teacher of geology whose essential purpose is liberal training, leading to broad and firm knowledge and to sound processes of thought, will critically observe the distinction between geology taught appropriately from the collegiate point of view, and geology taught specifically from the professional and technical points of view. In these latter, specific details in specific lines are important, and may even be essential, but it is the function of the college teacher of geology to select from the great mass of material of the science such factors as are basal, vital, and talismanic. He will give these emphasis, while he neglects the multitude of details that lack significance as working elements or as landmarks of progress, whatever their value in other relations. This selection is equally important, whether applied to the great physical processes that have shaped the earth into its present configuration, or to the great chemical and mineralogical processes that have determined its texture and its structure, or to the great biological and psychological processes that have given trend to the development of its inhabitants.

Even if the undergraduate course in geology is pursued less for the purpose of liberal culture than as a means of preparing for a professional career as an economic geologist, no essential departure from an effort to master first the basal features and the broader aspects of the science, especially the dynamic aspects, is to be advised. The shortest road to declared success in professional and economic geology lies through the early mastery of its fundamentals. No doubt immediate and apparent success may often be sooner reached by a narrower and shallower study of such special phases of the subject as happen just now to be most obviously related to the existing state of the industries; but industrial demands are constantly changing - indeed, at present, rather rapidly — and new aspects follow one another in close succession. These new aspects almost inevitably spring from the more basal factors as these rise into function with the progress of experience or the stress of new demands. Those who have sought only

Evaluations of methods of teaching

the immediate and the superficial, at the expense of the basal, and especially those who have neglected to acquire the power and the disposition to search out the fundamentals, are quite sure to be left among the unfortunates who trail behind; they are little likely to be found among those who lead at the times when leadership counts. In the judgment of those master minds that lead in affairs and that take large and penetrating views, the lines along which the most vital contributions to economic interests are being made connect closely with basal studies of the actuating agencies that condition great enterprises. In the judgment of the writer, it is a false view to suppose that any short, superficial study of so vast a subject as the constitution and history of the earth can result in economic competency. In so far as time for study is limited, it should be concentrated on the great underlying factors that constitute the essentials of the science. It is here assumed that men who care to take a college course at all are seeking for a large success and are ambitious for a high personal career. If they look ultimately to professional work in economic lines, they may safely be advised that the straight road to declared success lies in a search for the vital forces, the critical agencies, and the profound principles that make for great results, not along the by-paths whose winding, superficial courses are turned hither and thither by adventitious conditions whose very nature invites distrust rather than confidence.

Turning to some of the more formal phases of treatment, three types of work are presented: (1) the use of nature's laboratory, the world itself, (2) the use of the college collections and laboratories, and (3) the use of the literature of the subject.

(1) Fortunately, there is no place on the face of the earth where there is not some natural material for geologic study, for even in the most artificialized locations geological processes are active. In crowded cities these processes may be easily overlooked, but yet they are susceptible of effective use. Within easy access from almost every college

site there are serviceable fields of study, and these, in any live course, will be assiduously cultivated. They may be relatively modest in their phenomena; they may seem to lack that impressiveness which has played so large a part in the popular notion of the content of geology, but they may nevertheless serve as most excellent training grounds for young geologists. If students are so situated as to be brought at the beginning of study under the influence of very impressive displays of geologic phenomena — precipitous mountains, rugged cliffs, deep cañons, and the like there is danger that their mental habits may become diffusive rather than close and keen; the emotions may be called forth in wonder rather than turned into zest in the search for evidence. If students are to be trained to diligence in inquiry and to the highest virility in inference and interpretation, it is perhaps fortunate for them if they are located where only modest records of geological processes are presented for study. In such regions they are more likely to be led to scrutinize the field keenly, sharply, and diligently for data on which to build their interpretations. The scientific use of their imaginations is all the better trained if, in their endeavor to build up a consistent concept of the whole structure that underlies their field, they are forced to project their inferences from a few outcrops far beneath the cover of the adjacent mantle that shuts off direct vision. Few teachers have, therefore, any real occasion to long for richer fields than those accessible to them, if they have the tact to render these fertile in stimulus and suggestion.

(2) Laboratory work upon the material collected in the field work, as well as laboratory work upon the college collections, are essential adjuncts. Ample provisions for this supplementary work, however modest the appointments, are important and can usually be secured by ingenuity and diligence in spite of financial limitations.

Both field and laboratory work should be well correlated with one another and with the systematic work on the text that guides the study, so that each shall whet the edge of

Organization of courses

the other and all together accomplish what neither could alone.

(3) The text selected should be such as lends itself, in some notable degree at least, to the general purposes set forth above. It should be supplemented, so far as may be, by judicious assignments for reading and for special study. Lectures may be made a valuable aid to the discussions of the classroom, but with college classes they can rarely be made an advantageous substitute for the discussions. Lecturing, so far as used, is best woven informally into the classroom discussions. Supplementary lecturettes may be advised if they are of such an informal sort that they may almost unconsciously take their start from any vital point encountered in the course of discussion, may run on as far as the occasion invites, and may then give way again to the discussion with the utmost informality. Such little participations in the work of the classroom, on the part of the teacher, are likely to be cordially welcomed. At the same time, if well done, they will set an excellent example in the presentative art as also in an apt organization of thought.

If the stated course in earth-science is limited to the junior and senior years by the existing requirements of the curriculum of the institution or by the rulings of its officers

as is not uncommonly the case at present it is relatively immaterial whether the sections of the course are marshaled under the single name "geology or whether they are given separate titles as sub-sciences, provided the special subjects are arranged in logical sequence and in consecutive order. If, on the other hand, the teacher's choice of time and relations is freer, the more accessible phases of earth study, now well organized under the name of physiography," form an excellent course for either freshmen or sophomores. It opens their minds to a world of interesting activities about them which have probably been largely overlooked in previous years. It gives them substance of thought that will be of much service in the pursuit of other sciences. It has been found that it is not without

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rather notable service to young students as the basis of efforts in the art of literary presentation, a felicity to which teachers of this important art frequently give emphatic testimony. The secret seems to lie in the fact that physiography gives varied and vivid material susceptible of literary presentation, while the fixed qualities of the subject matter control the choice of terms and the mode of expression.

If geography and physiography are given in the earlier years, the course in historical geology, as well as the study of the more difficult phases of geological processes, of the principles of dynamic geology, together with mineralogy, petrology, and paleontology, may best fall into the later years, even if some interval separates them from the geography and physiography.

One hundred and twenty classroom hours, or their equivalent in laboratory and field work, are perhaps to be regarded as the irreducible minimum in a well-balanced undergraduate course, while twice that time or more is required to give a notably strong college course in earthscience.

A consideration of the sequences among the geological sub-subjects, as also among the subjects that are held to be preliminary to the earth-sciences, is important, but it would lead us too far into details which depend more or less on local conditions. In the experience of American teachers it appears to have been found advisable to put geological processes and typical phenomena to the front and to take up geological history afterwards. The earlier method of taking up the history first, beginning with recent stages and working backward down the ages,- once in vogue abroad, has been abandoned in this country. It was the order in which the science was developed and it had the advantage of starting with the living present and with the most accessible formations, but this latter advantage is secured by studying the living processes, as such, first, and turning to the history later. This permits the study of the history in its natural order, which seems better to call