Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/shallweteachgeol01winc SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? A DISCUSSION OF THE PROPER PLACE OF GEOLOGY IN MODERN EDUCATION. BY ALEXANDER WIXCHELL, A. M.,LL. D.,F. G.S. A. Professor of Geology and Palaeontology in the University of Michigan. Vice President of the Geological Society of America. Author of World Life or Comparative Geology; Sketches of Creation; Walks and Talks in the Geological Field: Preadamites ; Sparks from a Geologist’s Hammer; Geological Excursions; Geological Studies: Two Reports on the Geology of Minnesota, etc., etc. CHICAGO S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 1889 Copyright, 1889, By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. PRESS OF KNIGHT & LEONARD CO., CHICAGO. PBEFACE. HE author of this book simply yields to the convictions of his judgment, the promptings of his heart and the lessons of his experience. He seeks only to set forth the value of geologic study as he estimates it, as he feels it, as he has learned it by much practice in the teaching of a wide range of subjects. It is his opinion that our educational authorities come widely short of a truthful estimate of the proper position of geology ; and he believes that this results from its traditional exclusion from the schools, and consequent ignorance of the fact that geology possesses a power of broad and diversified culture, and exerts an ethical influ- ence which deserves to be held in highest esteem. He believes that the earlier study of geology would tend to conserve the proper balance of the intellectual powers : and a more generous allowance of space in the curriculum of the schools would improve popular intelligence on one of the great agencies of culture and civilization ; and would contribute to render our public education more symmetrical and more liberal. The obstacles to the larger introduction of geology are here considered both theoretically and practically ; and an attempt has been made to show that when once admitted to a stand- ing, geology may be best taught by bringing the pupil face to face with nature. Though in this method, superior success will be won by the expert teacher, the untrained, with facilities now placed in his hands, has no reason to shrink from the undertaking. The author’s treatment of the themes discussed will be readily understood from the analysis which follows. Opinions of others he has criticised with freedom, but it has been always with good nature, and with a full recognition of the fact that linguistic and literary studies possess real value in education, and ought always to be retained in properly balanced relations to the natural sciences. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 13 November, 1888. CONTENTS I. Geology in the Educational Struggle for Existence. II. Geology in the Schools. III. What is meant by Culture ? IV. Diversified Aspects of Geological Study. V. Geology and Culture. VI. Classics and Culture. VII. The Ethical Influence of Geological Study. VIII. Geology and Modern Civilization. IX. Geology in the Order of Studies. X. Education Values. XI. Obstacles to Reform. XII. Application of the Observational Method, XIII. Principles and Methods of Geological Study. ANALYSIS. Actual Position of Geology in Public Education. In certain colleges and universities. (I. ) Rivalry of professional studies. Rivalry of linguistic and literary studies. Rivalry of studies preparatory for teaching. Geologic studies purely unprofessional. Illiberal allowances of means to geology. In the schools. (II.) General results of inquiries. Specific results of inquiries. Particulars of replies to inquiries. Why geology is excluded. Opinions on geology in lower schools. Why Geology Deserves Better Recognition. Its study promotes intellectual culture. What is meant by intellectual culture psychologically consid- ered. (III.) Powers of mind amenable to culture. Diversified aspects of geological study. (IV.) Geology discriminated from other studies. Illustration from the doctrine of a cooling globe. Observation and induction. Retrospective deduction. Prospective deduction. Ethical influence of geologic conceptions. Adaptation of geology to ends of general culture. (V.) Observational geology and its adaptations. Inductive geology and stimuli to imagination. Deductive geology and stimuli to imagination. Classical and literary studies in comparison. (VI.) Other inquiries as to the nature of culture. Vlll ANALYSIS. Opinions of authorities. Plato, Payne, Compayre, Marmontel, Renan, Lakanal, Matthew Arnold, Chamberlain, Lowell. Examination of Chamberlain’s reasoning. Generalization from opinions cited. The charge against students in scientific courses. Its study promotes ethical culture. (VII. ) Ethical influence of geological conceptions. Exaltation of soul. Purification of popular beliefs. Ethical influence of geological preoccupation of mind. Ethical influence as a reflex result. The scientific habit of mind. Its study promotes modern civilization. (VIII.) Appeal to the judgment of states. Geological surveys in foreign countries. Geological surveys in American states. Geological surveys under the general government. Before the national survey. . The national survey. Other testimonies from public acts. Testimony from private enterprises. The rationale of applied geology. Illustrations. Moral contributions to civilization. Why geology should be early studied. (IX.) Childhood the period for observation. Opinions dissenting and assenting. The principle old but generally ignored. Observation always accompanied by reflection. Exclusive sense-education not advocated. Disingenuousness of comparison with savages. Accessory advantages of child’s physical activity. This is a pleasure. Concrete things best control attention. Mere motion an aid to attention. Delight afforded by observational study. ANALYSIS. ’.X Delight in sense-activity. Delight in reflection awakened. Delight in discovery of truth. Intellectual delight distinguished from emotion. The doctrine that thought and feeling are mutually exclusive. Geology deals with common and familiar things. It preoccupies against harmful indulgences. It preserves balance of mind. The alternative is early study or total ignorance. General education at each grade. A succession of courses to be pursued. Its education value compared with that of other studies. (X.) Citations from Chancellor Payne. Certain pedagogical principles. Analysis of education values. Estimate of education values of sundry studies. Examination of Chancellor Payne’s positions. His pedagogical principles. His analysis of education values. His estimates of education values of sundry studies. The “culture trivium ” discussed. Chancellor Payne’s criteria of high educational value. The culture trivium examined in the light of these criteria. Activities awakened by geography. Activities awakened by literature. Activities awakened by history. Education values of geology. Scheme of logical divisions of geology. Scheme of education values. Quantitative estimates for different stages of development. Numerical estimates for the culture trivium. Practical questions to be solved. How to urge geology into the schools. (XI.) Nature of influence exerted by the university. Studies required for entrance and for graduation. The schools teach only subjects preparatory for university. Unwise neglect of other subjects. X ANALYSIS. Educational traditions unfriendly to geology. The reform pressed by convictions of teachers. Extent of popular geologic reading. Significance of certain popular organizations. Provision for the study exceedingly simple. Stimuli to enthusiasm even on an alluvial flat. The stumbling-block of the old text-book. Application of the observational method. (XII.) Spirit of the observational method. Suggestive examples for teachers. A quarry region. A fossiliferous region. A lake-shore region. A prairie region. A drift-covered region. The expedient of an unqualified teacher. Recapitulation and extension of principles. Principles and methods of geologic teaching in general. (XIII.) Three constituents of the subject-matter of science. Dealing with the observational constituent. Dealing with the generalizations. Dealing with the deductive materials. Dogmatic instruction not to be discarded. Graduation of studies to mental development. Rudimentary presentations. Presentations in the preparatory course. Presentations of collegiate grade. Principles of platform instruction. Summary of results. SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY 1 i. GEOLOGY IN TIIE EDUCATIONAL STRUGGLE FOE EXISTENCE. TN the pressure of subjects for recognition in the edu- cational curriculum, geology is one which has had to struggle under great disadvantages. Generally, geology is a study among the least and last appreciated by the framers of educational opinion, and the controllers of educational practice. It is the last of the natural sciences to be admitted into courses of study ; when admitted, it is generally assigned to a stage in the course at which the student’s tastes are already bent in other directions ; when the time at his disposal has been largely preoccupied, and he is looking with some degree of impatience for the con- clusion of his academic career and his entrance upon the arena of business life. Under such circumstances, geology is apt to be a subject held in low esteem by the educa- tional public and the student community. The control- ling authorities partake of the general impression ; and from this results a disadvantage greater than all the oth- ers — one which prevents a study of capital importance and transcendent interest, from conquering, as on its merits it would, all the disadvantages of relative position in the curriculum. 2 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? To present this struggle under a concrete aspect, let us consider the educational work in the average university. The student of law feels that he is preparing himself for the acquisition of a respectable livelihood. He is thinking of fees and fame and the prizes of the political arena. These ends, either immediate or more remotely prospect- ive, are ever before him. They are living motives ; they centralize his thoughts and his efforts. He works with zeal ; his fellow-students actuated by the same motives, are numerous ; the department of law, so respectable in numbers, must be made respectable in outfit ; the con- trolling powers feel that it is a department of the uni- versity to be specially fostered, and it is so fostered. The student of medicine, in like manner, feels that he too is acquiring the means of material advancement. He is thinking of fees, honorariums, comfortable, and then luxurious establishments. He is looking to rapidly made fortune and middle life repose. The student of pharmacy is a student of the means of lucrative business. The practical and profitable aims before him command his steady attention and sustain his unflagging energies. The dental college is a scene of similar assiduity and expecta- tion. All work, all hope, all desire centre in the generous income which educated and competent practice is sure to bring Here, as in other professional schools, an external motive sustains industry, unites numbers in a common interest and pushes it to a conspicuous posi- tion and commands the respect and care of the ruling authorities. If we turn to the schools of civil and mechanical engi- neering, we discover similar stimuli acting on minds per- haps more cultured, but therefore more susceptible to STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 3 motives drawn from the probable successes of a future career. The young engineer will acquire fame for his skill. He will come into profitable request ; he will plan great and novel bridges ; he will carry railway lines in seemingly impossible places ; great undertakings will demand his services, and great rewards will requite them. Else if his ambition is moderate, he will superintend some workshop or some great industrial establishment, and earn in salary two or three dollars in the same time as his late professor earns one. It is understood without saying, that the school, in its diversified adaptation to the needs of various seekers for means of livelihood is thronged with devotees. There is no interest so moving as a mate- rial interest. It is self-sustaining, unremitting, and demonstrative. It commands admiration for its assiduity and earnestness. It commands respect for the numbers which it unites in a common aim, and for the revenue which numbers bring to the university. The outside world appreciates an education which it can call “practi- cal.” It understands the value of a department in the university which qualifies young men to accumulate money. That, it thinks the chief end of all education. So the ontside public unite with the inside authorities in expressing their satisfaction with the popularity of the school and the abundance of fees which it brings. They also unite in tendering it all the support and fostering care which it needs. They supply it with requisite equipment and an adequate corps of instructors and assistants. In the abstract, these things are all exactly as they should be. Great good results from bringing all these professional and industrial schools to as perfect a state as possible. 4 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? If we turn to the academic department of the univer- sity, we obtain a further comprehension of the nature of the environment of the geological interest. Here, con- cisely stated, we And pursued linguistic studies, math- ematical studies, philosophical studies, literary studies, and studies in physical and natural science. By im- memorial prescription, the linguistic, mathematic and philosophic studies have enjoyed the first place in posi- tion and in general esteem. The trivium took possession of the university by right of discovery, and, in its modern guise, has asserted with haughty and militant exclusive- ness, the righteousness of its appropriation. As the trivium supplied the means of a liberal education in an age when the sum of non-professional human knowledge was a trivium, so it has always asserted that the old trivium, with a seasoning of mathematics, is the chief essential of a liberal education, even since the field of human knowledge has become so enlarged that the trivium and quadrivium cover but a small fraction of it. The representatives and devotees of the traditional culture proclaim that there is no other real culture ; and since, in scholastic circles, they constitute a large majority, they succeed in creating a public sentiment accordant with their pretension. Though this public sentiment is not the popular one, it is imbibed largely by young men seeking a liberal education, and they are in- duced to devote four formative and determinative years of their education to the same studies as occupied the youths of the dark ages. The high educational author- ities do not inform them that real culture would result also from the devotion of four preparatory years to the modern languages and the natural sciences, and the STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 5 faithful prosecution of a collegiate quadrennium inaugur- ated by such a preparation. In all sincerity and earnest- ness, therefore, the candidate for a diploma of culture places himself in a position where the old trivium ap- propriates the lion’s share of his efforts during a period of six or eight years. The classical department of the university is thronged, consequently, with those who have been taught, and honestly believe, that no liberal educa- tion is possible without such offerings of time, labor and money as it exacts. Of classical learning in the abstract we have nothing adverse to offer. We wish only to make clear the nature of the conflict for educational existence which geology is compelled to wage. Among