Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The windows are beautiful with hanging plants from side brackets
meeting the wealth of green on the sill. Here are found in one window
ferns, in another the century plant; in others still, specimens of
economic plants--cinnamon, olive, banana, camphor. On the tables are
magnificent specimens of palms, cycads, dracænas, and aspidistras, and
numerous aquaria filled with various water plants. Most of these
plants are four years old, and all of them are much handsomer than
when they first became the property of the laboratory. How much
intelligent and patient care this means only those who have attempted
to raise plants in city houses can know.
The zoölogical laboratory is quite as beautiful as the botanical, for
it, too, has its plants and pictures. It is perhaps more interesting
because of its living elements. Think of a schoolroom in which are
represented alive types of animals as various as these: amoeba,
vorticella, hydra, worms, muscles, snails and slugs of various kinds,
crayfish, various insects, including a hive of Italian bees, goldfish,
minnows, dace, catfish, sunfish, eels, tadpoles, frogs, newts,
salamanders, snakes, alligators, turtles, pigeons, canaries, mice,
guinea-pigs, rabbits, squirrels, and a monkey! Imagine these living
animals supplemented by models of their related antediluvian forms, or
fossils, by carefully labeled dissections, by preparations and
pictures illustrating their development and mode of life; imagine in
addition to this books, pamphlets, magazines, and teachers further to
put you in touch with this wonderful world about us, and you will then
have some idea of the environment in which it is the great privilege
of our students to live for five hours each week.
In addition to these laboratories there is a lecture room furnished
with an electric lantern. Here each week is given a lecture on general
topics, such as evolution and its problems, connected with the work of
the laboratories.
THE COURSE OF STUDY PURSUED BY THE NORMAL STUDENTS.--Botany: In
general, the plants and the phenomena of the changing seasons are
studied as they occur in Nature. In the fall there are lessons on the
composites and other autumn flowers, on fruits, on the ferns, mosses,
fungi, and other cryptogams. In the winter months the students grow
various seeds at home, carefully drawing and studying every stage in
their development. Meanwhile, in the laboratory, they examine
microscopically and macroscopically the seeds themselves and the
various food supplies stored within. By experimentation they get
general ideas of plant physiology, beginning with the absorption of
water by seeds, the change of the food supply to soluble sugar, the
method of growth, the functions, the histology, and the modifications
of stem, root, and leaves. In the spring they study the buds and
trees, particularly the conifers, and the different orders of
flowering plants.
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