{"id":3067,"date":"2015-08-12T11:15:03","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T15:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2015-08-14T12:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T16:01:42","slug":"worms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/worms\/","title":{"rendered":"Worms"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Archives Acquire a Fascinating Record of Science Teaching<\/h5>\n
\"Meticulous<\/a>
Meticulous renderings of earthworm anatomy, from William T. Mather’s biology notebook. (Click all images to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was one of those phone calls that vastly improves one\u2019s week.\u00a0 \u201cMy name is Will Wyatt \u2013 I\u2019m a dentist in Texas.\u00a0 I have what appear to be a notebook from a Williston biology class, dated 1890.\u00a0 Would you like it for the Archives?\u00a0 If so, I\u2019d be happy to donate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would I like it?\u00a0 That would have been an understatement.\u00a0 Among the more important things we collect are examples of academic work: what was studied, and how it was taught, going back to our beginnings 175 years ago.\u00a0 We actively seek current student work, as well as that from the past.\u00a0 Consider: all the other things we save and cherish \u2013 theater photos, box scores, school newspapers, and dozens of other categories, most of them well-represented in this blog, wouldn\u2019t even exist without the academic program.\u00a0 It provides a context for everything else in our daily lives at a busy school.\u00a0 Academics are the most important thing we do at Williston.<\/p>\n

\"Mather's<\/a>
Mather’s title page. While much of the notebook is handwritten, some pages were reproduced using a transfer process similar to what we, mid-20th century, called “purple ditto.” The machine used was probably a Hectograph, invented in 1869. Other documents in the Archives indicate that Williston Seminary had one as early as 1877.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So yes, we were thrilled to accept Dr. Wyatt\u2019s generosity \u2013 the more so given the age of the item.\u00a0 It is relatively easy to lay hands on student papers from 2015.\u00a0 Anything from the 19th century is another story entirely.\u00a0 And as shall be seen, this particular item is very special.<\/p>\n

The document is a set of teaching notes for an 1890 Williston Seminary biology course taught by William Tyler Mather (1864-1937).\u00a0 Mather, Williston class of 1882, went on to Amherst College, graduating in 1886.\u00a0 He taught at Leicester Academy, 1886-1887 then, like many Williston and Amherst alumni, returned to Williston to teach (1887-1893).\u00a0 During this time he also completed a master\u2019s degree at Amherst (1891).\u00a0 In 1894 he entered Johns Hopkins University, earning a Ph.D. in physics in 1897.\u00a0 In 1898 he became Professor of Physics at the University of Texas, Austin, where he remained the rest of his life.\u00a0 (This would tend to partially explain how a set of teaching notes found their way from Easthampton to \u201ca very eclectic used book store\u201d in San Antonio, where Will Wyatt purchased them in the 1980s.)<\/p>\n

\"Polyps.\"<\/a>
Polyps.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The notebook comprises 97 handwritten pages, in a leather binding.\u00a0 While entitled “Notes on General Biology,” the contents might more accurately be described as a survey of lower-order botany and invertebrate zoology.\u00a0 Since the text ends in the middle of a sentence on page 97, it seems likely that there was more, but whether only a few pages, or another volume, is unknown.\u00a0 A few of the pages are reproduced on some kind of spirit duplicating machine (see the caption to the title page, above).\u00a0 One may speculate that these were part of a version of the notes distributed to the class.\u00a0 The volume at hand is clearly Mather’s instructional notebook.\u00a0 It includes many pages simply listing questions \u2014 not merely potential test questions, but an outline by which a conscientious teacher could insure that he covered every point.\"40\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"13.15\"<\/a>
Molluscs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The best parts of the notebook are, of course, Mather’s drawings: meticulous, detailed, often employing several shades of blue and black ink.\u00a0 They are a reminder of a time when many scholars, especially naturalists, took special pride in accurately rendering what they described.<\/p>\n

When told of the Archives acquisition of the Mather notebook, Williston biology teacher and Associate Head of School Jeff Ketcham commented that he would be “most interested to learn what is left out.”\u00a0 For example, “Darwin’s On the Origin of Species <\/em>appeared in 1859, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t mentioned at all.”\u00a0 The point is well taken.\u00a0 It took time for innovative, never mind controversial, ideas to catch on, especially in an essentially conservative educational establishment.\u00a0 Mather’s bibliography of “Authorities” lists another work by Charles Darwin, but not his most significant one.<\/p>\n

\"Mather's<\/a>
Mather’s bibliography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mather introduces the term “paleontology,” and includes a chapter on fossils, which he describes as \u201cany evidence of the former existence of a living thing,\u201d while presenting petrification as only one of several processes of fossilization.\u00a0 He discusses extinction, noting that fossils are often records of earlier forms of modern animals, but does not attempt to present any process of evolution or natural selection.\u00a0 Similarly, in a course that emphasized microscopy, there was a focus on cells.\u00a0 They were presented primarily as an element of plant structure and of simple zoological organisms like amoebas.\u00a0 DNA was, of course, unknown at this time; but Gregor Mendel\u2019s pioneering work in genetics had been published in 1866, with no effect on Mather\u2019s syllabus.<\/p>\n

\"Different<\/a>
Different kinds of cells.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mather's<\/a>
Mather’s exposition of cell biology included a description of simple animals reproducing by cell division.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Typically for the time, Mather’s approach to biology was based almost entirely on observation and description.\u00a0 There is no discussion of biochemical processes \u2014 indeed, much of what our present-day biology students may take for granted had not yet been discovered.\u00a0 Examination of organisms in their environmental or ecological contexts is largely absent here.\u00a0 But Mather demanded meticulous observational skills from his students, emphasizing dissection and the use of the microscope.\u00a0 And although biology was the subject at hand, Mather clearly expected his students to understand the principles of optics.\u00a0 Perhaps it is no surprise that he eventually became a physicist.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of several pages devoted to the workings of the microscope.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We invite you to enjoy additional pages from this wonderful document.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The dissection of a starfish: perhaps the most spectacular of Mather’s drawings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Instructions<\/a>
Instructions for dissecting the starfish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cross-section<\/a>
Cross-section of a leech.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The protozoa Stentor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Anterior<\/a>
Description of a sea urchin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dissection<\/a>
Dissection of a sea urchin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"polyp\"<\/a>
Anatomy of a sea anemone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Archives Acquire a Fascinating Record of Science Teaching It was one of those phone calls that vastly improves one\u2019s week.\u00a0 \u201cMy name is Will Wyatt \u2013 I\u2019m a dentist in Texas.\u00a0 I have what appear to be a notebook from a Williston biology class, dated 1890.\u00a0 Would you like it for the Archives?\u00a0 If … Continue reading Worms<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,67,140,164,66,25],"tags":[374,375,171,378,373,376],"class_list":["post-3067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-history","category-acquisitions-and-discoveries","category-alumni-alumnae","category-faculty","category-recent-gifts","category-williston-seminary","tag-biology","tag-science","tag-teaching","tag-william-e-wyatt-jr","tag-william-tyler-mather","tag-zoology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3067"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3107,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions\/3107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}