EXAMINATION IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.—NOVEMBER 1867.

[Number your answers so as to have them correspond to the questions respectively.]

1. What are the most important properties of matter? Define them. 2. What is Specific Gravity? 3. How may we find the Specific Gravity of bodies lighter than water? 4. What is Capillary Attraction, and how illustrated? 5. Name the elementary machines. Describe the Wheel and Axle. 6. What is the principle upon which the Hydrostatic Press is constructed? 7. Simplest method of using water as a motive power? 8. Describe the Common Pump. 9. How were sound vibrations rendered visible in the lecture on Acoustics? 10. Theories of Heat. Give them in full. 11. Heat. How communicated? 12. What is the Undulatory Theory of Light? 13. Velocity of Light; and how ascertained? 14. How does Galvanic differ from Frictional Electricity? 15. How are Artificial Magnets made? 16. Describe Ruhmkorff's Coil and the experiments performed with it.

Next comes an oral examination. For this a number of topics are written upon separate slips of paper, enough to go around the class once or more. These topics relate to points not embraced in the written examination. They may be distributed by the Committee or teacher, but at random. It is intended that time enough be allowed so that each member of the class shall have time to treat his topic fairly and fully. The Committee are free to ask questions, and are expected to record, on a given scale, their estimate of each one's recitation. The results of both written and oral examination are combined, and form the basis upon which to decide whether the pupil is prepared to enter upon the subject next in order, or needs to go over the same study again.

Some of the advantages of this method are: First, that in the arrangement of a course of study, it allows the assignment of just so much time as may be needed for each branch, without regard to having it completed at the end of a term. Secondly, It is impartial and thorough.

Thirdly: The written examination, in allowing all to be working together, economizes time; it also develops the ability to make

efficient use of the pen in producing a clear statement of one's knowledge and opinions.

Fourthly: The anticipation of such an examination has a tendency to make pupils faithful in the daily preparation of their lessons.

In this simple specification of advantages we have sought neither to make an exhaustive statement, nor to present them in the order of their importance.

M. C. S.

THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. Now that the success of the State Agricultural College has been fully assured, a slight sketch of its organization and development may not be uninteresting to the readers of the Massachusetts Teacher.

The College went into session Nov. 2, 1867, with twenty-seven students; the numbers rapidly increasing however, till at the close of this, its first term, the Freshman class embraces forty-eight members. Provision having been made for only one class, no students have been admitted to advanced standing.

Of the Board of Trustees, His Excellency Alexander H. Bullock, Governor of the Commonwealth, is President, Charles L. Flint, Secretary, and Nathan Durfee, Treasurer. The remaining members are Marshall P. Wilder, of Dorchester; Chas. G. Davis, of Plymouth; Henry Colt, of Pittsfield; Charles C. Sewall, of Medfield; Paoli Lathrop, of South Hadley; Phineas Stedman, of Chicopee; Allen W. Dodge, of Hamilton; George Marston, of Barnstable; Wm. B. Washburn, of Greenfield; Henry L. Whiting, of Tisbury; D. Waldo Lincoln, of Worcester; Henry F. Hills, of Amherst.

Executive Committee: W. S. Clark, Nathan Durfee, W. B. Washburn, D. W. Lincoln, Henry F. Hills.

The present corps of instructors are: William S. Clark, Ph. D., President and Professor of Botany and Horticulture; Ebenezer S.. Snell, LL. D., Professor of Mathematics; Henry H. Goodell, A. M., Professor of Modern Languages and Physiology; Levi Stock-. bridge, Professor of Practical Agriculture.

The course of study is arranged to occupy four years, and those students satisfactorily completing the whole course will receive the degree of Bachelor of Science. The object aimed at in the instruction is, to "make intelligent, thoroughly educated men, and practical agriculturists." Men of good, sound, common sense, bringing the results of education and science to bear upon the practical questions of the hour. It is not mere book-knowledge that is insisted upon, but the right application of that knowledge, and to this end ample opportunity is afforded for work in the laboratory, in the cabinet, in the plant-houses, and in the field. Each student is required to devote one hour a day to manual labor upon the farm, thus becoming personally conversant with the several departments of Agriculture and Horticulture. Each class is divided into sections, each section being under an appointed leader, and the whole under the superintendence of Prof. Stockbridge, who personally oversees and directs the amount and quality of work to be performed.

COURSE OF STUDY.

FRESHMAN YEAR.

First Term. Geometry; Human Anatomy and Physiology; Chemical Physics.

