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in the Sargent Gymnasium. The courses given consist of class exercises and squad exercises. For the latter, each class is divided into several squads, each under the direction of a student assistant. The courses for the four classes are as follows:

Freshmen.-Class exercises: military drill, setting-up drill, and Indian-club swinging. Squad exercises: indoor athletics, chest weights, and heavy gymnastics; the indoor athletics includes such exercises as jumping, hurdling, pole-vaulting, and relay-racing; the heavy gymnastics includes tumbling and exercises on horizontal bar, parallel bars and flying rings.

Sophomores.-Class exercises: dumb-bell movements and boxing. Squad exercises: indoor athletics and wrestling.

Juniors.-Class exercises: fencing with single-sticks and broadswords. exercise indoor athletics.

Squad

Seniors.-Class exercise: fencing with foils. Squad exercise: indoor athletics.

As a part of the required work, opportunity is given to each student to learn something of the out-of-door sports. During the winter term training squads are maintained for football, baseball, and tennis. These squads are under special instructors and receive valuable training. During the fall and spring terms the required class work gives place to out-of-door sports, such as football, baseball, track athletics, golf, and tennis. The director of the gymnasium has a general oversight of the games, with authority to forbid participation in them to students who are physically unfit. At present nearly every student in college engages regularly in one or more of these sports. The training for college and class contests is carried on regularly and systematically, and proves a valuable adjunct to the required course.

Bowdoin College was one of the first institutions to put physical training on an equal footing with other work. Courses in physical training bring the same credit in rank as courses in Latin or Greek. Each of the four required courses counts as one study during the winter term. The four together count as one-fifteenth of the work leading to the A. B. degree. I believe that to this giving of credit for gymnasium work is due in great measure whatever success has been achieved.

There is no claim that the above plan is ideal. It is, however, measurably successful. It brings interest in physical training to the mass of students. It brings the whole college to the gymnasium, athletic fields, golf links, or tennis courts.

There can be no perfected system that will fit all times and places, but we must all press on in making physical training mean more than gymnastic exercises or competitive athletics, and in giving it its true place in the curriculum of schools.

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE INSTRUCTION

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

FIRST SESSION.-THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1903

The department met in the Arlington Street Church, and was called to order at 9:30 A. M. by President C. W. Hall. A committee on nominations was appointed as follows: T. A. Mott, of Indiana. A. G. Clement, of New York.

Irving O. Palmer, of Massachusetts.

The following was the program of the session:

"Practical Methods in the Teaching of Geology," by N. S. Shaler, professor of geology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

"The Proper Scope of Geological Teaching in the High School and Academy," by William North Rice, professor of geology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.

"Out-of-Door Class Work in Geography," by F. P. Gulliver, teacher of geography, St. Mark's School, Southboro, Mass.

"The Teaching of Biology in High Schools," by A. S. Pearse, head of department of biology, High School, Omaha, Neb.

After adjourning to the lecture-room of the Harvard Medical School, the program was continued as follows:

" 'Laboratory Teaching of Physiology," by W. T. Porter, associate professor of physiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

"Laboratory Work in High-School Physiology," by James E. Peabody, head of department of biology, Morris High School, New York city.

The department then adjourned until Friday, July 10.

SECOND SESSION.-FRIDAY, JULY 10

The meeting was called to order by President Hall at 9:30 A. M., in the Arlington Street Church. The report of the Committee on Nominations was read and adopted, and the following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

President-W. A. Fiske, Richmond, Ind.

Vice-President- Frank M. Gilley, Chelsea, Mass.

Secretary- A. S. Pearse, Omaha, Neb.

The following papers were then read:

"College Chemistry and its Relation to Work Preparatory to It," by Ira Remsen, president of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

"High-School Chemistry in its Relation to the Work of a College Course," by Rufus P. Williams, teacher of chemistry, English High School, Boston, Mass.

Discussion of this topic was opened by H. P. Talbot, professor of analytical chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, who was followed by Lyman G. Smith, president of the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers; William F. Kunze, superintendent of schools, Red Wing, Minn.; Lyman C. Newell, instructor in chemistry and physics, State Normal School, Lowell, Mass. The discussion was closed by A. S. Perkins, Dorchester High School, Boston, Mass.

The following papers were then presented:

"Physics for Boys and Girls: An Introductory Course," by John C. Packard, Brookline, Mass, "The High-School Course in Physics," by Irving O. Palmer, Newtonville, Mass.

"The High-School Phase of Physics Teaching- Aims and Methods," by George R. Twiss, head of department of science, Central High School, Cleveland, O.

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A Course in Physics for Technical Schools," by Charles F. Warner, principal of Mechanics Arts High School, Springfield, Mass.

The discussion was led by Professor Edwin H. Hall, of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., and Professor C. R. Mann, of the University of Chicago.

Professor Edwin H. Hall moved that a committee be appointed to request the National Council to consider the advisability of appointing a committee to discuss the subject of physics teaching in high schools which prepare few pupils for college, and to formulate a course of physics for such schools.

The motion was carried. It was further voted that the committee consist of

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N. S. SHALER, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIdge,

MASS.

