The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, June 1883Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, June 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The value of such a
collection as an educational power no language can over-estimate. This
museum of comparative zoölogy at Cambridge, Mass., is pre-eminently
the greatest monument to his memory. The plans of instruction at the
museum and at Penikese were identical in methods and principles. The
first object was to bring students face to face with Nature, discarding
books and recitations, substituting original observation and work. “If
I can succeed in teaching you to observe,” he said, “my aim will be
attained. It is not my purpose to communicate knowledge to you, but to
awaken into activity a faculty which is too generally dormant, that of
observing accurately for yourselves. I will teach, but I will not give
information. To all intents and purposes I will be ignorant before you.
Do not ask questions, for I shall not answer them, but shall so lay out
your work that you will find your own path without difficulty.”
THE FIRST LESSON.
On the first day, the island itself was assigned for a lesson.
Questions were suggested to be answered on the following morning. What
is the nature of the soil, and what is the geological constitution of
this island? What is its position with respect to the points of the
compass. Take the main building as your guide, if you have no compass,
for that lies east and west. What is the meaning of the curve between
the island and the peninsula connected with it? What is the meaning of
the loose materials about us, and the huge boulders scattered over the
surface? What relation does the island bear to the adjoining islands
and to the main land? When the class had again assembled he allowed
each to report what he had learned, and taught how by comparison and
combination to understand its full significance. He said that an
exhaustive answer to each of these questions, individually wrought out,
would itself be a good summer’s work. By the observations thus made
and subsequently during the summer, it was fully demonstrated that
Penikese and the whole range of neighboring Elizabeth islands, twenty
miles in length and two or three in width, were a part of a terminal
moraine—formed by the great ice sheet which covered the continent
during the glacial period as it was gradually receding toward the polar
seas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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