Second Term. - Geometry; French; Chemistry.

Third Term. Algebra; French; Botany; Lectures upon Hygiene, Chemistry, Botany and Agriculture; and Exercises in Orthography, Elocution and English Composition during the

year.

SOPHOMORE YEAR.

First Term.-German; Zoology; History of the United States. Second Term.-German; Trigonometry; Analytical Chemistry.

Third Term. Mensuration and Surveying; Mineralogy; Drawing; Analytical Chemistry; Lectures upon Comparative Anatomy, Diseases of Domestic Animals, Organic Chemistry and Agriculture, and Exercises in English Composition and Declamation during the

year.

JUNIOR YEAR.

First Term. Physics; Agricultural Chemistry; Physical Geography; Drawing.

Second Term.- Physics; Rhetoric; Horticulture; Forestry.

Third Term. Astronomy; Systematic Botany; Political Economy; Mechanical Drawing; Lectures upon Physics, Agricultural Chemistry, Economic Botany, and Insects, useful and injurious; and exercises in composition and extempore debate, during the year.

SENIOR YEAR.

First Term.-Intellectual Philosophy; History; Commercial Arithmetic and Bookkeeping.

Second Term. Moral Philosophy; Constitution of the United States; Political Geography.

Third Term.-Geology; Engineering; Logic; Lectures upon Rural Law, Architecture, Landscape Gardening, English Literature and Geology, and exercises in Original Declamation and debate during the year; Recitations in the Bible every Sabbath; Exercises in Gymnastics, Military Tactics, and the various operations of the Farm and Garden through the course.

In addition to the above four years' term of study, it is intended to have a special course of lectures, on the following subjects, for the benefit of those who are unable to attend the full college course. Structural Botany, Propagation and Cultivation of Plants, History of Cultivated Plants, Pomology, Practical Agriculture, Agricultural Chemistry, Physical Geography and Surface Geology, Natural History of Domestic Animals, Comparative Anatomy, Diseases of Animals, Milch Cows and Dairy, Sheep Husbandry, Insects injurious to Vegetation, etc.

The farm contains 383 acres, and is admirably adapted for purposes of experiment and instruction, embracing every variety and condition of soil, from the rich, black loam of the lowlands, to the more sandy and gravelly deposits of the highlands, embracing hill and vale, pasture, meadow and woodland.

It has been partially under cultivation during the past year, and among its products may be numbered 225 tons hay, 70 tons corn

fodder and straw, 700 bushels oats, 900 bushels corn, 400 bushels potatoes, 500 bushels turnips, 5000 pounds squashes.

Its present stock consists of 18 head grade Durham steers, 17 yearlings, high grade, 3 pairs oxen, 1 Alderney and 1 Ayrshire bull calves, 1 pair short horns, calves from the herd of G. T. Plunkett, Hinsdale, 20 South Down ewes, and 1 Cotswold and 2 South Down bucks.

It is constructed on

The buildings erected during the past few months are, a dormitory of brick 100 × 50 feet, containing accommodations for fifty students in its three upper stories, while its lower is devoted to recitation and reading rooms, and the State Cabinet, a Laboratory, 46 × 57 feet, with bathing, lecture and recitation rooms; a Botanical Museum and Lecture Hall, 45 x 31 feet, and a Consevatory for the rearing and propagation of plants. This last is of glass, covering an area of 5,000 square feet. When completed, it will be double its present capacity and size. the general plan of two octagons, respectively of 40 and 60 feet diameter, connected by a glass house, 25 feet in width. Grouped around these octagons are additional compartments for the various classes of plants. There will be seven different compartments besides the propagating pits. In the centre of one will be placed the tank of the grand Victoria regia, with various true air plants depending from the arch of the roof, and different aquatic specimens ranged round its sides. In the centre of the dry stove, planted in the open ground, will be the large, variegated century plant, cultivated for thirty years by Dr. Hitchcock, and in the centre of the moist stove, a fine specimen of the Banana. A fourth compartment will be given up to the Camellias, of which there are now over one hundred pots, including all the choicest varieties.

The Botanical department has received very valuable donations from President W. S. Clark, who has given his valuable collection of hot-house plants; from Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, who has given over $2,000 worth of choice varieties; from Mr. J. T. Ames, of Chicopee, who has given fifty rare specimens, and from Dr. Nathan Durfee, who has also generously paid $10,000 for the erection of the Plant Houses. In the immediate vicinity of the Conservatory