the more modern subjects which have gained recognition in the collegiate curriculum, the class which may be called •' ■ literary” possesses marked advantages over the scientific — especially those studies in natural science which are not regarded as leading directly to some money-making profession. Chemistry, in its acces- sory relations to medicine, pharmacy and metallurgy, falls into the fortunate category of “practical” and “productive” studies, and has little fight to make in securing appreciation and support. But the literary group of studies obtain appreciation and support through the relation of their subject matter to popular literature. They present no array of technical terms or conceptions. Their language is that of the intelligent public, and their themes are those which beforehand occupiy the thoughts of the masses of intelligent readers. Literature and his- tory, in their educational pursuit, make comparatively light demands on the powers of abstraction, induction and reflection. Their themes also lie close to the personal 6 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? experiences and interests of the reader. They are nar- ratives of social life, dressed in pleasing style, or of biographical adventure, or of national happenings in which a few heroic personalities constantly appeal to the personal interest of the reader. The subject-matter is easily comprehended, at the same time that it moves the sensibilities and warms the imagination. We do not affirm that literature is properly restricted to compositions of a nature so nearly on the level of popular sentiment, but we take our literary critics at their word, and speak from the literary standard which they set up, and con- template that public estimate of “ literature” which their verdicts create and sanction. The undoubted facts being such as we have indicated, the predisposition to studies called literary, exerts upon the choice of students a con- trolling influence next to that of the fashionable affecta- tions of classical culture. Literary studies, therefore, possess the adventitious power of pushing their own way, and guaranteeing their own prosperity. Because they awaken a wide interest in the scholastic community, they feel free to make large demands on the sources of finan- cial nurture ; and the almoners of such nurture feel justified in graduating their generosity to the standard of the popular sentiment. Even within the circuit of the academic curriculum, there is often present a professional motive which predis- poses toward certain lines of study. Not unfrequently the academic course is pursued with ultimate reference to a course in law or medicine. With legal aims, linguis- tics and literature — including as before, history and civics — are conceived to be more germane than the natural sciences. With medical aims, Latin and chemistry are STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 7 thought to be more ancillary than the natural sciences. And among the latter, botany and zoology are thought to sustain more helpful relations than geology. More fre- quently, the academic course is pursued with the pur- pose of engaging temporarily, or sometimes permanently, in the profession of teaching. The foremost question before the mind in such case is, for what department of teaching is the demand most active? The statement of the question suggests the answer. The chief demand is in those studies which the university pronounces pre-requisites for entrance upon collegiate courses, and which by implication are the fundamentals of a good secondary or sub-collegiate education. In other words, the student who is aiming at a position as teacher, will seek to familiarize himself with linguistics, mathe- matics or literature. Where natural history and geology are not demanded by the university as preparatory for college, the schools will not offer preparation in them. If they are demanded to a feeble or partial extent, the schools will make feeble or partial provision for them. In the schools, therefore, the central effort is made to supply a preparatory education which does not embrace natural history and geology. The student in the univer- sity aiming at service in the schools, prompted by self- interest, shapes his studies to the nature of the demands existing. We do not wish to leave the suspicion that we think it just for the schools to provide only, or chiefly, such sub-collegiate education as opens the way to college; but our purpose is simply to point out the facts, however deplorable or however commendable, which place the study of geology at a disadvantage. SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? When now, after such a survey of the relation of the different fields of university study to the means of earn- ing a livelihood, we grasp the whole situation at one view, it cpiickly appears that geology, if pursued in col- lege or lower school, must be studied from motives more purely unprofessional than in the case of nearly all other studies. But the simple search for knowledge possesses with most minds a less controlling influence than the search for means of support. Even in the collegiate or academic departments of the university, the professional motives find room for such activity that geology and natural history stand at a marked disadvantage. When we look more closely, we learn that the disadvantage does not really consist chiefly in numbers in attendance upon instruction, but in the lack of adequate and equal mate- rial sustenance afforded by the government of the uni- versity. The discrimination against these studies is prompted by three motives: 1st. The scholastic authori- ties entertain the traditional conceptions of the require- ments for a liberal education, and are not sufficiently informed in the sciences to admit that they are equal means of culture; and, as the outcome of their pre- possessions and their ignorance, succeed in turning the revenues of the university into the channels which they approve. 2d. The financial control of the uni- versity determines its policy partly by the recommenda- tions of the scholastic authorities, and partly by the amount which a department of study is able to return in the shape of fees which students with professional aims feel willing to pay. 3d. The supreme govern- ment of the university participates in the popular opin- ion that those departments and those studies are most STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 9 worthy of support which sustain the most immediate relations to the production of wealth. The final outcome of the conflict waged by geology for standing in the university, assumes form somewhat as follows : The smallest possible allowance of means is granted for carrying on the work of instruction and in- vestigation. Other departments of instruction may be allowed numerous assistants, while that of geology, with similar necessities, has none or almost none — even for simple manual work. Other departments secure supplies of the means of illustration and investigation, while geology may plead for years in vain for some small pur- chase indispensable for work according to modern methods. Even in the ostensibly, and it might be added ostenta- tiously, ecpial distribution of appropriations for books, geology is placed at a double disadvantage. First, scien- tific works if illustrated, as they are apt to be, belong to a relatively costly class ; so that a given allowance to geology secures less literature on the subject than the same allow- ance to history, English or Greek. The same may of course be said of zoology and botany. Second, of the relatively large allowance usually assigned for miscella- neous books, a very large proportion of those purchased might well fall to the charge of the literary and philo- sophic departments. They are largely accessory to those departments, while the taint of natural history or geology is enough usually, to consign a book to the catalogue of those chargeable to the special funds for those subjects. I have drawn a picture of one of the most strongly colored cases. It is a case where scientific interests have no independent or exclusive endowment, or school, or standing : where every provision and regulation is at the 10 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? dictation of the literary interests ; where the executive and consultative authorities are identified with those interests ; and the highest external control seeks only the recommendations which emanate from a single source. These various conditions may not be found united in one institution. There may exist, assuredly, collegiate and university institutions in which geology enjoys a better standing. There are institutions whose founding and expansion are as recent as the very modern expansion of the natural sciences, and where these sciences were from the beginning granted a relative position worthy of their claims. There are institutions where the executive and advisory influences are in sympathy with the natural sciences and with the spirit of the age. We have no doubt that the number of such institutions will steadily increase. My object in offering these statements for record is twofold. I desire to call the attention of geologists and other scientific gentlemen to the actual state of the facts. The geological instructor and investigator is apt be so deeply absorbed in his efforts to advance and diffuse the knowledge of natural truth that he is scarcely conscious of the enormous inequalities of position in which he is placed. A general consensus of demands for rights will be more likely to improve the situation than a sweet- tempered and silent acquiescence in wrongs. My second object is to arrest the attention of all those whose common influence or authority has imposed upon geology the dis- abilities under which it suffers in some of our collegiate institutions. In doing this, I desire to protest not only against the unjust estimate which traditional opinion places on the natural sciences, and in particular on biology STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 11 and geology, but also and emphatically against the prin- ciple that those departments are to he most fostered which bring most revenue to the college or university, and are held in highest popular esteem. For the very reason that some studies and disciplines look toward professional and money»getting ends, they are the better able to take care of themselves. If any study or department has the right to expect special favor and special sustenance, it is a study or department which is purely cultural, occupying a place quite above the level of common appreciation. I have written thus far as if acquiescing in the arro- gant estimate which consigns geology to an inferior and unessential place in a liberal education, and fails to recog- nize it as potent factor in modern civilization. That it is such a factor, however, is known to the intelligent public, and it is not my purpose here to demonstrate it. Geol- ogy, in truth, if placed on the basis of usefulness to man, would hold a position in educational processes not infe- rior to that of literature and languages. In the esteem of the intelligent public it is making rapid and constant advance. The dissatisfaction of this public with the position of biology and geology in the schools is plainly expressed in such movements as that of the “Agassiz Association ” witli its seven thousand members, and “ Chatauqua Scientific Circle ” with its fifty or sixty thousand readers and students. I feel sure that public opinion will ultimately compel our moss-grown, conserva- tive educators to admit geology in some of its aspects into the secondary, and even the primary schools, and will revolutionize the collegiate control which persists in con- signing geology to an insignificant position. This result, however, will be reached through instrumentalities ; and 12 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? I have hoped such an undisguised statement as here made might contribute something to the much needed reform. I beg to disclaim all hostility to the true interests of any department of learning ; for there is no learning in which I do not feel deep concern. I desire only to rebuke the assumption of some forms of traditional learning, and protest against a policy in university control which sanc- tions their arrogance and helps them to rob certain other departments of their equitable standing and material support. II. GEOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS. T E may be interested in a further presentation of facts in the case. This will enable us to understand and appreciate the nature of the struggle in which geol- ogy is engaged in schools of a more popular grade. Having occasion some months since, to ascertain to what extent geology is pursued in the high schools of Michigan, I addressed a circular of inquiry to representatives of one hundred and forty-seven schools, in places having a population of one thousand or more. Information was sought also, as to the pleasure and satisfaction received by teacher and pupils in schools where the subject was pursued ; and in those where it was not pursued, some statement of the reason for it. Opinions were also solicited in reference to the desirability of admitting geology in any form into the lower schools. The respondents were almost unanimous in the ex- pression of their personal interest in the subject — several of them quite enthusiastic. They were equally unanimous in the opinion that it ought to be taught in the high schools, and might be commenced in schools of a very elementary grade. But most of them saw other subjects in possession of the field, and did not discover any opportunity for the introduction of geology, though experience had proved it to be interesting to both teacher and pupil. Some of these were attempting the subject in the way of “object lessons" and general exercises, and 13 14 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? as accessory to geography and physical geography. Sev- eral expressed a desire to introduce geology in the form of “ supplementary reading.’’ It also became apparent that the study of geology has materially diminished within a few years. The study has recently been thrown out of nine of the schools. In five of these, the step has been taken, as they state, to enable them to meet the demands of the university for preparation in other subjects. Why thrown out in the four other cases is not stated. One esteemed and veteran superintendent almost bitterly complained that “for twenty years, more or less, we have been stretching our- selves in a vain endeavor to keep pace with the require- ments of the university. Many of us begin to see the necessity of unloading.” It is apparent that the attitude of the university toward geology has operated disparag- ingly among all the leading schools of the state ; though it is not to be supposed that any deliberate purpose to produce such a result has been entertained by the govern- ment of the university. To be more specific, it appeared that geology was taught in thirty-seven per cent, of all the schools respond- ing to the circular, and was not taught in sixty-four per cent. It had recently been dropped out of twelve and a half per cent, of those responding, which was one-fifth of the whole number of those not teaching geology. In assigning reasons for not including geology in the cur- riculum, lack of space was alleged by thirty-six per cent. ; lack of competent teachers by fourteen per cent. ; lack of proper text-book, by three per cent.; lack of requisite facilities, by one per cent.; insufficient advancement of pupils, by eight per cent.; uninteresting nature of the GEOLOGY IX THE SCHOOLS. 