202 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 8. 



either as vohintary laborers or for a vei-y 

 moderate compensation. These persons, 

 under the direction of the teacher, help him 

 to supervise the note making and microsco- 

 pical observations of the pupils and help 

 them to see and discuss with them the facts 

 that they observe. A large part of every les- 

 son is passed in the description and discus- 

 sion of observations made on the specimens. 

 The pupils are also encouraged to work in- 

 dependently in making connected studies 

 and collections out of doors, and to embodj' 

 the results in reports and actual collections 

 presented at the final examinations or at the 

 close of the term. 



Field work is also carried on in connec- 

 tion with the laboratory lectures in miner- 

 alogy and geology, and it is proposed to do 

 the same when opportunity offers in other 

 branches. One can judge in part of the 

 ability and attainments of classes by the ex- 

 amination papers and their note-books kept 

 through the term, and the results in this di- 

 rection have been higlily satisfactory. I 

 have not had time to gather any of these 

 evidences as I had intended to do, and I 

 shall have to ask you to take my word for 

 it that these were more than creditable. 

 I have brought a few placards of the courses 

 and of the questions for the final examina- 

 tions in two of the courses, which I have 

 exhibited for your inspection. 



The persons attending these lessons were 

 all adults and mostly teachers in the public 

 schools, but the same method has been found 

 to be equally successful with classes of the 

 Institution of Technology and Boston Uni- 

 versity, and no difficulty has been experi- 

 enced in handling them in this way beyond 

 what is usual with such pupils. Pupils of 

 the Teachers' School of Science have also 

 applied the same method to large classes of 

 young people of both sexes in the public 

 schools, and by covering less ground at each 

 lesson succeeded with them also. 



In certain subjects, such as Physical Geog- 



raphy, Chemistry and Physics, and Physi- 

 ology, and so on, this method has a neces- 

 sarily more limited application than in the" 

 branches enumerated above, but even in 

 these departments it has been more or less 

 used, du-ectly by selecting the few experi- 

 ments that could be actually made bj^ indi- 

 viduals in the audience, and indii-ectly by 

 showing others on the platform that could 

 be repeated by them with apparatus that 

 they could make themselves, or purchase 

 with very small outlay. 



Permit me in conclusion to repeat that it 

 has been thoroughly tested with such classes 

 of persons of all ages as have been described, 

 but it has not yet, as far as I know, been 

 applied to large classes of students in any 

 university. If it has been applied to such 

 classes by any one their experience is proba- 

 bly known to some persons in the audience, 

 and I shall be glad to hear what the results 

 have been. I am aware that our experi- 

 ence will probably be of real value only to 

 those who have to deal with classes having 

 at their command a limited number of hours 

 and but little chance for laboratory work 

 outside of the hours devoted to the lessons. 

 N"evertheless, there are many who now lec- 

 ture with illustrations, diagrams and the 

 stereopticon, to whom I would with all de- 

 ference suggest the possibility of adding to 

 these specimens distributed among their 

 pupils. And I further make bold to recom- 

 mend that those who make partial use of 

 text-books, as aids for the pupils to study 

 and recite from, drop a part of these re- 

 quirements and allow their pupils to substi- 

 tute actual work on specimens done inside 

 or outside of the class-room, collections 

 made by themselves and so on. I also 

 crave their permission to suggest one fea- 

 ture of our examinations which you will see 

 mentioned on the cards I have displayed. 

 This consists in placing before each pupil a 

 set of test specimens which he is required 

 to place in proper sequence as regards their 



