"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.