15 study, by one per cent.; the existence of other studies more useful and more practicable to teach, by seven per cent. ; not required by the university, by seven per cent., and by seven per cent., no reason was known. In reference to the degree of satisfaction obtained by those who were teaching, or had taught geology, it was reported to have been thoroughly enjoyed by twenty-six per cent, of all those reporting, which was sixty-one per cent, of all those who were teaching or had taught geology. On the contrary, thirty-one per cent, of the latter class stated that portions of the subject only were enjoyed ; while three per cent, of the same confessed that the subject had been pursued without satisfaction. It will give a more realistic character to this represen- tation of geology in the schools of Michigan — or rather out of them — if I cite some of the particular replies received in answer to the question why geology is not taught. Adrian replies — apologetically, for having the subject only “ during part of one term/’ — “More space is not given because of prominence given to other studies.” The representative of Bay City replies : “ 1. I have to teach the sciences, and my training has been more in the organic than the inorganic sciences. 2. We can not teach geology, zoology and astronomy, and as I can best teach zoology, and we have a specialist in astronomy, we teach those two subjects. 3. I feel that zoology has more training value than geology, as we would necessarily have to teach the subject in a high school. 4. In Bay City there is little to enthuse one in the subject of geology, except our salt formations, while zoology has much to make it full of life.” Cadillac replies : “ No formal study is made. We spend considerable time in physical geography, and bring 16 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? in the subject to some extent there.” “ Lack of time ” is given as the reason for omitting geology. Caro replies : “ The only reason for excluding it is that with the services of so few teachers, we have not time for it. Four years ago, we lengthened the time for the common branches, hence had to exclude some of the sciences.” Chase replies : “ Pupils have never been sufficiently advanced to study it thoroughly.” It is added, however, that efforts are making to introduce the subject. Chelsea, also, is just introduc- ing geology. At Coldwater, the subject was formerly taught. My correspondent says : “ Shortly after our connection with the university, in rearranging the courses of study, it was found necessary to drop it, as well as some other studies, in order to meet the demands of that insti- tution.” At Decatur, “ the teaching force is too limited.” East Saginaw states : “Our course of study was greatly crowded. * * Geology and one or two other branches were omitted.” East Tawas reports that “ we cannot find time for that study,” but they hope to introduce it next year. Eaton Rapids complains of insufficient teaching force. Essexville “cannot find room for it.” Evart says the subject has been taught, “ but is not taught now.” At Fenton there are not enough teachers, and “the course of study is not so extended as to require it.” Flint thinks the place of geology is “rather in the college than in the grammar or high schools.” Grand Haven says : “Why the committee who rearranged the course of study threw it out and substituted something else I am unable to tell you. I would like very much to have it in my course of study, but do not see how it can be given as an additional study, for our pupils have already all they can do.” Hastings has “not a sufficient number of teachers.” At GEOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS. 17 Hillsdale, geology is studied “ only in connection with geography/’ but they “are endeavoring to take up the study next year.” Howard City pleads “lack of room and time,” though they “ have an eleven years’ course and five teachers.” Howell keeps geology out from “lack of time.” At Imlay City, there are “but eleven grades and a crowded school, so that heretofore, time has been limited.” Iron Mountain is only recently “organized as a high school.” Jackson gives no reason for exclusion of geol- ogy. Kalamazoo pleads “lack of space in the high school course of study, and difficulty in securing teachers compe- tent and in sympathy.” “Geology was atone time in the course.” Manchester replies : “ Geology was thrown out.” “The reason I presume to be its minor importance to physics and chemistry.” At Manistee the neglect of the subject is attributed “chiefly to the difficulty of securing good instruction.” The respondent at Marine City says : “ Geology was in the course some years ago, but was thrown out for some reason unknown to me, before I came here.” The respondent at Marshall writes : “ I do not see how it could be introduced without throwing out other work also necessary and important, as all of our pupils are doing hard work to keep up now with the requirements of the ordinary branches.” “If this study could replace some of the arithmetic work in the fourth through the sixth grades, I would like it.” Michigamme gives no reason. Milford replies : “ The course is already quite full.” Morenci alleges “want of time and space in the school course,” and adds : “ Most of the text-books on the subject are too difficult for pupils in schools of this grade.” From Mount Clemens I learn : “ The branch was taught in the high school until two years ago, when a 18 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? it was rejected from the course and astronomy was sub- stituted. The reason of the change was, that the study had not proved interesting to either teacher or pupil ; and it seemed to those having the matter in charge that to make it so, the teacher must have had special preparation for the work/’ Mount Pleasant does not consider the subject “as important as those already included in the curriculum.” Nevertheless, it is expected to be introduced next year. Muskegon says : “ Our high school has never been shaped in its course of study, for college or scientific work. School Boards have always aimed to meet the great lower wants of the great mass of pupils.” Nashville says : “ Our school has only recently been graded, and is backward.” My correspondent at Newaygo thinks it impracticable to make excursions ; and, though he is teaching from a book, he could not teach by means of specimens collected, “without hiring an experienced geol- ogist to go along and untangle things — there is such an infinite variety of geological formations. From my obser- vations, not taken at random, I assure you, it is my delib- erate opinion that at least eighty per cent, of the teachers of the state are teaching the book, and not the science of geology.” Otsego assigns “lack of space in the curri- culum,” and Portland “lack of time” — which means the same thing. From Quincy I learn they “cannot teach everything” “with their limited time and number of teachers,” and therefore do not teach geology. Romeo also replies : “ We are not so circumstanced as to teach all the sciences, and the Board think that chemistry, botany, physiology and natural philosophy can be taught to better advantage and with more profit to the pupils.” From the lakeside schools of Muskegon (Ryerson), I learn that “ the GEOLOGY IK THE SCHOOLS. 19 schools are graded up to and including the eighth grade, and in time, high school work will be done.” Similarly, I learn that in Saint Ignace, “all the usual studies in higher grades have not yet been added.” At Saint Louis, geology is excluded “from want of proper text-book, want of knowledge on the part of teachers, and want of time.” My respondent from Tecumseh writes : “I know of no special reason why geology is excluded. Our courses of study were arranged with reference to requirements for admission to the university ; perhaps that fact may account for the omission. There seems to be a tendency in most schools just now, to increase the time spent in general English or masterpiece study. This may in some cases lessen the time devoted to science generally ; but I see no reason why the ban should be pronounced against geology alone.” Fenton responds only, “two hundred and eighty pupils for three teachers [are] too much.” From Ypsilanti, the response informs me : “ We are not dealing with geology from the simple fact that it has been made optional with other subjects in the university requirements. These other subjects we can obtain facilities for teaching. We have no facilities for teaching geology.” “This tells the whole story. Personally, we have no preferences. We are willing to admit, for the sake of the argument, that as far as mental discipline is concerned, geology is as valuable as mathematics ; but we have not time in the schools for mathematics and geology. Mathematics was in ; geology must stay out.” In reference to the propriety of admitting geology in primary and grammar departments, a very strong affirma- tive sentiment was developed. This was expressed by many teachers whose courses of study do not embrace 20 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? geology. This sentiment is in curious contrast with the opinion that geology belongs only to the high school or college. Some of the statements on this point possess interest in this connection. Adrian favors the policy of introducing geology in the lower schools, and so does Battle Creek. Bay City thinks it might be introduced in the form of “supplementary reading” — that is, mere text-book work. Buchanan thinks “there is no reason for excluding it in its simplest form.” Cadillac gives assent. Caro does not favor it. Chase says: “ I do most em- phatically.” Teachers there are already doing a good deal indirectly “by means of object lessons.” Cold- water replies: “1 do; for this reason: pupils not able to enter college have very limited opportunities for gaining information in the natural sciences. Many students have natural inclination to this line of work, and have little opportunity for developing it. In the arrangement of courses of study, the many must suffer for the few who enter college.” This fact seems almost universally overlooked. Chesaning, in answer to the question, says: “Yes, I do,” and Decatur says, “I do most emphati- cally.” From East Saginaw comes the response: “Ido value very highly the study of geology, and I would gladly see it introduced” in the lower schools. East Tawas responds: “I think the introduction of the study into the lower departments is possible and practicable.” Eaton Rapids expresses the same sentiment, and adds, “ It is a subject that has always interested me deeply, and I should be pleased to see it introduced into every school in the state.” Essexville is of like mind. Flint thinks the subject belongs only in college. Grand Rapids thinks it “ an excellent idea,” but fears teachers would not GEOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS. 21 be found competent. Greenville thinks the only objec- tion is “crowded courses in the primaries and inter- mediates,” and adds: “Personally, I should say that some of the simpler facts in geology might be taught to the exclusion of so much geography, with profit.” Prom Hastings I hear: “We think it would improve our course of study.” Howard City says: “ Yes, connecting it with geography in lower grades.” Howell also says “Yes.” Imlay City responds: “We would favor a course in geology, and have been looking for some primary text- book on the subject.” Iron Mountain says: “ Yes, decidedly,” and Ishpeming and Lake Linden say “Yes.” Jackson says “ Yes,” with double emphasis. Lansing “does not favor the admission of geology into our schools below the eleventh or twelfth grade in the high school,” unless the course is revolutionized — “as it ought to be.” Manchester says: “It depends upon whether it is neces- sary to the course at Ann Arbor,” and adds: “I deem it to be one of the most interesting and ennobling of the sciences.” Manistee returns an affirmative response, and Marine City, Mason and Milford are of the same opinion. Morenci declares: “ I should most cheerfully welcome a text-book that might be used in the lower grades.” Mount Pleasant “would not favor the use of a text-book on geology below the high school,” but thinks “ much might be done in primary grades by object lessons or other general exercises. Then it seems to me that if a short series of easy, well chosen lessons could be obtained, they would form most interesting and valuable material for supplementary reading in the intermediate depart- ment.” Nashville also, returns, “Yes, as supplementary reading, at least.” Newaygo thinks it “would not be 22 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? wise, unless the teachers themselves could be in some way prepared to do the work in an interesting and scientific manner.” New Baltimore thinks favorably, and Northville replies: “It would interest them, and be of value in lower grades,” but as the schools are organ- ized, the time is insufficient. Oscoda says: “Yes, if one could find a suitable book that would not make skeptics of our children. As yet I know of none.” Ovid says, “I do "without reservation, and Paw Paw replies: “Most emphatically I do.” In Pontiac this sentiment is uttered: “ I favor it. If properly taught, good would come from it. Have it alternate with something else as a general exer- cise. There are already enough regular studies in the course. Let the teacher teach the subject, rather than hear recitations.” The sentiment entertained in Port Huron is kindred: “ I think the simplest and commonest facts should be given to pupils from the lowest grade up. They could be given in connection with geography.” Portland and Quincy give affirmative responses, and Eomeo replies: “We should be glad to have it intro- duced were there not so many other things that are needed more.” Saint Ignace joins the majority, and Sagi- naw amplifies assent as follows: “ I do favor its admission into the lower grades, and into the lowest. It may be made educative and interesting from the kindergarten up.” Saint Louis and Stanton also assent, and the latter adds: “Paul Bert’s Introductory Steps, for instance.” Sturgis reports “Yes.” Tecumseh adds: “I never knew any pupil who had pursued the study to regret having done so, and see no reason why it might not be made both interesting and instructive to young pupils.” Three Kivers declares: “I certainly favor the study of GEOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS. 23 geology in high schools, but my experience with primary schools leads me to think they have enough to fully occupy their time without introducing geology.” From Trenton comes the simple response, “Yes.” Vassar replies: “I should favor geology as low down as the sixth grade — to be taught orally, by excursions, etc. In ninth grade, I should like a book corresponding to Wood’s Object Lessons or Gray’s How Plants Grow, in botany — and for eleventh or twelfth grade, something- more complete or systematic.” White Pigeon says: “It would no doubt be of value in lower grades.” The foregoing responses come from the most intelligent and, generally, most experienced teachers in the schools of Michigan. I have not asked their consent to make the replies public, and I originally had no intention to publish them. But the views expressed may be regarded as representing the teachers of Michigan and the con- tiguous states. As such they possess value and afford important suggestions. I trust, therefore, as I have withheld names, that every one quoted will pardon the liberty for the sake of the public good. The interests of education, not less than the interests of geology, require that some response be made to these expressions. What I desire to say will bring me to the most practical portion of the discussion here undertaken ; and before I make my plea for the wider admission of geology in the schools, it will be well to set forth my con- ception of the claims of the science as a means and material of education. Why do we educate ? “ To impart mental discipline,” says one. “ To impart a fund of useful knowledge,” says another. If, as