Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/686

668 time, so that we may pause here to sketch briefly its origin and growth. After an extended correspondence with superintendents and educators of New England and the West, I may state, with very great certainty, that Boston was the first large city in our country to include systematic lessons upon plants, animals, and minerals in its prescribed course of elementary instruction. This was done in 1877-'78. The movement, however, may be said to have had its origin in the lecture-hall of Louis Agassiz nearly a quarter of a century before. Recognizing the educational and practical value of the study of natural history, and imbued with a broad, humanitarian spirit. Prof. Agassiz invited teachers to attend his lectures before the under-graduates of Harvard. Among those who accepted this invitation was a young woman of whom George B. Emerson wrote, a few years later, "She is the best teacher New England has produced." The truths spoken by the great naturalist lived in the brain and heart of Lucretia Crocker till she in her turn was able to inspire the youth of her generation with a love for nature as deep as it was strong. Twenty-five years after the Harvard lectures, Miss Crocker, as supervisor of the public schools of Boston, with the keen judgment of mature womanhood added to the enthusiasm of youth, was advocating with persuasive power a course of elementary instruction which included lessons upon our common plants, animals, and minerals. In 1877-'78 this course was adopted by the school board, and Miss Crocker became supervisor of the natural history work. Surely the inspired words of Agassiz were bearing abundant fruit, though the voice that uttered them was then silent. May we not trust that the harvest-time was known to the sower of the seed?

It soon became evident that the teachers wanted more knowledge of the natural history subjects which they were to teach; and it was then that Miss Crocker found an able helper in Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, who, in the generous spirit of his teacher. Prof. Agassiz, threw the doors of his laboratory wide open to all who wished to come. A "Saturday morning class" was formed. Its members were provided abundantly with specimens for study, and the valuable collections of the Natural History Museum, of which Prof. Hyatt was curator, were freely used in the demonstrations.

The teachers, now as pupils, saw more clearly than ever before the true objects of all science work, namely, the betterment of humanity and the increase of our stock of absolute knowledge. Fortunate indeed are those institutions of learning which number among their professors one who keeps constantly before his pupils these high ideal aims of science! With these aims as ultimate goals, the work of student and teacher becomes more effective, because directed in definite yet ever-broadening channels.