In considering the methods of teaching geology it is essential to begin by determining the scope of the instruction which is to be given and the grade of students who are to receive it. At the outset it should be noted that geologic science is not like astronomy, geography, chemistry, physics, botany, or the other clearly limited sciences, each with a definite group of considerations. It is a congeries of all these which relate to the physical realm, with no central problems except that of succession in time and no boundaries save the limits of this sphere. Thus when we teach geology we have to follow one or another of these discreet sciences over or in the earth to show how it has determined actions or conditions. It is thus evident that to be profitable any instruction whatever in geology should come after some preliminary training in one or more of the sciences which have to be used in interpreting the earth.

The fact that geology is not a distinct science, but a congeries of sciences, makes it evident that it has no fit place in any stage of education which can be termed elementary. The further fact that the considerations which are proper to it are those relating to successions of events, and to the interaction of various celestial and terrestial forces in the evolution of

this planet, affords other reasons why no effort should be made to teach this subject in any connected way to immature minds. I am aware of the disposition of the teacher in each of the natural sciences, except mathematics, to insist that the pupils shall come to their instruction with a training in some or all the other fields of inquiry save his own, and of the patent impossibility of gratifying this desire. So, too, I am aware of the evil which arises from the overclassification of natural actions whereby this composite realm of nature where all actions are blended is presented to youths as if it were really divided and accurately pigeon-holed. Yet it is only by such division that a presentation of this complex can be attained. After that is accomplished it is well to show the synthesis as it is shown in the so-called science of geology. It is, indeed, from the point of view of education that it can most profitably be set before the mind.

Assuming, then, that geology is to afford the student some sense of the integration of natural actions, it follows that it should be taught, not to young children, but to those who have gained some of the simpler concepts of astronomy, physics, and biology. In astronomy they need to know the elements of the solar system and the action of the sun's heat upon the planet; in physics, something of the common phenomena and relations of heat and the action of dynamic forces; in biology, so much. of organic life as shows the succession of life, and the patent relation of planets and animals to each other, and of both to the inorganic realm. Further, they need to have the simple concepts of solid geometry, so that they can think in three dimensions. It is well, tho less essential, that they bring certain understandings of chemical action, such, for instance, as will enable them to comprehend the rôle of CO, in the air-how it passes into organic station in the plants, how it is appropriated from the plants by the animals, going thence to the rocks or back to the air.

ence.

The above-noted preliminaries to the study of geology, strictly so called, inevitably mean that youths shall not fairly enter on this field until they have attained the age of puberty. It is fit that the beginning should be made this late, for not until that age does the mind begin to open to the large thinking the subject requires. I know this by personal experiAs a lad of about thirteen I became deeply interested in reading books on geology and in childish efforts to study the world within my limited views, but it was all puerile. The concepts then formed were so grossly inadequate that they had, so far as possible, to be cast away. Some of the relics of those misunderstandings remain as memories in the background of my mind to this day. Fifty years of better seeing have not sufficed to clear them away.

Where the schools are well graded and the youths fairly advanced, the beginnings of the study of geology, strictly so called, may be made in the last year of the secondary school. If the contributary sciences have been fully taught, some reference will have been made in that teaching to the

application of these principles to the interpretation of the earth. Thus in physics, when stresses are considered, it will have been noted that mountains are in part due to such action; and when and where botany and zoology are taught, it will be noted that the coals and limestones are of organic origin; etc.; so that in beginning geology the student will feel that he is entering on ground that is not altogether strange to him, a field where he knows there are large things to be known.

In my experience the best door by which to enter on geology is that of the action of water. There are enough facts in the field of ordinary experience to make a beginning easy, and the instruction in physics should help much in making the simpler laws plain. Begun with a study of the action of the rain, the essential nature of the work should at first be made plain. The student should be brought to see that the processes of erosion and transportation are all set in action by solar energy. It is well here to show that the amount of this energy which comes each day upon the earth is what for convenience is stated in terms of the frozen water it would melt, and that this heat is sufficient to liquefy about eight thousand cubic miles of ice per diem.

At this point the student should be brought to see how the atmosphere serves, particularly by the vapor of water it contains, to retain a portion of the tide of solar energy and set it to work. The matter is simple and easily understood, yet the concept had from it is one of the largest and most enlarging to be obtained in the science. The history of solar action thru water should be followed in the surface streams and the deeper movements of the fluid, its relations to organic life shown, and the simpler chemical processes due to it made clear. Then, in contrast to the action of fluid water should be set that of ice in the forms of snow and glaciers. Attention should be called to the fact that the mighty differences between these two modes of action are due to an infinitesimal variation of temperature: that water above the freezing-point plays one rôle, and at an infinitely small diminution of heat enters on a totally different mode of action. We thus show the student the value of a critical point in natural actions. In the discussion of these matters I have found it very useful to compare the conditions of the earth and the moon, showing that the lunar sphere lacks all physical life because it is not subjected to water action. It receives as much solar energy per unit of area as the earth, but that energy is not retained and set to work as on our planet.

After the history of water in the form of rain or snow has been traced, its work in the seas and lakes should be followed, showing that there again it is solar energy which is acting in the waves and marine currents. The way in which this energy is stored in the wave and applied by its stroke against the land should be made plain. It is, of course, best seen on the main coasts, but it is evident on the shores of even a small pool or

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