the educational theorist maintains, 24 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? education ought to aim solely at culture, what is the value of culture acquired, unless by its exercise, some valuable results are attained. If that is the end, then even the cultural aim reaches no accomplishment short of use- fulness. If, as the mass of people believe, education ought to aim solely at the acquisition of useful knowledge, then, manifestly, the mental exercises involved in the acquisition, must subject the powers to a process of cul- ture. So, if we aim exclusively at culture, utility is the real end ; and this may consist of useful knowledge, or an improved power to employ knowledge when acquired, or an elevation of life and character. And if we aim exclu- sively at useful knowledge, we cannot avoid the cultural result, and all which it involves. The true purpose of education is the acquisition of both culture and useful knowledge. I shall attempt to show that both these ends are attained in the study of geology. III. WHAT IS MEANT BY CULTURE ? I T is considered educational orthodoxy to maintain that education, as the term itself implies, consists in such training of the human powers — but more especially the intellectual faculties — as will make them of greatest ser- vice to their possessor. If this expression means exclu- sively culture, and does not involve the acquisition of useful knowledge, it should at least be said that the acqui- sition of knowledge is one of the incidents of culture, and hence culture ought to be so sought as to involve the attainment of useful knowledge. For the present, how- ever, I wish to contemplate the purely cultural aspect of education, with a view to the subsequent inquiry how geological studies stand related to processes of pure culture. In order that one’s faculties may become most serviceable, they must acquire as far as possible, alertness, effective- ness and readiness. In other words, they must act with facility and rapidity ; they must accomplish a large volume of their appropriate results in a given time, and must be ever ready to enter into action. They must be like a team which is quick, strong, and in harness. What in detail, do educators contemplate when they speak of culture ? What are the several powers whose alertness, effectiveness and readiness are best promoted by best culture? This is equivalent to asking what are the powers by whose most perfect activity we achieve as 26 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? most successfully the work allotted to us? The obyious answer is, all the powers by which a human agent seeks his ends — powers physical, powers intellectual and powers ethical. Let us restrict the inquiry, for the time being, to the powers intellectual. We will con- template then, for the present, pure intellectual culture ; and we will employ the term in its proper or psychological meaning. The term culture is much employed by a class of writers and speakers who extol lines of study demanding the exercise especially of verbal memory, and the power of comparison and analysis. The verbal memory is the faculty of retaining and recalling mere words. It is the means of acquiring names and of speaking them on occasion. It fixes phrases and quotations, and puts us in possession of them. It seizes on the words and forms of a foreign language, and makes them permanently ours. It is the spring of the faculty of verbal utterance ; it confers effective power of expression. Its function extends to the retention of dates and other numerical expressions. Self-evidently, the verbal memory is an important means in the acquisition and communication of all knowledge, and the attainment of all ends to which knowledge contributes. To add alertness, effectiveness and readiness to the verbal memory is one important factor in intellectual culture. Verbal memory, however, appears to be psychologically analogous to the memory or reproduction of sounds and sights in general ; and thus, for our purpose, the general power of reproducing percepts may be designated the sense-memory. This power in its further exercise, is that by which we recall the features of individuals, and attain WHAT IS MEANT BY CULTURE ? 27 an extensive acquaintance. It preserves what we have seen in the forms of matter in general — forms of animals, plants, scenery, architecture. Readiness of recognition is conferred by it, and therefore, power of detail in descrip- tions. It is the chief faculty of story-telling — so far as simple utterance is concerned. Facility in sense-repro- ductions confers many advantages ; and it is often the means of attaining successes which a superior grade of reflective intelligence fails to win. Aside from the store of facts which it sometimes holds at the service of the other powers, it is the most available instrument for what we call popularity. Though the vice of the excessive exercise of sense-memory may be garrulousness, fecundity of meaningless details, the substitution of anecdote for thought, and general shallowness, yet it is quite manifest that the fullest exercise of the sense-memory can only be productive of advantages, if the judgment and other intellectual powers are brought into symmetrical and restraining development. The whole field of the sense- memory deserves careful exercise and strengthening, and this work must be one of the useful and legitimate elements of broad culture. Embraced in the order of culture first referred to is the exercise of the power of comparison and judgment. Without affirming that these are one faculty, their con- stant association in activity leads me to speak of them as one process. In detection of likenesses and unlikenesses, we discover grounds for judgments. Every judgment pronounced is an assertion of congruity or incongruity. As every act is the explicit or implicit expression of a judgment, a ready facility in the apprehension of the 28 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? grounds of judgments is a cultural acquisition of prime importance. The power of abstraction is another factor in that intellectual effectiveness which attaches to the lines of study extolled by the same class of writers about culture. Abstraction is the contemplation of one thing apart from all other things. It is simply an effort of attention carried to complete success. Attention is specially indispensable in the search for relations which are not immediately obvious — relations between things incon- crete, or abstracted from tangible forms. Every con- tinued process of reasoning depends on abstraction. All mathematical relations, mental powers and moral qualities are abstract. The power of abstraction is a faculty in constant demand, but especially in the higher efforts of thought. It is an important power falling plainly within the scope of general culture. The faculty of deductive reasoning, while constantly employed in many familiar modes of mental activity, is also one especially demanded in many of the higher efforts of intelligence. It is pre-eminently the faculty of mathematics ; but it finds constant exercise in logic, in philosophy, in physics, and wherever principles or abstract truths are given, and their consequences or outcome are demanded. Obviously, mental culture must embrace the improvement of this royal power. But deductive reasoning implies a power of retention of abstract truths or principles. This is often designated the philosophic memory. As an accessory and inseparable adjunct of ratiocinative processes, this power is indispensa- ble in the higher mental activities ; and its capability of perfect exercise must be one of the conditions of most WHAT IS MEANT BY CULTURE ? 29 efficient mental service. In other words, complete culture embraces an improved power of philosophic or thought memory. It will scarcely be doubted that general culture involves the quickening of the imagination, the training of it to moderation and consistency, and the enjoyment of it as an adjunct in the efforts of memory and deductive reason- ing. The picturing power of this faculty gives vividness to the reproductions of sense-memory, and readiness in the comprehension of descriptions. It is an invaluable instrument in the attainment of clear conceptions of the results unfolded by deductive processes. The inter- pretation of the results reached by mathematical reason- ing often depends wholly on the illumination of the field of exploration by the light of this faculty. It goes before discovery, and discloses resting-places for thought in the midst of the gloom of the unknown. Its creative powers are often exercised under the promptings of analogy, congruity or contrast, and it thus becomes luxuriant in simile and metaphor. By its luminous apprehension of the forms and details of concrete things inaccessible to perception, it contributes to graphic description ; and through its resources of metaphor, both illuminates the thought and garnishes the style. Imagination is there- fore a powerful instrument in the creation of new con- ceptions and the transmission of them to the intelligence of others. A mind well fitted for the creating of new conceptions possesses one of the most effective gifts of culture ; and if, in addition, it wields the power of graphic and pleasing elucidation, its cultural gifts are brilliant, attractive and useful. Assuredly, then, the 30 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? imagination is one of the most important faculties to improve and strengthen by the arts of education. I have mentioned the intellectual powers and processes somewhat in the order in which they are the subject of disciplinary exercise in the popular systems of “liberal” culture, rather than in the order of their imjiortance or the order of their spontaneous development. Assuredly, however, the sense-memory would receive no content unless the sense-perceptions had been previously called into activity ; and the picturing power of imagination would remain latent unless sense-perception had supplied the elements of its creations. Perceptions are the antece- dents and conditions of sense-memory, of imagination and of induction. They are also the conditions of the awaking from slumber of those intuitive cognitions of necessary truths, which regulate and control all human actions. Perceptions, in other words, are the antecedent conditions of all knowledge and of all power of knowl- edge. In a more obvious sense, they are the sole means of communication with the external world. They find therefore a more constant, and more diversified and more essential use than any other of our intellectual powers. The most widely and variously exercised of our faculties are those which most demand the improvement of judi- cious culture. To learn how to observe most advantage- ously should be one of the chief ends of education. The educational system which neglects to provide for the due development, and the early development of powers and habits of observation supplies a form of culture which is signally defective. The power of inductive reasoning should not be omitted from the list of those deserving of culture. This, in truth, WHAT IS MEANT BY CULTURE ? 31 embracing observation, which supplies its materials, stands first in order of importance. Induction from observed data has been pronounced the characteristic modern method of attaining to scientific knowledge ; and Sir Francis Bacon, very mistakenly, has been regarded, in cant phrase, as the founder of the inductive method. So far as this is true, it shows with what aim and method we must proceed, if we would enter into the spirit of the modern march of intelligence. So far as induction has been pursued from the earliest dawn of reflective thought, it shows what is the inflexible and changeless mandate of nature in the method of marshalling our powers for the search of truth. In either view aptness and good logic in the drawing out of general truths from many details of observation appear plainly to be essential ends of well balanced modern culture. Without the acquisition of this power, education is glaringly defective. Whether Baconian or Aristotelian, the method of induction brings order out of a universe of discrete facts, and lays the foundations of principles which we build into the fabric of natural science. Induction has more than a service to science to perform. Thousands of the grotesque and unreasoned nonsequiturs of daily life are but the outcome of hasty inductions ; and some of these, as in the search for petroleum, gas, or coal, are neither harmless nor inexpensive. To train this generalizing power so that it serves us thoroughly and truly is the part of education in its cultural aspect. I emphasize this truth, because it is quite generally ignored in our prevailing forms of education, at the same time that its importance seems to be foremost. It is within the field of inductive processes that the true scientific spirit is disclosed and exercised. Beside 32 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? the influence which it exerts in the realm of technical knowledge, the extension of its influence into society, politics, religion and general life would correct many of the evils of misrepresentation, slander, false arguments, political mud-throwing and religious superstition. This is an ethical influence which will be considered in another connection. In the advocacy of the popular form of liberal culture, we hear much of the creation of a good taste. The study of the ancient languages, it is claimed, with truth, tends to improvement of the taste. If I understand the meaning of this expression, taste is the perception and feeling of congruity or fitness in the realm of sensible things. It seeks congruity and takes pleasure in it. It knows how to shun incongruities, and is distressed by their occurrence. A good literary taste knows what juxtapositions of thought are consecutive, graduated, and pleasing, and it knows what juxtapositions of words and phrases will avoid a jar, and best adapt expression to the thought. In music, it appreciates and seeks such successional relations and harmonic combinations of tones as are congruous with each other and with our musical apperceptions ; and such as are congruous with the thought or feeling which the composer seeks to express. A good artistic taste under- stands what forms and colors harmonize with the common norms of beauty and fitness implanted in the soul. It is pre-eminently literary taste which the prevailing culture claims to shape and perfect. Indisputably, such culture, beside increasing the happiness of its subject, confers a means of influence which improves the scholar’s chances of success in the battles of life. Such control of the WHAT IS MEANT BY CULTURE ? 