1884.] 187 L Annual Meeting- 



fessional work as if it consisted, only, of the daily repetition of 

 precisely the same mechanical tasks. A proper and wise fore- 

 thought should long ago have given them, at least, half a day in 

 every week, besides Saturday, for study, the pursuit of the infor- 

 mation needed for teaching new subjects, and other similar mat- 

 ters. The efficiency of the individual teacher would be greatly 

 increased by this expedient, and much more than compensate for 

 the small amount of time lost to the pupil. The decline in atten- 

 dance at our lessons is not due to the subject, nor to its mode of treat- 

 ment ; it occurs with all lecturers and subjects alike, and evidently 

 arises from the weariness and fatiguing work, which the teachers 

 have to support. This becomes more and more onerous as the spring 

 approaches, and under these circumstances it is highly creditable 

 to the profession that so large a proportion are capable of keeping 

 up throughout the entire course. The average attendance at the 

 first series of lessons, in proportion to the number of tickets dis- 

 tributed, was about thirty per cent, at the second series, about 

 twenty-five per cent and at the third, about fifteen per cent ; five 

 per cent of this extraordinary falling off, in the last series, was 

 as we have said, probably due to stormy weather. The follow- 

 ing abstracts give the items as taken from the records on file. 

 Number of applications received 854. 



Number of tickets distributed, 



Chemistry 928 



Vegetable Physiolog} 1 - 938 



Mineralogy 932 





2798 



To teachers, 





Chemistry 



781 



Vegetable Physiology 



764 



Mineralogy 



750 





2295 



To others, 





Chemistry 



147 



Vegetable Physiology 



174 



Mineralogy 



182 



503 



