SPONGES.

Reference Books.

Cooper-Animal Life in the Sea and on the Land.

Hartwig The Sea and its Living Wonders.
Holtz-Nature Study.

Hyatt-Commercial and other Sponges.

Live sponges consist of jellylike bodies united in a mass and supported by a framework of horny fibers and needle-shaped objects called spicules. Found in all waters. Sponges for domestic use come from the Red and Mediterranean Seas, the Bahamas, and Florida.

Collection 847.-Horny Sponges.

Include all our commercial forms. Skeleton consists of horny fibers. Generally found in a few fathoms of water, on some rock or coral bottom.

2. Anclote grass sponge, Gulf of Mexico.

3. Sheep's wool sponge, Florida.

4. Cuba velvet sponge, West Indies.

5. Hardhead sponge, Florida.

6. Hircina, Florida.

The variety of form in this species from the flat and spreading to the vase-shaped and branching forms is almost endless.

Collection 848.-Horny Sponges.

1. Florida violet sponge, Florida. 2. Reef sponge, Algoa Bay.

3. Rope sponge, West Indies.

4. Wire sponge, Gulf of Mexico.

5. Elephant ear, Mediterranean Sea. One of the most valuable toilet sponges.

6. Sponge imbedded in coral. Coast of Florida.

Collection 849.-Horny-Silicious Sponges.

The skeletons are formed of solid horny fibers and silicious or quartzlike spicules. Too coarse to be of commercial value.

1. Pipe sponge, Bahamas.

2. Finger sponge, West Indies.

3. Loggerhead sponge, West Indies. 4. Fringing sponge, West Indies.

5. Golden sponge, Algoa Bay.

6. Violet sponge, Bahamas.

7. Sea cake (Suberites). Cape Cod. Only sponge form which can subsist on the shifting sands. Pores so small that sand can not enter.

Collection 850.-Silicious or Glass Sponge.

The highest order of sponges. Have the skeleton almost entirely composed of silicious spicules.

1. Venus flower basket, Philippines.

2. Glass rope sponge, Japan. 3. Sulphur sponge (Cliona). sels, incloses, and dissolves it.

Trinidad. Boring sponge. Penetrates shell of mus-
Bores also into limestone.

4. Redbeard sponge (Macrocliona). Forms branching masses a few inches in height.

5. Sugar-loaf sponge (Tethya). Buzzard Bay. The threads at the bottom are curled together in a sort of wool. This catches all the small stones sifted out of the mud and enables the sponges to remain right side up.

Large and well-selected collections of mollusks, sponges, corals, etc., reveal to the child the secrets of the ocean and speak to him in interesting language of the inhabitants of the great waters, their structure, their functions, their manner of life, their ways of procuring food, shelter, and protection, the building of coral islands, reefs, and barriers.

ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL FOR HOME GEOGRAPHY.

Home geography, like nature study, deals with concrete material and, in teaching it, we must proceed as we would in nature work, either by taking the child to the material or the material to the child. The former method is as superior to the latter as it is in nature study. To give the children clear and lasting impressions of their physical and human environment, they should be brought into personal contact with these environments by the teacher.

Opportunities to study the physical conditions are offered by the many parks of our city which are within easy reach of most of our schools. In them we find roadbeds, slopes, hills, brooks, and ponds,

the careful study of which will enable the children to picture to themselves the features of land and water on the earth. For the study of the human environment, man and his wants, his industrial and commercial pursuits, opportunities are found in abundance in the immediate neighborhood of every schoolhouse. Shops, houses in the course of erection, quarries, etc., should be visited, and the actual work and conditions observed and studied, not in the vague, inaccurate way in which children may have looked at them before, but with a conscious and definite aim. Such lessons afford type lessons which give the teacher the most valuable opportunity for her work in the schoolroom.

On the other hand, many things with which the children must become acquainted in their first course in geography must be brought into the schoolroom. These are the materials for food, for clothing, for fuel, etc. Some of them may be supplied by the children themselves, and should be so furnished. But to give the children adequate ideas of the growth and development of this material; of the immense amount of labor, the tools, implements, and machinery it requires to cultivate or manufacture it, and to supply the world with it; of the number of people who find the means to exist in raising or manufacturing it; the wheat, corn, cotton, wool, silk,