33 adversities of situation is therefore, eagerly to be sought in our professed systems of general culture. The foregoing may be regarded as an enumeration and characterization of all the important powers which fall within the scope of intellectual culture. The term, so far as I know, is not employed, and cannot be employed, in any intelligible sense involving more than the educa- tional discipline of these. What our linguistic and literary friends mean by “culture” cannot refer to any occult influences bearing in any other direction than the improvement of these powers. It seems superfluous to emphasize so plain a proposition; but it becomes desirable to bring to the light of day and to the terms of defi- nite statement, the whole secret and mystery of “ liberal culture.” It is intended next, to present an analysis of the con- tent of geological science, and then an examination of the nature of the demands which it makes upon the powers of the student. IV. DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. TTNLIKE mathematics and many other subjects of study, the science of geology consists of various ranges and kinds of knowledge. It is not a mere body of facts of observation, like political or physical geography in the ordinary acceptation; nor of facts of record, like history in the scholastic sense. It is not merely a field stocked with the products of imagination and sentiment, like popular literature. It is not merely a realm of abstract concepts and necessary ideas, like metaphysics. It is not merely a system of deductive processes all firmly bound together and to first principles by necessary laws of thought, like mathematics. It is not merely a depart- ment of mental activity where conclusions are balanced on probabilities, and moral certitude is the highest satis- faction afforded the aspiration to know, as in many ecclesiastical, political and educational questions. It is all these, and more than these. Geology, as the science of the natural world, embraces all which the natural world contains; all with which it is historically and gen- etically connected, and all the accessories and means whose employment contributes to the attainment of a knowledge of the world in its widest relations. It is the organization of all the sciences in a crusade for conquest in the realm of the unknown. To illustrate and justify a claim so large, I shall venture to recite in brief the 34 DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 35 processes by which geology advances from the most fami- liar facts of observation, step by step through generaliza- tions higher and higher, to the grandest doctrines ever enunciated by science; and thence by a reverse, or deduct- ive process, to the details of events from which actual observation is separated by intervals of space and time to finite powers impassable. The beginning of all this fabric of geological science is what we see by the roadside, in the field, on the moun- tain slope or the ocean strand. In our daily observations are the facts which point the way to the loftiest generali- zations of the science. Let me confine the reader’s attention to a group of phenomena leading toward the fundamental doctrine of a cooling globe. About our very doors lie the bowlders whose hard and crystalline char- acter proclaims the agency of intense heat. In the struct- ure of the mountains which we climb, and underneath the lands which we inhabit, are square miles of rock similarly crystalline and vitrified. These are data of observation. They are data of easy and familiar and universal observation. They sustain the inductive conclu- sion that intense heat has been here. Other observations on ancient lavas — on palisades, dikes and extinct volcanoes, indicate that the heat has been sufficient to fuse the rocks. Has been — but is now no longer. The heat has subsided. Thermal springs, geysers, artesian borings, deep mines, volcanic eruptions supply other observational data from which we induce the doctrine of a heated interior. The earth has cooled, but is still hot within. The earth is in the midst of a cooling process. * * The inductive nature of the great body of geological science is well understood. I do not dwell upon this feature, because I desire to illustrate 36 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? This is a most fruitful principle. If the earth is a cooling globe, two inquiries next press upon us. Through what phases of existence has it passed in its remote history ; and what vicissitudes is it destined to undergo in the future continuance of the cooling process ? From what initium did the cooling process set forth, and at what finality will it end ? No one can fail to understand that these are lofty inquiries ; and that any well grounded responses must lift our thoughts into the realm of sublime truth. But the history of the earth’s cooling unrolls a vista through the past eternity. No human intelligence has been witness of the events. The future career of the cooling globe lies in the folded possibilities of events unreal and stretching into the eternity lying in the opposite direction. But these lofty questions are not unanswerable. The events of terrestrial history succeed according to methods which lie revealed. There is no uncertain caprice in their order and relationships. Physical events run in grooves. What we observe discloses a trend which may be followed in either direction. By observation we have learned the laws of cooling, and the elemental and cli- matic changes which depend on changes of temperature. If the earth be a cooling globe, we may with confidence deduce its conditions and their concomitances in the earlier stages of cooling. Here our reasoning becomes deductive. We proceed from the inductive principle of a cooling globe, and from the primary principles of ther- the important fact that geology is not exclusively an “inductive science: ' and because also, I wish to have it understood that in some of its ranges it reaches the ethical nature of man, and demonstrates realities which belong to a supersensible realm. DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 37 modynamics, and retrace the cooling history. We see in imagination as we recede, a warmer terrestrial surface, a more tropical climate, and, in correlation, more tropical plants and animals. We strengthen and verify the deduc- tion by the inductive data afforded by the successively deeper sheets of ocean sediment now hardened in rocky strata. Farther on in the retrospect, the sediments are but beginning to accumulate. The mountains are still in embryo ; the ocean is universal. As the scroll of terres- trial history continues to unfold, the ocean itself is noticed at its natal epoch ; the clouds are discharging the ocean from their bosom. Here the possibilities of inductive confirmation disappear. Earlier than this no enduring rocky forms had existed. The greater heat had reduced all terrestrial matter to a fluid state, which retained no records. This is the starting point of inductive geology. But this is not the starting point of the process of cooling. With the eye of imagination, under the calm guidance of the reasoning powers, we behold in the remoter past, a world of firemist, with the beginning of a central nucleus of molten matter. In the profounder depths of the eternity past, the firemist is conceivably in the condition of a gas. In a history of cooling, we have learned of no condition antecedent to this. The gaseous state of matter accompanies the highest temperature known. Do not understand me as enunciating the doc- trine that the cooling process must have begun at a temperature at which all terrestrial matter existed as a gas. I mean only, that the process of cooling leads always away from that state as the remotest possi- bility. Actually, it may have proceeded from a condition thermally subsequent to this. The subsequent thermal 38 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? condition may have been attained from some older state in which the constituents of the world were gathering together, and were yet even at a low temperature. I am not seeking to reason out that condition of the world which was absolutely primordial. I seek only to illustrate how by an inverted deduction, we may recede toward a state of the world which antedates all human observation and even all the rocky records of inductive geology. Now, having found a starting point — having assumed any remote condition as a starting point, we pursue by direct deduction, the course of events which under the laws of matter, must have ensued in the progressive escape of heat from the terrestrial mass. We reason out the attainment, sooner or later, of the firemist condition, the precipitation of a molten rain and the growth of a molten globe, the condensation of aqueous vapor, the enveloping of the earth in a mantle of clouds, the descent of aeonic rains, and the gathering of the universal ocean. Many other events collateral with these, we logically rea- son out. By the aid of imagination, the scenes enacted become vivid and real, and our understanding of them improved. Now we see how and when marine precipita- tion must have begun, how the submarine floor by thick- ening, became melted off by encroachment of heat from below, and how as sedimentary deposits continued, the deep-seated residual heat invaded upward the earlier sea- sediments and transformed them. We see how and when the time arrived for the possible introduction of organic forms, and how they succeeded each other as the rolling aeons of cooling wrought the terrestrial surface into changed conditions. Of all these post-crustal events, the crust has retained some records, and the inductive DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 39 evidences from them check and verify our deductive inferences. Let us for a moment stand on a higher plane of obser- vation, and rise to a higher generalization. There are other planets within the range of our vision which exist under the same forms and motions and accompaniments as this planet.* They are regulated by the same system of laws ; they consist of the same matter ; they undergo the same visible vicissitudes. Here is a body of data of observation — not indeed, with unaided vision, as when we noted the aspects and conditions of the vitrified and crys- talline rocks — but with the aid of the telescope, the spectro- scope, the polariscope and the crucible. From these data we formulate the inference that all the planets revealed through our instruments are bound together in one system, have had a common history and are moving to a common destination. This larger generalization produces in our minds a conscious expansion — a larger apprehension of the scope and unity of the cosmic plan. This higher attainment of thought is attended by a grateful emotion , a spiritual delight ; and if we are philosopher enough to contemplate plan as the correlative and expression of mind, we feel here, in the presence of this grand disclosure, a higher certitude of supreme mind, and a deeper seated and more enduring sentiment of devotion. * We here enter a domain of thought which is neither geology nor astronomy. It is often styled cosmology. From one direction we enter it by the aYenues of geology, and geology must be credited for pointing the way to it. From another direction we reach it over the highways of astronomy. But geology and astronomy contribute somewhat equally to the store of ascer- tained facts on which cosmological reasonings are based. The correlations of geology and astronomy have been eloquently traced in an address of Dr. Joseph Le Conte in response to the addresses transferring the Lick Observatory to the control of the University of California, June 27, 1888. See “Formal Recognition of the Transfer, ' etc., pp. 14-24. 40 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY P At the level of this loftier generalization, we conceive the matter and the forms of all the planets merged in one. Perhaps the common mass is in the state of firemist, and luminous. Perhaps it is a heterogeneous assemblage of mineral particles and masses undergoing condensation, and destined in a later aeon, to evolve the heat which will develop luminosity and reduce portions to a state of fire- mist. As before, I care not to define precisely the actual state of the matter of the solar system which was primor- dial. We seek only a rational commencement — a con- dition such as involved all later conditions. There must have been a time — so we reason — when the evolution of heat began to be surpassed by loss of heat. From that epoch cooling and contraction began. Potation is a primordial, necessary condition of all separate masses of cosmic matter. In a rotating, cooling and contracting spheroid, the changes of form and condition resulting are the subjects of calculation. Even if there be alternative lines of vicissitudes, one of these leads on through pro- cesses of annulation and spheration — with possible second- ary annulation and spheration — on to such an outcome as we see exemplified in the assemblage of planets and satel- lites constituting our solar system. And this earth on which we dwell is a particular outcome of such an evolu- tion — so grand, so vast, so ancient. And all that is now of the earth was involved in those asonic vicissitudes. The bone and flesh and nervous matter of our bodies existed in that primordial firemist — in those annulating spheres — in that fervid atmosphere — in those glowing rocks — in those ancient sediments — in the shells of primeval molluscs — in the framework of generations of reptiles — enduring as matter ; and our plans of organization give expression to DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 41 thoughts no less enduring. Such is the unity of the organism of the planetary system, and such the unity of man with the organism of the worlds. In this regressus of thought, we rise to a still higher plane. * The sun appears as the residuum of a prolonged process of planetation. By the aid of our instruments we learn that the stars are other suns. Imagination kindles and emotion warms at the suggestion of such a fact. The stars then, are so many centres of planetary systems completed. Yes, to the utmost limit of the visible universe, the same modes of world-life prevail as are exemplified in our own system — the same as are revealed in continental masses and granite cliffs and ocean sediments on this orb to which we have been assigned as its inhabitants. There must be then, other planets. There must be other inhabitants. If other inhabitants, their intelligence is akin to ours; for other- wise, the universe around them, so interpretable to us, would be uninterpretable to them; and the fitness of things which reigns everywhere within our cognizance, would be turned into contradiction of the testimony of the universe. Reason refuses to credit this. Other intelligences there are, to whom the universe has the same meaning as to us; who think as we think; who are already familiar with our ideas, or are ready to receive them and to impart to us their own. Does not the reader find such ranges of thought *1 fear that some parts of this sketch are too condensed to be fully intelli- gible to readers to whom the course of thought is unfamiliar. Let it be borne in mind however, that it is less the particular truth than the inference to be drawn from the range of thought, that is here specially of consequence. The writer has elsewhere presented ample elucidation of the details of these reasonings. 