a pamphlet[5] in which he had the courage to say that, if a man were
well fed, liquor could have no terrors for him. "Take care of the
eating and the drinking will take care of itself." Repeal all laws
that in any degree and on any pretext tend to enhance the market
prices, was Mr. Reed's thesis, and he nailed it boldly to the
Massachusetts State-House door! Mr. Reed proceeded with figures to
remind us that the countries where drunkenness existed to the most
alarming degrees were those countries where the masses of the people
eat the least, see meat perhaps once or twice a year, and perhaps
never; where the year's labor barely suffices to pay the year's
taxes!--in Italy, Russia, or Sweden, and parts of Germany, for
example, where life is a struggle for bread enough to keep life in the
body. The figures Mr. Reed gives are too appalling for an Anglo-Saxon
to read calmly. "If Russia," says Mr. Reed, "could reduce her infant
mortality to that of Great Britain she would save annually a million
of lives. Half the Russian mothers can not nurse their children. The
whip and spur of poverty drives them to labor in the fields, where
they follow the plow three days after confinement, and where the death
rate is forty-eight per thousand.... In France many a factory hand
lives on a slice of sour bread for a meal, over which he is fortunate
if he can rub an onion to give it flavor.... In Italy, where taxes are
imposed to twenty-five per cent of the laborer's income, the average
length of life is twenty-seven years, and the whole kingdom is
mortgaged to an average of seventeen per cent." In Würtemberg Mr. Reed
assures us that "in this garden of Germany the peasant lives on black
bread and potatoes with meat only once a year." And even in England
Mr. Reed (quoting his authority) declares that the collier breakfasts
on bread soaked in hot water and flavored with onion, dines on bread
and hard cheese, with sour, thin cider, and sups on potatoes or
cabbage greased with a bit of bacon rind. And precisely the identical
testimony, varying only the staples of starvation, comes from
Switzerland, Poland, and other countries. Now, all this requires
something, and that something usually takes the form of something
alcoholic. Poor Edgar Allan Poe produced his fascinating prose and
marvelous poetry on dinners of herbs, and the well-fed, fat, greasy
Honey-thunders and Podsnaps recognize the crime, not in the fact that
such a man was left to eat such dinners, but that he took a glass of
whisky to keep the life in his poor unnourished body while he wrote.
Therefore Mr. Reed would make food as plentiful as Nature has enabled
man to make it. In other words, a condition of unfedness requires the
human system to crave alcoholic stimulants, and what the human system
craves it must find, since the craving becomes functional, and
impossible to disregard, _malgre_ laws, systems, or statutes
whatsoever. Even the children in Switzerland, says Dr. Schuler (quoted
by Mr. Reed), are fed whisky between meals in order to sustain their
tiny lives, the low regimen of whose mothers has given them the
frailest possible hold on life to live at all. Mr. Reed believes also
that, on public grounds, other effort for amelioration should be made
by the State, such as shorter hours of labor, two holidays a week,
etc. But as to these we will not follow him here. He makes his point,
however, and his pamphlet is worth the consideration of
philanthropists. It can not be denied that, with the exception of the
shorter hours for labor and the general tendency to increase the
number of holidays ("Labor Day," Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Lincoln Day,
etc.), much of Mr. Reed's theories have got into our statute-books.
And the general tendency to ameliorate the condition of the laborer,
which is everywhere apparent in the United States, may fairly be
alluded to here as among statutory efforts to the universal
betterment.
[Footnote 5: A New View of the Temperance Question. By Edwin
Reed, Boston, 1889.]
[_To be concluded._]
* * * * *
Regarding changes in the language of science, as illustrated in
the English Historical Dictionary, C. L. Barnes pointed out, in
the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, England,
that the words "astronomy" and "astrology" have interchanged
meanings since they were first introduced, as is shown by
Evelyn's speaking, in his Memoirs, of having dined with "Mr.
Flamsteed, the learned astrologer and mathematician." Gaule, in
1652, spoke of chemistry as "a kind of præstigious, cheating,
covetous magick"; and even as late as 1812 Bentham spoke of the
"unexpressive appellation chemistry" as the single-worded synonym
for "idioscopic or crypto-dynamic anthropurgics." Atom originally
meant a small interval of time--the 22,564th part of an hour. The
word gas was suggested to Van Helmont by the Greek chaos. "I
called that vapor gas," he said, "an ancient mystery not long
from chaos." Algebra was a branch of mathematics and also the art
of bone-setting, and both meanings are still used in Spain.
TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE.
BY FRANCES ZIRNGIEBEL.
"He who would most effectually improve school tuition must find out
the most effectual way of improving the teachers. Hence he is the
greatest educational benefactor who does most to raise the character
and qualifications of the teachers," said John D. Philbrick, late
superintendent of the public schools of the city of Boston, in his
twenty-third semiannual report. By providing teachers with the best
instruction on subjects the teaching of which was at the time of
making this report, and is still, unsatisfactory, The Teachers' School
of Science of the Boston Society of Natural History has for nearly
three decades been a great educational benefactor. It stands unique as
an institution which, while doing a great work for many years, has
presented nothing of startling nature such as would attract the
attention of the general public, and is therefore not so widely known
as it deserves to be.
During a conversation held at the council room of the Boston Society
of Natural History, in 1870, between Prof. Alpheus Hyatt and the late
Mr. John C. Cummings, a Boston merchant interested in natural history
and curator of the plant collection of the society for twenty odd
years, the latter expressed regret that the Lowell lectures for
teachers had been discontinued. Professor Hyatt then suggested to him
a plan for lectures for teachers exclusively. That afternoon Mr.
Cummings gave five hundred dollars for the commencement of such a
course, and soon after the matter was brought before a committee
consisting of Mr. Cummings, Professor Hyatt, and Professor Niles.
[Illustration: ALPHEUS HYATT.]
[Illustration: JOHN CUMMINGS.]
Under the direction of the committee the courses of lessons were given
as follows: physical geography, by Prof. William H. Niles, of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; mineralogy, by Mr. W. C.
Greenough, of the Providence Normal School; zoölogy, by Prof. Alpheus
Hyatt, then custodian of the Boston Society of Natural History;
botany, by Dr. W. G. Farlow, of Cambridge--in all thirty-three
lessons. These courses were wholly tentative and experimental, but
attained success that was most encouraging.
[Illustration: WILLIAM H. NILES.]
Through the kindness of Professor Runkle, President of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Huntington Hall, in which so
many great scientists have spoken, was opened for the first lesson in
geography. Professor Niles here delivered six lectures. "He undertook
to give the more general features of the earth's surface, and then to
apply these general principles to the explanation of the physical
characteristics of Massachusetts." The success of this course may be
judged by the average attendance, which was about six hundred teachers
of all grades, and by the fact that the teaching of geography in some
of the public schools at once underwent a change in favor of the more
natural method introduced by him.
[Illustration: ON THE RIGHT, BUILDING OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL
HISTORY; ON THE LEFT, ROGERS'S BUILDING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY.]
"On account of the necessity of actually handling and dissecting
specimens, the tickets issued for the succeeding lessons were limited,
and at the six lessons on mineralogy and eleven on zoölogy there was
an average attendance of about fifty-five. The materials for the
course in zoölogy were gathered in sufficient abundance through the
extraordinary facilities for collecting marine animals afforded by
Prof. S. F. Baird, United States Commissioner of Fisheries; those for
the course in botany were furnished with equal readiness and
generosity by Prof. Asa Gray from his botanical garden at Cambridge."
The society's attempt to introduce natural history into the public
schools met with favor at the hands of the superintendent, Mr.
Philbrick, and a committee of school principals was appointed, with
Mr. James A. Page as chairman, who canvassed the teachers regarding
this matter. Accordingly, in October, 1871, a circular was sent to
teachers which said that lessons were to be given by "professors
familiar with the object methods of teaching and skillful in the use
of chalk." Seven hundred teachers signed this circular, and so
signified their pleasure at the prospect of receiving such
instruction.
