MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. - 15 



of the United States. Mr. M. S. W. Jefferson, and Dr. R. A. 

 Daly acted as Assistants in the first course, and Mr. M. H. Wright 

 in the second. Although the number of persons in attendance 

 was smaller than a year ago, it is thought that the work thus done 

 is effective in promoting the better teaching of geography, inas- 

 much as instructors in colleges, normal schools, and academies, 

 as well as teachers in high and grammar schools, were enrolled 

 in the classes. A number of field excursions were made in each 

 course, including visits to Provincetown and Shelburne Falls, 

 Mass., Portland, Me., Monadnock, N. H., and Meriden, Conn. 



Professor Davis gave a course of eight lectures on Saturday 

 mornings in the winter to school teachers of Boston and the 

 neighboring cities, as one of the " Lowell Free Courses " in the 

 Teacher's School of Science of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History. The subjects here treated were such as would afford 

 the most direct assistance in the work of teachers in grammar 

 schools. In the spring, he delivered six lectures in the Brookline 

 High School, On the Relation of Man to the Earth. Before the 

 opening of the Summer School, he attended a conference called 

 by a Committee of the National Educational Association, and held 

 in Springfield, Mass., July 1 and 2, for the purpose of defining a 

 course in Physical Geography appropriate for the high schools of 

 the country. It was interesting to notice that all the members of 

 the conference, ten in number, appointed by various educational 

 organizations in different parts of the country, had at one time or 

 another attended Harvard courses in geology or geography, with 

 the exception of one, who was afterwards enrolled as a member 

 of the first course in geography during the current summer. The 

 report of the conference will be published in an early number of 

 the Journal of School Geography. 



Much time has been given during the year to the preparation of 

 an elementary textbook of Physical Geography, adapted to use 

 in high schools ; Mr. W. H. Snyder, Master in Science at Wor- 

 cester Academy, being associated with the writer in the latter part 

 of the work. The book is now in press, and will be published in 

 the autumn. In the absence of Professor Schilling, Professor 

 Davis has taken his place as Chairman of the Committee of Special 

 Students in Harvard College during the academic year. During 

 the coming year he will be absent in Europe, his work being in 

 part undertaken by Dr. Daly. 