42 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? expansive, ennobling, spiritualizing? Possibly be is say- ing this is not geology. No — not in the school-book sense. But geology in the stricter sense leads to the high-swung bridges over which thought passes by an uninterrupted continuity of path into the realms of philosophy and theology, whose light tinges the clouds which engirt a primeval world. I suffer myself to follow thought into these remoter realms for the purpose of showing the vastness of the range of geological con- templation, though the ordinary geologist may seldom explore it. Geological facts and doctrines , with which we are all chiefly occupied, lie in a single province of the science. I said that the grooves of passing events run into the distant future as into the distant past over which the reader has been transported by a rapid flight. By direct deductive reasoning from the generalized principle of a cooling globe, we are able to depict future vicissitudes with no less certainty than those past. We anticipate a frozen world and a darkened sun. From the general- ized doctrine of slow continental degradation we depict beforehand the destructive work of future ages. From the action of the moon on the lagging lunar tide, we are enabled to foresee a lengthened day, and finally synchro- nistic rotary and orbital movements of the earth, accom- plished by a slower action of the sun on the solar tide. Through the operation of a resisting medium — whether ethereal, meteoric or molecular — we look forward to a general gathering of all the dead planets at a common sepulchre. Then by completing the parallelism already delineated in reference to the past, we learn that the unrolled history of this world represents that of all the DIVERSIFIED ASPECTS OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 43 worlds of our system ; and the unrolled history of the system pictures that of the firmament. And now the grand and culminating inference of all science looms before our intelligence in majesty awful and inspir- ing : The history of matter is one in all the bounds of space and in all the aeons of time past and time to come. The vicissitudes of yesterday are a para- graph in the annals of universal matter. In that totality every human life is a constituent part. Man stands in the midst, and casting his mental glances back- ward and forward, affirms and feels his unity with all. Man only as an organism. Those glances are not the rays of sun or star — they are the thoughts which imperishable and unchanging mind has written on the forms of star and planet and organism. And thus, out from the forms of matter as they perish and disappear, rises an entity which neither changes nor disappears, nor yet endures as mindless matter- — but endures in self- consciousness and self -activity, and constituting man’s essential self, unveils to vision another universe where suns neither wax nor wane, and the limitations and infirmities of changeful matter never interrupt or ruffle the gentle current of eternal being. V. GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. r I UIESE thoughts are presented with no intent to expa- tiate on the themes of science. My purpose is only to indicate the vastness of the range of cognitions and contemplations to which the study of geology invites. It begins with simple facts of easy observation. It calls the percipient powers into pleasant exercise. In observing separate facts we compare them with each other. By processes of judgment we pronounce them identical or similar or diverse. If similar we abstract the particular characters in which the similarity consists, and decide whether they are trivial or fundamental. The wide ranges of facts brought under observation are distributed into groups. Names for the facts there must be, and thus arises a technical nomenclature, which gives us addi- tional exercise in verbal memory. In extending our knowledge of facts beyond the sphere of personal obser- vation, we resort to the records of the observations of others. We are led to the use of foreign languages. We obtain the cultural benefits of linguistic study. Our various groups of facts lead to various generalizations or interpretations. One group points to a former high tem- perature on the earth, as we have seen. Another convinces us that the lands have been covered by a universal sea, and that the bedded rocks are but its sediments. Another group indicates the magnitude of land erosions in the past, and the complete obliteration of ancient continents. 44 GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 45 Another group of facts establishes the doctrine that the earliest animals were invertebrates ; and that the oldest vertebrates were marine ; and in short, that the order of succession in the advents of animal types w y as identical with the order of rank — thus contributing one of the principles on which -we base that higher generalization — evolution— which expresses the method of Supreme Mind in all the successions of the natural world. Within each of these broader and more obvious generalizations are others of more limited scope. If the first vertebrates were marine, so the first marine vertebrates were not fishes of typical structure, but of archaic forms now long extinct. If land vegetation appeared after marine, it -was at first only a flowerless jungle. The great body of geo- logical doctrines consists of inductions like these, founded upon facts of observation. Many, very many of the facts are near and familiar ; many are remote and unfa- miliar. A large part of the body of geological science consists of a record of facts. The generalizations are not, indeed, postponed till all the facts of the science are cata- logued. We begin to draw our generalizations while yet we must hold them as merely tentative. Final generaliza- tions may displace them ; and even these in some cases, may prove not to be final ; or may prove to be wholly erroneous. By a law of our minds v 7 e begin to generalize as soon as two or more cognate facts are brought together ; and continually test and revise our generalizations, as long as new facts of the same group prove incompatible with earlier generalizations. Then we have reached a principle or doctrine. Thus it is a doctrine to-day that Dinosaurs did not survive the close of Mesozoic time. But 46 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? if to-morrow we find the remains of Tertiary Dinosaurs, that generalization must be rectified. Thus in dealing with the great body of geological science, we keep the observational faculties in training. With this, we exercise the powers of sense-memory and of language. This training holds a large place in the exactions of geological study. So far as trained quick- ness and exactness of perception constitute mental cul- ture, the study of geology is eminently cultural. In dealing with the same great body of the science, we keep the inductive powers in constant exercise. Their activity, as I have said, is the characteristic activity of modern intelligence, in distinction from mediasval and ancient thought. If the training of the mind in those methods of activity which tend to identify it with modern thought, and make it master of the characteristic results of modern thought, is a useful training and a desirable training, then the habits of inductive reasoning fostered by geology constitute an eminently valuable form of men- tal culture. But with these studies come various forms of incidental culture. Many of the facts are recorded in works of travel and description written in style of high literary excellence. Allow me to cite Hugh Miller’s “ Old Bed Sandstone;” Major Powell’s “Exploration of the Col- orado Biver of the West;” Captain Dutton’s “High Plateaus of Utah,” and Miss Bird’s “Fire-Fountains;” — or in a different field, the Duke of Argyll’s “Unity of Nature.” If the student is called upon to record his observations, as well he might be, he may acquire a copiousness of diction and a beauty of style not inferior to that promoted by essays on historical or romantic GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 47 themes. More indirectly, come the acquisition of lan- guages and the enrichment of the vocabulary. With these forms of geological study will be noticed an accessory training of the imagination. The picturing power is demanded even in bringing into juxtaposition in thought, absent data of observation which have to be compared together. Still more is it demanded in acquir- ing a vivid comprehension of data presented through descriptions. Especially is this demanded in the study of descriptions of fossil remains unaccompanied by delinea- tions ; and not less in the drawing up of such descrip- tions. I know palgeontologists who declare that a mere description of a fossil shell is unintelligible ; but, pro- vided the description is good, it would become intelligible with improved picturing power in the imagination. The facts show that in the study of descriptions of fossil remains, and other facts not fully illustrated by drawings, the imagination is kept in constant exercise. The cultural results on this faculty are therefore of great effectiveness and high value. In an accessory way also, comes discipline in the art of delineation. It is impossible for the geological observer to record his observations without the ability to accompany them with drawings. If the student has had no instruc- tion or practice in drawing, he will soon obtain the practice, and then the instruction will be unessential. On almost every excursion, the student or investigator must execute from nature geological sections or geological maps. Not unfrequently, he must delineate some fossil which cannot be removed from the rock, or embody some delineation in a description. I am aware that fin- ished drawings exhaust much time, and are commonly 48 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? confided to special artists. Still, drawing is one of the demands of geological study and investigation : and this artistic acquirement is one of the forms of culture for which the science of geology provides. The same demand for pictorial illustration leads the field geologist to subsidize for his ends, the superb pictur- ing power of the photographic camera. Topography, mountain forms, rock-structure, details of stratification, water-falls invite to the application of the camera while in the field ; and the exact delineation of fossil forms is greatly promoted by photography in the laboratory. Thus the geologist is led still further to diversify his accomplishments, and add to the sources of his efficiency as a geologist, and of his enjoyments as a lover of nature. These various forms of mental exercise and discipline are incident to the acquisition of the facts and doctrines of geologic science. I have illustrated a higher range of geological truth, and I wish to impress the fact that its acquisition calls into exercise another range of intellectual powers. The faculties of deductive or a priori reasoning come into play in the attempt to proceed from an admitted principle to the particulars which it involves or necessitates as consequences. Geological investigation very f requen tly takes the deductive form. It does not often proceed from necessary principles, as in mathematical reasoning : but generally from a principle or truth established by previous inductive research. When a distinguished Amer- ican geologist described a large number of three-toed tracks found in the brown sandstones of the Connecticut valley, and ascribed them to extinct species of birds, the elder Agassiz reasoned deductively when he declared that they could not be bird-tracks, since birds, according to all GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 49 inductions, had not begun to exist at so early an age of the world. Similarly, the geologist declares that coal will never be discovered in the valley of the Hudson river, however black and misleading some of the slates may be ; since all productive coal measures have been found to hold a higher stratigraphic position. More marked and pro- longed employment of deductive inference is observed in the treatment of those geological problems which admit of the application of the methods of mathematical analysis. Some of these problems are as follows : The temperature of the earth’s interior ; the thickness of the earth’s crust ; the condition of the central matter of the earth ; the existence of tidal effects in the earth's general mass ; the greatest possible altitude of mountains ; the sub- meridional direction of mountain chains; the sufficiency of cooling wrinkles for the total of mountain folds ; the existence and position of a zone of no stress in the crust of a cooling planet. Then in that higher range of geol- ogical investigation which may be styled comparative geology, or an application of the doctrines of geology to the conditions and histories of other planets, we find many uses for mathematical methods ; as in the study of the moon’s atmosphere, her craters, her surface clefts and other physical conditions ; the conditions of Jupiter, and of Saturn and Uranus, and the light they throw on past and future conditions of our own planet. Without the application of mathematical analysis, the general processes of deductive reasoning from the princi- ple of a cooling world, afford, as I have shown, large and valuable exercise for the higher intelligence. It is a regal power by which we explore in thought the distant ages of terrestrial history which elapsed before even 4 50 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? the race of man existed, or the sons of cosmic vicissi- tudes undergone before even the world had existence. It is a regal power by which we may stand here and glance down through the sons of terrestrial changes yet future. The past has been real, but the future is unenacted. The intellectual eye, through the tele- scope of geology, pierces through all potentiality. It is prophetic. It enables us to live alike in the sons of the j)ast and the sons of the future. It confers on us a limited omnipresence and omnipotence. Xo enlight- ened man can possibly deny that such exercises of mind are lofty, noble, cultural — cultural and improving to an extent scarcely paralleled in the circle of human thought. There are those — among them a few geologists — who affirm that these lofty deductive reasonings are little more than flights of the imagination, and that the results do not belong to the body of recognized science. These men conceive geology as properly restricted to its body of facts and generalizations. It is easy to show that such a dogma is impossible of observance, and is violated daily even by those- who acknowledge only positive geology. But a thoughtful consideration of the mode of evolution of our grand deductive conclu- sions will show that they are reasoned out, not imagined. The difference between a pure romance and a romantic inference is as wide as the beginning and conclusion of terrestrial history. It cannot be claimed that the particular denouements which we picture have been or are to be actual events. The pathway of reasoning often bifurcates, and we may pursue either road to conclusions. There are always concomitances lying GEOLOGY AYD CULTURE. 51 alongside, which are the outcomes of causes acting out- side of our trains of reasoning. These may determine whether the actual course of events will pursue the right or the left. We know however, that it will pursue one or the other; or at least some course within the scope of rational anticipation. With all these qualifications and uncertainties of actual detail, the sublime fact remains, that our science enables us to mount into the aeons past, and plunge into the depths of the aeons to come, and get visions, even if dim, of the stupendous events flowing out of the exercise of infinite power and infinite intelligence in the realms of infinite space and infinite time. Let me add that if these visions are absolutely unreal, the exercise of the intelligence is still the same. It is an exercise of the loftiest powers of the mind, and if it leaves in our possession no real knowledge, but only culture, it stands on a footing equal with some other studies deliberately pursued simply for their cultural influence — and that, even on a lower range of faculties than those employed in the higher inductions and deduc- tions of geological science. It must have occurred to the reader that much yet remains to be said of the cultural influence of the higher reasonings of geology. I allow myself a few words fur- ther. Imagination, I said, is not the creator of the histories, past and future, which I have depicted in the vicissitudes of the world; but it is the indispensable instrument for securing to the understanding a vivid apprehension of the reality, the nature and meaning of those vicissitudes. These exercises of the higher rea- son keep imagination in constant and pleasing activity. 