I82 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 31S 



SCIENCE 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES, 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



Subscriptions. — United States and Canada $3.50 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.50 a year. 



Science Club-rates for the United States and Canada (in one remittance); 

 I subscription i year S 3.50 



Communicatiops will be welcomed from any quarter. Rejected manuscripts will be 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accompanies the 

 manuscnpt. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name 

 and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication, but as a guaranty of good 

 faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for any view or opinions expressed in the 

 communications of our correspondents. 



The New York Mineralogical Club is a society organized 

 in 1887 for the purpose of studying the rocks and minerals of the 

 city and vicinity, which present many interesting and remarkable 

 features. Very few persons have any idea of the number and 

 variety of minerals that are found in the rocks of Manhattan Island 

 and the immediate suburbs. But in some respects this locality is 

 peculiar, for the reason that while a large amount of excavation 

 and rock-cutting is all the time going on, yet scarcely is a deposit 

 of minerals discovered in the progress of any such work, ere it is 

 built over or filled up, and rendered forever inaccessible. New 

 York Island specimens, therefore, possess in this aspect unusual 

 interest, and the collection and preservation of them become a 

 matter not only of scientific value, but of local pride. During a 

 number of years past, a gentleman well known, and greatly re- 

 spected in cultured circles here, Mr. Benjamin B. Chamberlin, has 

 devoted a great amount of time, labor, and care to gathering these 

 specimens from all parts of the city, wherever excavations were in 

 progress. At the time of his death, in October last, he had thus 

 secured the finest cabinet of New York minerals ever obtained. 

 Mr. Chamberlin was not a man of wealth, and labored in this field 

 out of pure love for science. The New York Mineralogical Club 

 is very desirous to obtain this collection by purchase, that it may 

 be retained in the city in its entirety, and serve as the foundation of 



a permanent local collection, which, for the reasons above given,- 

 must ever increase in value and interest as time goes on and the- 

 city is more and more built up. The moderate sum of fifteen hun- 

 dred dollars will secure this very desirable object ; and the trustees 

 of the American Museum of Natural History have agreed to re- 

 ceive the collection on permanent deposit in their absolutely fire- 

 proof building, where it will always be accessible for purposes of 

 study, — a monument to the zeal and success of its honored col- 

 lector, and a matter of interest and credit to the metropolis. 



SCIENCE IN THE SCHOOLS. 



The committee on the subject of science in the schools, of the 

 American Society of Naturalists, consisting of Samuel F. Clarke 

 (Williams College), William North Rice (Wesle3'an University), 

 William G. Farlow (Harvard University), George Macloskie (Col- 

 lege of New Jersey, Princeton), and C. O.Whitman {^ii\Kor Journal 

 of Morphology), have made a report which has been accepted and 

 heartily approved by the society. The committee have been re- 

 tained, and have been granted full power to act for and with 

 the society in the endeavor to establish what they have recom- 

 mended. 



From the steadily increasing demand of scholars, parents, and 

 teachers for more and better instruction in these departments, the 

 committee feel assured that the time is ripe for this movement, and 

 that it only needs intelligent and concerted action to produce the 

 results desired. The society will be represented at the meetings 

 of the various educational associations in the country, and will 

 make every effort to push the movement as vigorously as possible. 

 It needs, however, and asks for, the active support and encourage- 

 ment of every parent and teacher who believes that the young 

 should have their natural tendencies, and longings for a knowledge 

 of the things of nature, cultivated ; their questions about things which- 

 are in every way pure and true answered ; opportunities for enjoy- 

 ment, and for friendships that will never fail, laid open to them ; and,, 

 above all, the opportunity freely afforded them for securing the 

 brain-growth and mental power, by observation and independent 

 thought, which these studies are so peculiarly well fitted to give. 



In regard to the general topic of science-teaching in the schools, 

 the committee believe the following propositions fairly formulate 

 the views which cire held by the members of the society, and 

 which the society should use its influence to diffuse : — 



1. Instruction in natural science should commence in the lowest 

 grades of the primary schools, and should continue throughout the 

 curriculum. 



2. In the lower grades the instruction should be chiefly by means 

 of object-lessons ; and the aim should be to awaken and guide the 

 curiosity of the child in regard to natural phenomena rather than 

 to present systematized bodies of fact and doctrine. 



3. More systematic instruction in the natural sciences should be 

 given in the high schools. 



4. While the sciences can be more extensively pursued in the 

 English course in the high schools than is practicable in the classical 

 course, it is indispensable for a symmetrical education that a reason- 

 able amount of time should be devoted to patural science, during^ 

 the four years .of the high-school course, by students preparing for 

 college. 



5. An elementary (but genuine and practical) acquaintance with 

 some one or more departments of natural science should be re- 

 quired for admission to college. 



Believing that the propositions stated above will command gen- 

 eral acceptance, they are aware that there must be dift'erence of 

 opinion, among the members of the society and among intelligent 

 educators in general, in regard to details, and that the precise sub- 

 jects to be introduced into the curriculum must vary somewhat 

 with the circumstances of different localities. They offer the fol- 

 lowing, not as necessarily the best scheme, but as a reasonable 

 and practical scheme, which may at least serve to illustrate the 

 general principles which they have formulated. 



In the primary schools, and in the lower grades of the grammar 

 schools, they recommend that the study of plants and animals 

 should be the main part of the scientific work. The botanical 



