the woodsy things, and the creatures 

 of the swamps and ponds. 



Such a vacation school is that at Cold 

 Spring Harbor, on the north shore of Long 

 Island, thirty miles eastward from New Tork 

 City. For eighteen years it has annually wel- 

 comed those who came to it for rest and 

 study, and this year it invites such again to 

 come (during July and August) to its shady 

 woodlands, its bogs, its fresh poncb, and its 

 salt-water basins and bays, all full of the life 

 that thrives in such environment. Here one 

 may study birds, comparative anatomy of 



animals, embryology, bionomics and evolu- 

 tion. Here too, the student may acquaint 

 himself with the world of lower plants, from 

 the tiny water forms to the fungi, the lichens, 

 the mosses and the ferns, up to the flowering 

 plants. For these living things are all about 

 him, and he has but to observe them where 

 they grow, or take them to the near-by labora- 

 tory where with microscopes and books he 

 may study them more critically. 



For twenty years the Marine Biological 

 Laboratory at Woods Holl, on Buzzard's Bay, 

 Mass., has afforded facilities for seaside study. 

 In the waters of the bay and its varied shore 

 line, including points and flats of many kinds, 

 extending out to Vineyard Sound and across 

 to the shores of Marthas Vineyard, added tO' 

 the fresh-water ponds and lakes on the main- 

 land, the student may find a world of aquatic 

 life, while in the woodlands, which in many 

 places still linger from the time when the 

 region was covered with forests, terrestrial 

 life of all kinds may be found in abundance. 

 In the laboratory are provided botanical 

 courses of instruction in algae, fungi and the 

 higher plants, and zoological courses in lower 

 animals, embryology and comparative phys- 

 iology. The fact that it is only fifteen miles 

 from the laboratory to Penikese Island where 

 Agassiz started the first seaside summer school 

 should add interest to this place for vacation 

 study. 



Much like the preceding is the Lake Labora- 

 tory at Cedar Point, near Sandusky City on 

 Lake Erie, which for the past few years has 

 offered similar facilities for those living so 

 far away from the ocean as to practically pro- 

 hibit so long a journey. Here also are offered 

 facilities for studying animals and plants in 

 the forests, in the open or in the ponds and 

 bays, while in the laboratory are more formal 

 studies of the embryology, morphology and 

 comparative anatomy of animals, and the 

 more technical lines of general botany. 



If you are tired out at the end of the school 

 year, and yet feel that you must study, go to 

 Cold Spring Harbor, or Woods Holl, or Cedar 

 Point, and rest while you imbibe something of 

 what nature can teach you when you come 

 closely in contact with her. 