52 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? and thus train a power which sheds over the logical products of the miud a vivid radiance, and often lights the way for the understanding into the dark regions of the unknown. The loftiness of these themes demands a lofty style. To portray them to the common intelligence — always eager to learn of them — demands such imagery and metaphor and lucidity and earnestness as belong to the higher ranges of polite literature. If a good use of language be one of the results of culture, here are examples for imitation, and here are opportunities for scholastic exercise. In commencing this discussion, I proposed to confine my treatment to intellectual culture, but the friends of geology might well charge me with remissness, if I should fail to remind the reader again, of the moral and spiritual improvement which comes from such contem- plations as I have pointed out respecting the unity of the realm of nature, and the revelation of Supreme Intelligence which we read everywhere in the plans and methods of nature. Tim ethical influence of geology will be specially considered. I could not say more within reasonable limits of sjtace. Enough I hope, has been said to establish the proposition that the study of geology is suited for universal culture. In its various grades and departments it calls into exer- cise every power of intelligence, and even comes into moving relations with the ethical susceptibilities. What more is universal culture ? What more is symmetrical culture ? Who can claim any discipline of intelligence as not reached bv the influence of geological learning ? I shall not institute comparisons in detail. I leave it GEOLOGY AXD CULTUBE. 53 to my readers to seek out other lines of study capable of a wider or more profitable culture. Their efforts will but enforce the truth of my conclusion. I am not so unreasonable as to maintain that geology is the only science to be studied ; or that other sciences or literatures do not afford particular kinds of culture to a greater extent than geology. I only desire the truth to be discerned and acknowledged, and acted upon, that geology is a study capable of culture more diversified than is found in the pursuit of those studies often pre- scribed exclusively for their cultural value. I have presented geology simply as a means of culture. I have not considered it as a means of useful knowledge. An elucidation of the utilitarian side of geologic study would show that in geology we possess the means of uniting general culture with the attainment of useful knowledge. Thus is doubled the claim of geological study upon our regards as educators and promoters of the best civilization. This aspect of geology will also be separately considered. These positions being established, it might still remain to examine the relations of geological science to the developing intelligence of the young. Though this also is a field which cannot now be entered, it would be easy to show, as I hope to show later, that many of the observational data of the science are precisely suited to the stage of intellectual development of young pupils ; other data, and the inferential principles of the science, to pupils of progressively maturer years. And finally, it would be easy to illustrate practically the observational method of introducing the familiar elements of geology to pupils of tender years, and proceeding by gradual 54 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? expansion and elevation of the method, to ranges of geological thought suited to pupils of full maturity. I commend the subject to the reader’s reflections. What I have said is true or untrue, or partly true and partly untrue. If true, educators cannot, as reasonable persons, permit the science of geology to remain under their reproach and neglect as a materialistic science — a “bread and butter science.” They must act ; they must acknowledge the truth, and allow geology to come into the enjoyment of its rights in the field of education. If what I have said is untrue, my positions demand an impartial refutation ; for a wide and powerful public sentiment is gathering at my side. If they are partly true, I shall continue to maintain that the true is the larger part, until my numerous and powerful literary friends honor my views with the electric light and heat of their destructive criticism. VI. CLASSICS AND CULTURE. /CONCEIVING intellectual culture to consist in a training of the intellectual faculties by means of appropriate activity, I passed in review, on a former page, the various powers of the intelligence, and glanced at the relation which each in its exercise sustains to human life. There is nothing in human life except the exercise of some power or group of powers. Whatever we accom- plish for ourselves or for others we accomplish through the action of powers which we possess. If we conceive ourselves in a state of pure passivity, so long as we retain consciousness, the pleasure or pain which we experience enters consciousness as a secjuent to bodily and cerebral activities. The very capacity for delightful passivity, if of any order above mere animal existence, has been acquired by previous activities, and exists only through the present activity of consciousness. Whatever we are intellectually, or accomplish through the exercise of intel- ligence, is possible only through the activity of the powers heretofore passed in .review. When we have ascertained the relations of geological research, study and knowledge to these various powers, we have ascertained the relations of the science to intellectual culture. This cannot be otherwise, unless intellectual culture consists in whole or part in something more than the perfect use of our intellectual faculties. I am quite aware that in the ordinary acceptation of 55 56 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? culture the term connotes the possession of a certain amount and kind of literary knowledge; and it is sup- posed -the acquisition of this knowledge has involved a training of the intelligence superior to the training afforded by the acquisition of scientific knowledge, though accomplished by the working of exactly the same facul- ties ; so that culture is both a training and an acquisition. Remarking that this assumption is the very issue under examination, I wish to suggest that in any proper use of terms, culture is the preparation of the soil, while knowl- edge gained is the crop produced as an incident of culture. Discipline is culture ; knowledge is an acquisition held. The possession of literary information is undoubtedly desirable. There can be no finished education without it. But in no rational sense does culture consist in such possession. Real culture is what I have conceived and described it ; and I am unable to view its relations to geological study in any other light than that in which I have already placed it.* Yet it is possible that many devotees of the literary education would claim that my analysis fails to reach the real spirit of true culture. There is a feeling that cul- ture is something too spiritual to analyze, too intangible to describe, too ethereal to be expressed even in the terms of psychology. There is a sort of transcendent state of soul attained by the listless contemplation of the felicities of elegant literature. It is delicious to repose with Tityrus who, Patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi, makes verses to the sylvan muse. There is exquisite and elevated enjoyment in passing a languid afternoon over the pages of the Nodes Ambrosian®, or the dreamy CLASSICS AND CULTURE. 57 vagaries of Sleepy Holloiv. It is truly something — it may be much — to become able to appreciate the masterpieces of rhetorical composition ; and I would never harm the culture which fosters the powers which create them or cherish them. But I believe the most transcendental phases of culture are amenable to psychological analysis, and that in the end, no capacities will be found existing except such as we may name and define. However this may be, I intend here to allow the devotees of soul-training to speak for themselves. I will first cpiote the celebrated passage from Plato. Of this Dr. Payne says : “I know of nothing that comes nearer a definition of culture than Plato’s conception of the philosophic character.” * The passage is as follows : “A lover, not of a part of wisdom, but of the whole ; who has a taste for every sort of knowledge, and is curious to learn, and is never satisfied ; who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence ; who is harmoniously constituted ; of a well-proportioned and gracious mind ; whose own nature will move sponta- neously towards the true being of everything ; who has a good memory, and is quick to learn, noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance.” f I join with the culture of the ages in greeting Plato with warm appreciation and endorsement. There is nothing mystical here. Catholicity of scholarly tastes — that is a thought which can be grasped, and a doctrine commended by the diversification of our mental powers and aptitudes. Always eager to know more of the truth — that is our premonition of a higher state where the desire of * William II. Payne: Contributions to the Science of Education , p. 288. + Plato, Republic , Jowett’s translation, pp. 475-7. 58 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? truth will supersede all sensualistic desires. The spectator of all time and all existence — how can the philosopher more nearly become this than by following the leading of geology up the flights of thought to the pinnacle where time unmeasured, and space unbounded, and causation unexhausted, and order undisturbed, and unity unbroken lie before his intellectual gaze. This pinnacle crowns the temple of geology. The spectacle may be truly charac- terized as conferring magificence of mind. Harmoniously constituted — having a many-sided education ; learned in literature and in sciences ; if not learned, then at least hospitable toward all, symmetrically ecptipped with the knowledges and disciplines supplied by all. Drawn by the sight of truth which is real, not by the fascinations of glitter, the seductions of indolent sentiment, or the fancied advantages of languid traditions. An aptitude for the acquisition and retention of truth — why else should truth and human intelligence exist ? Truth and reason are correlative. Clothed in all the ennobling virtues — then only does the intelligence become a part of the perfect being. One can hardly help inquiring whether a one-sided training in the so-called “ humanities” tends to form the many-sided philosopher of Plato. By the oldest and best accepted definition of culture, that education which neglects the natural sciences does not confer ••'magnifi- cence of mind.” The conception of culture entertained by Dr. Payne is closely akin to that of Plato — it is essentially the same. “The main elements in culture,” he says, “are catholic- ity or comprehensiveness of mind, and emotion tempered, CLASSICS AND CULTURE. 59 refined and subservient to the intellect and the will.”* Here, also, it is a state of mind and a regulation of emotion which constitutes culture. Catholicity of mind cannot grow out of exclusiveness of knowledge and narrowness of training. Whatever training may be ascribed to the study of dead languages and to literatures, there is another sort of training which comes from the study of the natural sciences ; if there were not, no controversy over the relative worth of studies would ever have arisen. If then, there be a kind of culture not afforded by languages and literatures, that education which ignores or even neglects it is not a catholic educa- tion. Their own mouths thus supply the criteria which condemn the narrowness of an education exclusively “humanistic.” For me, the truth is expressed by M. Compayre when he says, “ These two ideas ought to complete each other, and not to exclude each other. The ideal of education consists in finding a system which wel- comes both.” f Of the specific influence of literary studies let us permit M. Compayre to speak : “ Diderot is not able to discern what, in pedagogy, is their true title to nobility — that they are an admirable instrument of intellectual gym- nastics, and the surest and also the most convenient means of acquiring those qualities of justness, of precision and of clearness which are needed by all conditions of men, and are applicable to all the special employments of life.” % The first point is the excellence of literary studies as * Payne : Contributions to the Science of Education , p. 58. t Compayrg : History of Pedagogy , Payne’s tr., p. 408. t Com pay rO : History of Pedagogy , Payne’s tr., pp. 324-5. 60 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? means of intellectual exercise. Far be it from me to dispute the position. But that all desirable forms of intellectual exercise are afforded, I think few would be so extravagant as to claim. Least of all are they capable of this in the grades of grammatical and memorizing study to which Latin and Greek students devote the first six years of their course. Do we find in declensions any training of the faculties of observation ? In conjuga- tions, any development of the powers of induction ? In syntax, any excitement and warming of the imagination ? In prosody, any gymnastic of the powers of deductive reasoning ? The dead languages are not such a gym- nastic as to justify their appropriation of the greater part of the learner’s time and efforts during eight formative years. But they are the surest and most convenient means, continues M. Compayre, of acquiring certain qualities of mind in demand among men of all conditions and employ- ments. This, so far as I can perceive, is a simple begging of the question. Whether they are or not, is the question at issue. What is the evidence that they are the surest means ? To render the truth of the proposition evident, it must be made to appear, 1st. That they secure all the qualities of mind and forms of knowledge demanded by different classes and conditions of men ; 2d. That other studies may not also afford the same or similar results ; 3d. That other studies cannot afford desirable results not attainable by exclusive humanistic study. Examined in these three respects I think it may be made to appear that such studies are not authorized to set up so large and so exclusive a claim. Neither will it appear that they are “the most con- CLASSICS AND CULTURE. 61 venient means ” for securing desirable qualities of intellect. The most convenient subjects of study are those most accessible. The most accessible are those lying all around us ; which we begin to learn something of in infancy ; which ever obtrude themselves on our attention and we cannot escape from ; which we walk over, handle and use every day of our lives ; which require no books, no tasks, no weariness, no confinement, no physical stagna- tion, no memory-cramming, no tears and no birch. Are not such subjects also the most appropriate to know something about? The most discerning and philosophic eulogy of linguis- tic studies which has fallen under my observation is that of Marmontel. “ The choice and use of words,” says he, “in translating from one language to another, and even then some degree of elegance in the construction of sentences, began to interest me; and this work, which did not proceed without the analysis of ideas, fortified my memory. I perceived that it was the idea attached to the word which made it take root, and reflection soon made me feel that the study of the languages was also the study of the art of distinguishing shades of thought, of decomjiosing it, of forming its texture, and of catching with precision its spirit and its relations ; and that along with words, an equal number of new ideas were intro- duced and developed in the heads of the young, and in this way, the early classes were a course in elementary philosophy, much more rich, more extended and of greater utility than we think, when we complain that in our colleges nothing is learned but Latin.” * * Marmontel: M&moires d'un pere pour servir a l' instruction de ses enfants , tome I., p. 19. 