Annual Meeting.] 
282 
[May 6, 
to that time. This served to fix the knowledge already gained 
and gave much satisfaction to the members of the class. The 
last lesson was devoted almost entirely to an examination cover- 
ing the whole course. 
The seating capacity of the room, originally only for thirty-six, 
was enlarged to accommodate forty-eight, and this number of A 
tickets were given out. Besides these, nineteen B tickets were 
issued, entitling holders to admission but not to reserved seats. 
The largest number present at any one time was fifty-eight, and 
the smallest forty-four, the average being 49.73, one and 
seventy-three one hundredths above the seating capacity of the 
room. The results of this course, which has, in some respects, 
been the most thorough ever given in the School, are very 
significant and show that the changes we propose to make in the 
policy of this department are well founded. 
The audiences at the general courses have been steadily 
decreasing for ten years. The most interesting subjects treated 
in the best manner and by the ablest teachers we have in the 
vicinity did not prevent the gradual and steady lowering of the 
average of attendance. This is due to several causes. When 
these lessons were begun in 1870 there were very few teachers in 
Boston who knew anything about natural history. There was, 
however, among this class a feeling that the subject ought to be 
cultivated. The School began at this favorable time and we had 
audiences of five hundred on Saturday afternoons. These kept 
up for several years, but gradually, those who had some knowl- 
edge got enough, or what they thought to be enough, a propor- 
tion turned their attention to other and more novel things, and 
our audiences slowly but surely decreased until it became evident, 
that, after twenty-one years of usefulness, the interest felt in 
them by the teachers did not warrant their continuance. These 
lessons to large audiences had in fact accomplished their mission : 
they had sown general information broadcast, and given away 
specimens by the hundreds of thousands ; they had demonstrated 
the possibility of handling enormous classes, and giving observa- 
tion lessons to five hundred people at a time, each person with 
the specimens in hand ; and they had finally brought up a class of 
persons, who had become too well educated to find any longer the 
proper food for farther advance in the general information they 
were capable of giving them. These results are not matters of 
opinion, but have been demonstrated by the fact, that while the 
general lectures were declining, the special prolonged laboratory 
