A Letter Written around 1922

Report Department, Zoology 1921-22

Department work 1921-1922.

The main effort of the department this year has been to emphasize individual teaching, and to keep the staff and student morale strong in a period which is a difficult though interesting time one. In the course work this has taken the form of variation or extension in the content of courses, individual problems for the students, small discussion groups and personal conferences. With the cooperation of the students we were able to plan trips to hospitals, laboratories and museums in various towns where the girls were to be during the short vacations. In some cases these trips were directed by members of the staff. Miss Blake accompanied one group to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and Dr. Flexner very kindly gave them his personal attention while there, pointing out lines of work which offer a particularly promising fields [sic] for women.

The first year course in zoology has been broadened to include the general knowledge of herself and animal organisms which a student should have who takes but one year of zoology. Especial refl emphasis has been placed upon the study of the higher animals with particular reference to the workings of the human body. The entire period from the midyear examinations to the end of the winter term was devoted to a study of reproduction in the animal organism. This was introduced by a study of reproduction in very simple animals and traced through to its culmination in man. The work was planned so that the students might do it slowly, follow it alll all with their own observation, and thus be given opportunity to realize the antiquity and pervasiveness of this normal process. Small group discussions and personal conferences were carried on through the entire period with the particular purpose of stimulating thought on questions of heredity and eugenics.

In Aanswering to a petition of the students the course in histology has been extended through both semesters. This subject is fundamentally the study of the finer anatomy of the body, and of groups of cells, such as the glands and nervous system. It is also a course in laboratory technique on which all laboratory workers depend for training, and one of the our aims is to prepare students for positions in state, city and hospital laboratories. Miss Madeleine Grant has been the laboratory instructor in this course. She has been a diagnistician [sic] in Boston and New Bedford laboratories hospitals where she worked upon blood analysis, blood transfusion, and the causes of human sterility. Miss Grant's association with practical laboratory work has been a great stimulus to her students.

The course in histology is the one for which Mrs. Merriam of Cleveland has equipped the Merriam Laboratory for Medical Zoology.

Following the trend of modern investigation the course in Heredity and Evolution has been more and more devoted to Heredity and Eugenics. This year each student has made a tracing of her own family history, attempting to follow the inheritance of some physical or mental trait within the group. Pedigree charts for this were secured from the Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Record Office which is supported largely by Mrs. E. H. Harriman. We hope to follow this custom each year thus giving the students personal problems and connecting up with the larger project which the Eugenics Office represents.

Last summer I replanned the entire first year course. It is now made up of a study of the principles of zoology, together with glimpses into each kind of specialization which is possible in the advanced courses in within the department. By this scheme it has seemed that the general student might secure the principles, while the student who wished to specialize wh might have a taste of each subject before her, e.g. Histology and laboratory technique, Embryology, development and all of the reproduction phenomen functions, Heredity, Eugenics, and Evolution and the philosophical as parts of zoology.

The Staff 1921-22.

Dr. Bertha E. Martin The activities of the staff has been represented by the work done by those actuall wor by those who have been working at the college and the two members on leave of absence.

Dr. Bertha E. Martin who has been acting associate professor conducted the work l courses in general Embryology, and heredity. Next Dr. Martin will year Dr. Martin will be in the department of zoology at Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Mo. Assistant Professor Miss Dr. Mary Drusilla Flather spent the first semester at Bryn Mawr completing work for her doctorate which she had been carrying on at the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris. Miss Elizabeth Blake has resigned the position as of Curator and Secretary to accept a position in the medical purchasing department for the China section of the Rockefeller Foundation. Miss Blake has been a is a very able young woman and she has carried on her duties most efficiently. She has been is especially loyal to the She has a whole hearted loyalty to the department and her departure leaves going is a real loss to it but we had no position to of sufficient promise for her to enable us to cope with the offer which she received from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Miss M Associate Professor Elizabeth Adams and Miss Christianna Smith have both been on loan for the year. Miss Adams has been working upon grafting and transplantation of animal tissue at Yale University which is her major subject, with mice or subjects of physiology and paleontology. She has been appointed Honorary Fellow in Zoology and elected to the Yale Chapter of the Sigma Xi Society. Miss Christianna Smith has been studying at in the laboratories of the medical and arts sections of the Embryology and physiology departments at Cornell University. During the spring she spent a month in practical work in the Cornell Medical School in New York City. Miss Adams Smith has for the second time been elected to the Schuyler Fellowship.

Summer plans of departmental staff.

The summer activities of the staff and of some of the major students may be most clearly shown are given in the following list. Most of the staff are pursuing professional interests this summer. Several of the major students will also work at laboratories.

Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass.
Staff.
Ann H. Morgan. Staff, Course in Invertebrate Zoology.
A. Elizabeth Adams. Research. Holder of the Mt. Holyoke College Research Room.
Rachel Metcalf. Co Study, in Course in Embryology.
Miriam Brailey. Research. Will work in Dr. Clapp's research room

Students.
Hope Anderson (1923) Invertebrate Zoology.
Grace Gorham. (1923)          "        "    .
Marion Lewis. (1923)          "        "    .
Harvard Medical School.
Madeleine Grant. Graduate study along lines of work in which she has been teaching this year.
Cornell University.
Christianna Smith: Continuation of graduate work.
Mount Desert Laboratory (Dr. Dahlgrew, Princeton.) Olive Howe (1923).
Pacific Coast Laboratories.
Miss Emily Bullock will not study this summer but plans to visit several laboratories and research stations on the Pacific Coast.

Plans of Majors and Minors who have definite plans intend to continue zoological work.

Majors.
Dorothy Anderson. Entern Student, Johns Hopkins Medical.
Miriam Brailey. Assistant Zoology. Mt. Holyoke College.
Clarissa Buffum. Nurses Training. Presbyterian Hospital.
Mary Clough. Student, Johns Hopkins or Cornell Medical School.
Marion Cowperthwaite. Graduate Student & Assistant Zoology. Washington University.
Rhoda Hartwell. Scholarship, Zoology Department, Yale University.
Anne Holmes. Assistant Zoology, Washington University.
Carolyn Holcomb. High School Teaching. Biology.
Helen Miller. High School Teaching. Biology.
Isabelle Waterhouse. Nurses Training Presbyterian Hospital.

Minors.
Frances Wooding. Nurses Training. Presbyterian Hospital.

Plans for 1922-23.

Even though we are at present greatly hindered by lack of space this should not be allowed to deaden our teaching or to absolutely prohibit the development of the department. If the work in zoology ceases to develop in the present critical time it will certainly cease to grow hereafter. Every effort will be made next year to continue the individual method of teaching, and to stimulate the student interest in advanced work. Experimental Zoology and Field Outdoor Zoology must be very soon be made accessible to the students. The former embodies must of the most interesting of current biological research and connects closely with problems in the function and development of the organism with which every human being has to deal. The latter Field A course in field outdoor zoology was given when in Willi when the department was in Williston Hall. We have opportunities for this work which are not excelled in any ca probably not excelled by any college few colleges and the students have repeatedly requested the work to be resumed. It will hardly be necessary and probably not wise to wait for the new building before beginning at least one of these courses.

In closing I wish to express my appreciation of the encouragement and help which President Woolley has continually brought to the administration of this department. Her faith in the work and its possibilities for the future, and her persevereance in the plan for the new plan planning for the new laboratories have has been a source of real inspiration.

Respectfully submitted.

[The letter is not signed, but it is written in Ann Morgan's handwriting.