"But I am almost stark, staring mad over Lythrum.... I should rather like seed of Mitchella. But, oh, Lythrum!
"Your utterly mad friend,
"C. Darwin."
Models of the cucumber, showing the process of its formation, and the unisexual flowers complete this series. Supplementing this are models and drawings of a large number of flowers, illustrating special devices by which cross-fertilization is secured, such as the larkspur, butter and eggs, orchids, iris, salvia, several composites, the milkweed, and, most interesting of all, the Dutchman's pipe. This is a flower that entices flies into its curved trumpet and keeps them there until they become covered with the ripe pollen. Then the hairs wither, the tube changes its position, the fly is permitted to leave, carrying the pollen thus acquired to another flower with the same result.
Pictures and small busts of many naturalists adorn both of the rooms. Of these the most notable is an artist proof of Mercier's beautiful etching of Darwin. Every available inch of wall space is thus occupied, or else, in the botanical laboratory, has on it mounted fungi, lichens, seaweeds, leaf cards, pictures of trees, grasses, and other botanical objects.
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: amœba, 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.
The particular merit of the work is that it is so planned that each laboratory lesson compels the students to reason. Having once thus obtained their information, they are required to drill themselves out of school hours until the facts become an integral part of their knowledge.
For the study of fruits, for example, they are given large trays, each divided into sixteen compartments, plainly labeled with the name of the seed or fruit within. Then, by means of questions, the students are made to read for themselves the story which each fruit has to tell, to compare it with the others, and to deduce from this comparison certain general laws.