i 8 9 2.] 
4 45 
[Annual Meeting-. 
The instruction lias been this year of a preparatory nature 
covering the usual groundwork of botanical teaching, a mixture 
of morphological and structural, including some histology, and 
physiological botany. Forty-two teachers have requested the 
continuance of this course. 
The course in historical geology begun last year has been con- 
tinued by the Curator. The whole number of tickets distributed 
was 59 and the average attendance was 32. The mode of in- 
struction was the same as in the botanical class except that the 
examinations were held at convenient intervals, and were partly 
oral and partly discussions with the pupils. 
The results of the final examination were, to say the least, 
better than any heretofore obtained by the Curator from any 
other class. Twenty-three persons took the examination ; nine of 
these handed in note books, classified, and arranged a set of test 
specimens, and answered a series of questions in writing so as to 
get above 90 per cent and five others above 80 per cent, while two 
or three of the whole were unable to pass. Considering the 
severity of the test, many of the pupils remaining at the tables 
engaged with the specimens and in writing for nearly four hours, 
and none less than three hours, the proportion of students 
attaining honorable mention is remarkably large. The Curator 
desires to express his obligations to Dr. R. T. Jackson and Miss 
J. M. Arms who assisted him in giving the lessons. 
Report of the Board of Directors of the Natural History 
Gardens and Aquaria, Samuel H. Scudder, Chairman. 
The work undertaken by the Directors of the Natural History 
Gardens and Aquaria the past year was one to which they were 
wholly unaccustomed and proved to be both very exacting and 
not altogether agreeable — that of soliciting subscriptions to the 
fund necessary before any further steps could be taken toward 
the actual accomplishment of the purposes of the Society. We 
invited subscriptions conditional upon one third of the two 
hundred thousand dollars being pledged before this present 
meeting. We are frank to acknowledge that this has not been 
attained or nearly attained ; but we have made some progress 
