232 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 9. 



teaching. There mvist be, to he sure, a uni- 

 form plan of stud J' for the course, but the 

 cari-ying-out of the plan in details should be 

 left to the assistant, who should be held 

 responsible for his results rather than his 

 methods. It is very desirable, or perhaps, I 

 should say, necessary, to hold weeklj' meet- 

 ings of the assistants at which the coming la- 

 boratory topics are discussed, uniform ways 

 of treating diiiicult or morphologically de- 

 batable questions agreed upon, and peda- 

 gogic advice given, the latter, as I have 

 found, always eagerly received and acted 

 upon. In this way, in conjunction with 

 the weekly guides to be mentioned below, 

 all desu-able uniformity of treatment can be 

 secured. 



It is necessary, and indeed, good policj^ as 

 well, to pay the assistants ; the amount will 

 vary according to the general scale of ex- 

 penditure in vogue in the particular college. 

 One dollar an hour may be considered fair, 

 perhaps the maximum that it is needful to 

 pay. 



Let us consider secondly how conflicting 

 hours may be adjusted to insufficient ac- 

 commodations, and to the need of bringing 

 each man always under the same assistant. 

 The solution of this often appalling problem 

 can be found only in this : the instructor 

 must claim for his Laboratory work equal 

 rank with any other college exercises, make 

 the choice of hours, or rather sections, as 

 wide as possible, and require students to 

 work exactly in these sections or else remain 

 out of the course. The size of the sections 

 must be limited partly by the number an 

 assistant can manage, partly by the seating 

 accommodation of the laboratory. Thus a 

 room of fifty to sixty seats can accommodate 

 two sections at once. The hours should be 

 ai'ranged so as to give at least two hours of 

 consecutive time ; the best arrangement for 

 a four-hour-a-week course is to have each 

 section meet in two-hour periods at the same 

 hours on two different days. Thus a sec- 



tion meeting 11-1 Tuesday would meet 11- 

 1 Thursday. No student should be allowed 

 to break hours and come in different sec- 

 tions if it can possibly be avoided. To ar- 

 range the students in sections, each should 

 be asked to hand in, at the opening of the 

 work, his preference and his second choice. 

 The great majoritj'^ can be assigned to their 

 preference, only a few, selectable by lot, 

 need to be placed in their second choice 

 in order to adjust the sizes of the sections. 

 In order to prevent all confusion, we have 

 found it very useful to give each student 

 a card stating the number of his section, 

 of his seat, of his microscope, of his box 

 and the name of the assistant, and to 

 check off" for each section on blue-i)rint plans 

 of the laboratory and lists of instruments, 

 etc., the numbers as assigned. By tliis 

 plan successive sections may use the same 

 seats and instruments without confusion 

 and each come always under its own as- 

 sistant. 



"We have next to notice how the labor and 

 confusion of getting the sections to work 

 may be minimized and the time of the assist* 

 ants economized for the higher grades of 

 their teaching work, and how the sections 

 may be kept progressing uniformly. The 

 beginner ( and for that matter the most 

 advanced of students ) , when a new topic is 

 placed before him, has no idea of what he is 

 to study about it, of what is imijortant and 

 what is not, of the nomenclature he is to 

 employ. The questions " what am I to do 

 with it?" "what do you want me to do 

 next '? " dreadful as thej^ sound, are yet nat- 

 ural enough. If these questions can be 

 answered for each student without reference 

 to the assistant it is an immense gain, and 

 they can be answered by a printed guide or 

 sj'nopsis of the week's work supplied each 

 week to each student. These should be ar- 

 ranged upon the approved plan in use in 

 the many excellent laboratory' manuals, i. 

 e., they should indicate the points which it, 