While Mr. Cummings was generously providing these courses of lectures
exclusively for the benefit of teachers, Mr. John A. Lowell, trustee
of the Lowell Institute Fund, made liberal provision for free courses
on different branches of natural science, to which teachers were
specially invited and which were well adapted to their wants, although
not intended exclusively for them. During the winter of 1872-'73, on
account of the large fire in Boston and the absence of Professor Hyatt
in Europe, the lessons in The Teachers' School of Science were
necessarily suspended. In the autumn of 1874 they were resumed and
supported by renewed donations from Mr. Cummings. Mr. L. S. Burbank
gave thirty lessons on minerals, and distributed the specimens used at
the lectures among the teachers. These minerals were then used in the
schools for instruction. This was virtually the introduction of the
teaching of natural science in the public schools of Boston. The
following winter Mr. Burbank continued his teaching by giving fourteen
lessons in lithology to a class averaging ninety in attendance. One
hundred sets of seventy-five specimens each were distributed, and many
of these sets placed in collections of the city schools. "A
supplementary course of field lessons about Boston was voluntarily
conducted by Mr. Burbank, who had in his class this year seventy-five
per cent of the members of the class in mineralogy of the previous
year. This class included a large number of the busiest teachers of
Boston and vicinity, and each member of the class was provided with
tools, consisting of a small hammer, magnet, file, streak stone of
Arkansas quartzite, a bottle of dilute acid, a glass rod, and the
scale of hardness previously used in the mineralogical course."
In 1876 women were admitted to the Society of Natural History, and in
that way further privileges were granted to teachers. As in previous
years, through the liberality of Mr. Cummings, the lessons were
continued, and a course of twenty-one lessons in morphological,
physiological, and systematic botany was given by Prof. George L.
Goodale, of Harvard University. Each lesson was illustrated by
specimens which were distributed to the students. The analysis of the
flowers and the determination of the peculiarities of floral structure
were considered by Professor Goodale an important part of the course.
For this purpose blank forms were distributed to the teachers, which
enabled each one to pursue his examination of the flower in hand
independently, and made it possible for the instructor to cover more
ground than would have been practical by any other method. There was
an unusually large attendance at these lessons, averaging one hundred.
The following year Professor Goodale continued to teach in the school,
giving twenty lectures on the principles of systematic botany. Printed
synopses of the lectures were placed in the hands of the teachers, and
nearly all the large orders of plants were illustrated by specimens or
diagrams. The teachers were also provided with dried and named
specimens of native plants suitable for private herbaria. About one
hundred and fifty sets of these plants were distributed during the
course, at which the attendance was even greater than that of the
previous year.
[Illustration: GEORGE L. GOODALE.]
It was at this time that, through the efforts of Miss Lucretia
Crocker, the study of zoölogy was introduced into the high schools of
Boston, and the study of Nature in the public schools took a definite
form. At this time The Teachers' School of Science attained an
extraordinary size and importance, a development which was sudden and
unexpected. The supervisor of Nature study, Miss Crocker, assured the
directors of the school that their assistance would be of great
benefit, and in fact essential, to the success of the introduction of
this subject into the schools. It was therefore determined to
institute appropriate courses upon elementary botany, zoölogy, and
mineralogy, if the means of paying the expenses could be raised. Mrs.
S. T. Hooper and Miss Crocker undertook a considerable amount of the
necessary work, and fortunately their scheme met with substantial
appreciation from Mrs. Augustus Hemmenway, who subscribed most
liberally, and they were assured of further support and interest.
Obstacles arose on account of the number of applicants and the
necessity of providing identical specimens for all. The association
and sympathy of Mrs. Elizabeth Agassiz with the undertaking was
particularly gratifying, since Prof. Louis Agassiz was the first
naturalist who ever taught the popular audiences in this country with
the specimens in hand. Large sums of money were contributed by women,
many members of the Natural History Society, and the teachers
themselves joined in making up the necessary fund. The Institute of
Technology generously gave the use of Huntington Hall upon the payment
of a nominal sum for cleaning and heating. Count Pourtalés, Dr.
Hermann Hagan, and Mr. E. C. Hamlin, of the Museum of Comparative
Zoölogy, which was under the direction of Mr. Alexander Agassiz, at
various times assisted by donations from their respective departments.
