Each student may have his own desk and apparatus or he may be required to pass from desk to desk.  The latter method is preferable.

When a store room is used the services of a man are required to distribute and afterward to collect.  If the apparatus is permanently distributed, a large room is necessary, but the labor of collecting and distributing is done away with.

There are certain general experiments intended to show the use of measuring instruments which all students must perform.  To illustrate the use of the indicator I have selected an elementary class, although the instrument is equally applicable to all classes of experiments.

Having selected a suitable room, tables may be placed against the walls between the windows and at other convenient places.  Shallow closets are built upon these tables against the wall; they have glass doors and are fitted with shelves properly spaced.  A large number of light wooden boxes are prepared, numbered from one up to the limit of the storage capacity of the closets.  A number corresponding to that upon the box is placed upon the shelf, so that each one after removal may be returned to its proper place without difficulty.  On the front of the box is a label upon which is written the experiment to be performed or the name of the apparatus whose use is to be learned, references to various books, which may be found in the laboratory library, and the apparatus necessary for the experiment, which ought to be found in the box.  If any parts of the apparatus are too large to be placed in the box, the label indicates by a number where it may be found in the storage case.

It is evident that, instead of the above arrangement, all the boxes can be stacked in piles in a general store room.  The described arrangement is preferable, as it prevents confusion in collecting and distributing apparatus when the class is large.

The Indicator (see figure).—­Some device is evidently desirable to direct the work of a laboratory with the least trouble and friction possible.  I have found that the old fashioned “peg board,” formerly used in schools to record the demerits of scholars, modified as in the following description, leaves nothing to be desired.

The requirements of such an instrument are these:  It must show the names of the members of the class; it must contain a full list of the experiments to be performed; it must refer the student to the book and page where information in reference to the experiments or apparatus may be found; it must show what experiments are to be performed by each student at a given time; it must give information as to the place in the laboratory where the apparatus is deposited; it must show to the instructor what experiments have been performed by each student; it must prevent the assignment of the same experiment to two students; it must enable the instructor to assign the same experiment to two or more students; it must form a complete record of what has been done, what work is incomplete, and what experiments have not yet been assigned; it must also be so arranged that new experiments or sets of experiments may be exhibited.