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454 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 inclnded 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.

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 iuto 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