Summer schools are maintained by the Institute in the departments of civil engineering, mining engineering and architecture. That in civil engineering affords continuous field practice in geodesy and hydraulics during about a month. That in mining engineering affords students an opportunity to visit mining or metallurgical works and to become practically acquainted with the methods employed by actually taking part in them. These summer schools in mining and metallurgy have been held in all parts of the country, from Nova Scotia to Lake Superior and Colorado. The summer school in architecture consists not infrequently of a trip abroad, with detailed studies and sketches of special types of architecture. The Institute also offers extended courses of free evening lectures, of which twenty courses of twelve lectures each were given during the past year. These courses, established by the trustee of the Lowell Institute under the supervision of the Institute, correspond to one portion of President Rogers’s original plan, and are fully appreciated by young men who cannot afford the time for a complete and consecutive education. The trustee of the Lowell Institute also established in 1872, and has maintained ever since, a special school of practical design, under the supervision of the Institute, in which young men and women are given free instruction in the art of making patterns for prints, ginghams, silks, laces, paper hangings, carpets, etc.; the object being to fit them to engage in the textile industries especially, but also in other branches of manufacture in which taste in form and color is an essential element for success. Mention may be made here of the fact that all work at the Institute is open to women on the same terms as to men. As early as 1867, among the Lowell free courses, there were two chemical courses open to both sexes, and soon afterward women were admitted to the regular work of the school. The first woman to graduate was Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, in 1873, and since that time forty-eight women have received the degree. This number, however, is no measure of the part which women have taken in the work of the school, for a large majority of those who attend are special students. During the year 1899-1900, there were fifty-three women studying at the school, principally in the departments of chemistry, biology, geology, physics and architecture. From the last-named course eleven young women have graduated, one of whom was the designer of the Woman’s Building at the Chicago Exposition.