Further assistance in various ways, such as the drawing of zoölogical
charts, preparations of models, and donations of specimens, was
received from other persons. There were six hundred and sixteen
applicants for this winter's course, and the number of specimens
distributed did not fall short of one hundred thousand. After an
introductory lecture, at which the Superintendent of Public Schools,
the President of the Society of Natural History, and the custodian,
delivered addresses appropriate to the occasion, Professor Goodale
completed a course of six lessons on botany, in which he instructed
the whole audience of five hundred. These lessons were followed the
same year by twelve on zoölogy by Professor Hyatt, and five on
mineralogy by Mr. Burbank, which ended with a geological excursion to
Marblehead. These lessons were given to very large classes, and were
supplemented by the issuing of pamphlets under the general title of
Science Guides. Three numbers--About Pebbles, by Professor Hyatt; A
Few Common Plants, by Dr. Goodale; and Commercial and Other Sponges,
by Professor Hyatt and others--were published by Messrs. Ginn and
Heath, who have since brought out many such helps.
After a winter of intense activity there came a period of repose, and
no lectures were given the next season. After lying quiet for a year
the school once more came into active operation. Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw
and Mrs. Augustus Hemmenway showed their sympathy with the efforts on
behalf of education by most generously assuming the whole expense of
the lessons given that year. Immediate measures were taken to carry
out the plan which had been arranged several years before, which
consisted in giving a series of lessons which would be a good
preparation for a course in physiography. Accordingly, Professor
Cross, of the Institute of Technology, was engaged to give eight
lessons in physics, Professor Hyatt following with eight on the
physical relations of animals to the earth; Professor Goodale gave
four treating of plants in the same way, and Mr. W. O. Crosby
concluded the course with four lectures on the relations of geological
agencies to physiography. The applications for tickets to these
lectures so far exceeded the expectations of the committee that they
were forced to duplicate them, each speaker repeating his lesson on
the same day before a different audience.
[Illustration: WILLIAM O. CROSBY.]
After this the work of The Teachers' School of Science was taken under
the protection of the Lowell Fund, Mr. Augustus Lowell sending word
that he would make an annual donation of fifteen hundred dollars. Mr.
Lowell allowed the Natural History Society to make engagements and
announce lectures one year beforehand, and also gave the use of
Huntington Hall. Eighteen lectures were given that winter, under the
title of the Lowell Free Lectures in The Teachers' School of Science.
Eight of these lectures were on physics, by Professor Cross; five on
geology, by Mr. Crosby; five on physiology, by Dr. H. P. Bowditch, of
the Harvard Medical School, and all were very successful and well
attended by the teachers. The Teachers' School of Science had another
branch in active operation, which was courses of laboratory lessons
paid for by the teachers themselves.
[Illustration: LABORATORY OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY
USED BY CLASSES OF THE TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE.]
Through the liberality and co-operation of the Woman's Education
Association the Society of Natural History was able to announce that a
seaside laboratory, under the direction of Professor Hyatt and capable
of accommodating a limited number of students, would be open at
Annisquam, Massachusetts, from June 5th to September 15th inclusive.
The purpose of this laboratory was to afford opportunities for study
and observation to the development, anatomy, and habits of common
types of marine animals under suitable direction and advice. It was
believed that such a laboratory would meet the wants of many teachers
who had attended practical lessons in The Teachers' School of Science.
Twenty-two persons--ten women and twelve men (nearly double the number
expected)--availed themselves of the privileges offered. The summer
work, which was very successful, was due to the ability and energy of
Mr. B. H. Van Vleck, who had the whole charge of the instruction and
work done in the laboratory. The seaside laboratory continued to be
used successfully in the same way during seven consecutive summers,
and the work of the laboratory materially influenced the future
science teaching in several colleges and in many public schools of
this country. In 1886 Professor Hyatt called the attention of the
Woman's Education Association and the society to the fact that the
laboratory had reached a stage when it could claim the support of
patrons of science and learning, and be placed on an independent and
permanent foundation. The two associations accordingly called a
meeting, made up largely of the representative teachers of biology,
who decided to make an effort to establish a permanent biological
laboratory and raise at least fifteen hundred dollars to carry it on
for five years. The result was the foundation of the Marine Biological
Laboratory, at Woods Holl, which now attracts to its general courses
teachers and other students from all over the land, and also maintains
a department for special research work.
In 1882 agents were obtained, by correspondence and through the
kindness of the Secretary of the State Board of Education, Mr.
Dickinson, in forty-four towns, who distributed tickets and filled out
blanks so that the benefits of The Teachers' School of Science were
extended beyond the limits of Boston. In this year there were two
courses, one of ten lessons, by Professor Niles, on physical
geography, and five on physiology, by Dr. H. P. Bowditch. These
courses began in November and continued throughout the whole year,
with a decrease in attendance after the Christmas and April holidays.
These lessons were followed by five on elementary chemistry, by Prof.
L. M. Norton, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His
subjects were as follows: First Principles of Chemistry; the next,
Chemistry of Air, Chemistry of Water, Chemistry of Combustion,
Chemistry of Metallic Elements. There were also five on Practical
Examination, with Simple Apparatus of the Physics and Chemistry of
Vegetable Physiology, by Professor Goodale, which were divided as
follows: (1) Vegetable Assimilation, the mode in which plants prepare
food for themselves and animals; (2) The Kinds of Food Stored in
Vegetable Organs, illustrations of the starches, sugars, oils, and
albuminoidal matters; (3) How Food is used by Plants and Animals in a
Formation of New Parts, mechanics of growth; (4) How Food is Used in
Work of all Kinds by Different Organisms; (5) Adaptations of Organisms
to Extremes of Heat and Light, chiefly with respect to geographical
distribution. This session was concluded with a series of five lessons
on Chemical Principles illustrated by Common Minerals, by Professor
Crosby.
At the beginning of this season there was the usual large attendance,
with teachers from thirty towns, but the number was slowly reduced. It
was evident to the curator that the decline in attendance was not due
to the subjects nor the mode in which they were treated, but from
fatigue on the part of the teachers, and this state of affairs caused
him to say in his annual report that "proper and wise forethought
should long ago have given teachers a portion of every week besides
the usual Saturday holiday for the pursuit of information needed for
teaching new subjects." He believed that the efficiency of the
individual teacher would be greatly increased by this expedient, and
that the pupils would gain more than they lost by the shortening of
the school hours.
At the request of the Superintendent of Schools the curator gave the
following year ten lessons, which were directed mainly to the subjects
put down in the course of study under the title of Elementary Science
Lessons. In his course in Elementary Mineralogy, Professor Crosby
followed the plan indicated by Mrs. E. H. Richards in one of the
science guides--First Lessons in Minerals. The curator, for his course
on Structure and Habits of Worms, Insects, and Vertebrates, used many
specimens which had been tanned by a process which was then in use.
Over twenty-eight thousand zoölogical specimens were given away in two
years. Professor Crosby, with a class of sixty, continued the course
of the previous year, giving lessons in the mineralogical laboratory
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the specimens there
studied were retained by the teachers.
In the winter of 1888-'89 Professor Crosby, using for his auditorium
Huntington Hall, gave a course of ten lessons on the geology of Boston
and vicinity. "The object of the lessons was to acquaint the teachers
of Boston and vicinity with natural opportunities by which they are
surrounded, and specially to show them how to use these opportunities
for their own culture and the benefit of their pupils. The subject was
treated in accordance with the following scheme: (1) A general study
of the physical features of the Boston basin and of the geological
changes now in progress in this region; (2) a systematic study of the
various minerals and rocks found in the Boston basin, together with
the more characteristic kinds of structure which they exhibit; (3) a
summary of the geological history of the district so far as that is
plainly recorded in the rocks. The course was freely illustrated by
maps and diagrams, also to a large extent by specimens, more than ten
thousand of which were distributed. Special pains were taken at every
step of the work to indicate the localities where phenomena such as
were described in the lessons might be most advantageously studied.
This comprehensive course formed suitable preparation for a second
series of lessons, the principal object of which was to apply the
principles taught by the first series to a thorough and detailed study
of the physical history of the Boston basin. Each important locality
in the section under consideration formed the subject of a separate
lesson, in which its structural features and the more important events
of its history were presented. Special attention was given to tracing
the relations of the existing surface features of each district to its
geological structure, thus connecting the physical geography and
geology of the region. These lectures were based on a large amount of
original investigation and results reached by Professor Crosby in his
studies of the Boston basin."