62 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? In this work we discover, undoubtedly, a severe gym- nastic in the analysis of concepts and the comparison and discrimination of closely related shades of thought. We have not only to seek the rendering of words in isolation; we have to discern the nature of their co-ordination and give a rendering of the collocation. We must appreciate the coloring imparted by mood and tense, by choice of particles, by connectives and disjunctives, and by the particular selection of disjunctives and con- nectives embodied in the sentence. Then, having eliminated the thought of the author, and fairly dis- cerned the shades and colorings which he has given it, we are required to repeat the process of discrimi- nations and weighings in selecting the terms of another language which will most exactly reproduce them. Here undoubtedly, with discipline of the powers of abstrac- tion, comparison and analysis, is found a discipline which creates mastery of vocabularies and the art of expression. It is quite possible that a severe discipline of just this kind is not afforded by any other intellec- tual work, unless it be in the field of metaphysics. At the same time, a few observations ought to be made. In the first place, this exercise is furnished by the work of translation, not translation from a dead language. It cannot be said that living languages possess an inferior disciplinary value, as far as such value consists in the transference of thought from language to language — and this is the only value deemed worthy of mention by Marmontel. Secondly, the exercise is not a purely linguistic one ; it deals with thoughts as well as language, and the acuteness of discrimination required may be to some extent, an incident of the author’s style or theme, CLASSICS A2STD CULTURE. 63 such as would be present if addressed to us in the vernac- ular. Third, the essential disciplinary exercise of trans- lation has no dependence on the subject-matter. We may select then, such subject-matter as affords us valuable information. We need not perplex our minds with vapid treatises or pointless comedies. We may even translate works on geology or biology. Fourth, I have heretofore claimed for geology, the power of discipline in abstraction, analysis and comparison. In the discrimination of unlike objects which possess a superficial resemblance ; in the identification of things superficially unlike ; in the deter- mination of homogeneous groups of facts to serve as bases of inductions ; in weighing the influences of a known environment on organism and habit ; in divining an unknown environment from the observed features of the organism ; in considering the mutual play and balance of vital and physical forces ; in properly discriminating the evidences presented by the material and the immaterial ; in thousands of ways, the exigencies of geological thought elicit into activity the most effective powers of penetration and discrimination, and train them to readiness and alertness. M. Renan presents a view of culture which contrasts it very justly with the utilitarian aim of Spencer. “ The reasoning that I oppose,” he says, “starts from the low and false assumption that instruction serves only for the practical use that is made of it; for example, that he who by his social position does not make use of his intellectual culture, lias no need of that culture. Literature, from this point of view, is useful only to the man of letters, science only to the scientist, good manners and fine bearing only to men of the world. 64 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? The poor man should be ignorant, for education and knowledge are useless to him. Blasphemy, gentlemen! The culture of the mind and the culture of the soul are duties for every man. They are not simple orna- ments; they are things as sacred as religion.’’* As a rebuff to the exclusive utilitarian aim of some modern theorists, this is well; but is far from any over- throw of the doctrines that in the search for cultural studies we should select such as will yield valuable infor- mation as well as culture; that it is not wise to spend all the best years of tutelage in the pursuit of studies ivhich are merely cultural, since the average citizen has as much need of knowledge as of culture, and the majority of parents, whatever may be best for the citizen, and for humanity, put their children in school for the sake of knowledge, and do not care to buy culture except as an incident in the attainment of it. One of the most just and intelligent of the reorganizers of public instruction during the stormy times of the “Convention” was Lakanal. He wished, like Bacon, a new installation of scientific thought and method, but was liberal enough to record the following estimate of literary culture: “For a long time we have neglected the belles lettres, and some men who wish to be consid- ered profound regard this study as useless. It is letters, however, which open the intelligence to the light of rea- son, and the heart to the impressions of sentiment. They substitute morality for interest, give pupils polish, exer- cise their judgment, make them more sensitive and at the * lltMian : Famille et etat, p. 3. These glowing words are not irreconcil- able with M. Renan's statement, that it is the regret of his life that he did not himself originally pursue the natural sciences, in which he might have forestalled Darwin in his discoveries. CLASSICS AISTD CULTURE. 65 same time, more obedient to the laws, more callable of grand virtues.”* It may be ungenerous to betray dissatisfaction with such concessions, because the spirit and view which prompted them seem to be equitable and wise. It is only because the thought is not couched in phrase which ren- ders the concession intelligible, and therefore of value, that I desire to offer a critical remark. The language, like much that has been used in praise of literature, is vague and declamatory. When one wishes to find pre- cisely what it is that literary studies are good for, he finds either an empty phrase or a quality which belongs as well to scientific study as to literary. To claim that “it is letters that open the intelligence to the light of reason ” strikes us as a sort of cant. If letters dealt with themes chiefly on rational grounds ; if letters discussed questions lying within the philosophic field ; if letters concerned themselves chiefly with principles or doctrines, in distinc- tion from personal happenings, trivial sentiments, empty talk, smart phrases, verbal paddings, homoeopathic dilu- tions of thought, it might be boasted that “it is letters that open the intelligence to the light of reason.” If the guild of letters would employ their pens on the great themes of the world and the heavens — the harmonies and interactions of the three kingdoms of nature, the unity of the cosmos, the epic of creation and the drama of life, we should undoubtedly receive contributions to literature which would “open the intelligence to the light of rea- son.” But still the salutary influence of letters on the intelligence is sufficiently obvious. They “open the heart to the impressions of sentiment,” and disclose motives for * Quoted from Compayr6 : History of Pedagogy , p. 404. 66 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? action along avenues of life before undiscovered. They make pupils more sensitive, more sympathetic, more humanistic. They disclose man’s relations to man, and suggest duty, mutual dependence, and all the altruistic beauties and amenities of society. As to making men “ more obedient to the laws ” or “ more capable of grand virtues” — that depends on the complexion of the moral teaching afforded. As far as I can discern, any form of enlightenment which shall preoccupy the mind with agreeable thoughts and employ them in innocent reading will serve most effectually to preserve from law-breaking and immorality. But this is a principle which serves more than literature. It would scarcely be decorous to conclude these citations from the authorities on the nature and uses of culture, without turning a moment’s attention to the “ apostle of culture.” The encroachments of modern science on the traditional preserves of “the humanities” embittered the soul of Matthew Arnold, and bore him on journeyings to foreign lands with aims which partook somewhat of a missionary character. His repinings bore the mingled tinge of melancholy and despair. In an address delivered at Cambridge, England,* referring to plaints uttered ten years previously, he said : “To deprive letters of the too great place they have hitherto filled iu men’s estimation, and to substitute other studies for them, was now the object, I observed, of a sort of crusade with the friends of physical science. * * * I could not help being moved with a desire to plead with the friends of physical science on behalf of letters, and in deprecation of the slight which they put upon them. * * * Ten * Published in the Nineteenth Century for August, 1883, pp. 216-330. CLASSICS AND CULTURE. 67 years have past, and the prospects of any pleader for letters have certainly not mended. If the friends of physical science were in the morning sunshine of popular favor even then, they stand now in its meridian radiance. Sir Josiah Mason founds a college at Birmingham to exclude ‘ mere literary instruction and education’ ; and at its opening, a brilliant and charming debater. Professor Huxley, is brought down to pironounce their funeral oration.” Mr. Arnold cannot in form complain of the acquisition of knowledge to be made at Mason College. He says : “ We must all admit that in natural science the habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, and every one should have some experience of it.” I have emphasized this last apostolic utterance on my own responsibility. Of that discipline I shall spieak hereafter. He says further : “ The great results of the scientific investigation of nature toe are agreed upon Tcnoioing.” If scientific study were solely for acquisitions of knowledge, the general results would suffice ; but since it ought to be largely also, for pmrpioses of discipline, we are also bound to give some attention to the “processes by which those results are reached.” Why then is Mr. Arnold repining ? Because, “ it is knowledge only which they give us ; knowledge not put up for us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, and touched with emotion by being so pmt ; not thus put for us, and therefore to the majority of mankind, after a certain while unsatisfying, wearying.” It is my opinion that any writer of pffiilosopihic mind and adequate culture, with a great losing cause on his heart, and a depth of earnestness to animate him, should find some better way of arresting attention than oddity of phrase, and should 68 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? have some weightier considerations than the allegation that the truths of science “are not put up into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, and touched with emotion.” If I were convinced that Mr. Arnold’s popularity as the apostle of culture rested on a substantial basis of philosophic good sense, rather than assumptions and phrases, I might be allured into the peril of pausing to subject the above phrases to critical — admiration. After Mr. Arnold’s admissions of the value of science, and the necessity of our all learning at least its great results, I see no yawning chasm between him and the founder of Mason College. For it is not true that Sir Josiah Mason proposes to exclude literary education and instruction, but only “ mere literary instruction,” “ which has literature as its sole objective end.” Nor did Professor Huxley attend the founding in the capacity of a funeral orator at the burial of the humanities. “ I am the last person,” he said, “to cprestion the importance of genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual culture can be complete without it. An exclusively scientific training will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclusively literary training.” And Professor Huxley in referring to the provision made in the college for instruction in English, French and German, reminded his auditors that this rendered accessible “the three greatest literatures of the modern world,” and expressed his conviction that “if an Englishman cannot get his literary culture out of his bible, his Shakespeare and his Milton, neither will the profoundest study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace, give it to him.” The most recent plea for Greek and Latin studies CLASSICS AND CULTURE. 69 comes to my hands while this discussion is in progress. In an elegant address delivered in July, 1888, before the University Convocation at Albany, Honorable D. H. Chamberlain defended “ Greek and Latin as the best means of the best education to-day.” Mr. Chamberlain is an irreclaimable devotee of Greek. “The study of Greek and Latin,” he says, “ ought to considered fundamental to a liberal education — fundamental in the disciplinary training which precedes entrance on the active, responsible work of life.” * * * “An acquaintance with Greek literature, through a knowledge of the Greek language, is, and must be, whether required by schools and colleges or not, an indispensable means for laying the founda- tion of the broadest culture, the most useful and effective mental training.” * * * “ There is in my judgment, no study so valuable, so exactly adapted as a preparation for the work to be done in public or private life, here in America to-day, as the study of the Greek language and literature ; and I have the conviction that this study is, and will be, whether it remain a part of our prescribed courses or not, the real basis and test of culture, of that mental training and equipment which distinguishes the educated from the uneducated or partly educated.” I quote these passages both to make known clearly the speaker’s position, and illustrate the engrossing and preposterous claims set up for dead languages as the essentials of all education worthy to be called liberal.* *In an identical strain proceeds Mr. Lowell — worthy of all the fame he enjoys — in his address at the commemoration of Harvard's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. lie is speaking of the “weightier matters of a lan- guage" which “ have overcome death by reason of their wisdom ’’ — meaning, to come to the point, Greek aud Latin. “ I hope the day may never come,” he says, “ when these are not predominant in the teaching given here. Let the 70 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? In support of his claims, Mr. Chamberlain has made an ingenious and interesting plea. One joins in sympathy with a mind at once so earnest in its extravagance and so candid in its sophistry. The spirit converts us, but the logic makes us apostates. He begins with quotations from Lowell, who reminds us of Marmontel in saying : “ Even for the mastery of our own tongue, there is no expedient so fruitful as translation out of another.” This thought embodies a valuable truth, on which I have already commented. But when Mr. Lowell adds : “ How much more when that other is a language at once so precise and so flexible as the Greek ! ” one has to pause to discover the logical consecutiveness binding the two thoughts together. So far as I can see, the exercise in the vernac- ular is the same whether it re-embodies thoughts taken out of a comely linguistic corpse or an uncouth one, or even out of a linguistic organism still living. Mr. Lowell, as here quoted, understands the traditional expedient of concealing the real point at issue by telling us that many of the greatest minds of the past “since the revival of learning have been steeped in, and saturated with Greek literature.” This is well understood ; and they gave themselves to Greek because that was the scholastic fashion, and because there was far less reason than in these days to lay the dusty vellums on the upper shelves, and dip into the fresh clean pages of modern thought. But the question with us is not howColeridge and Cudwortli and the English Platonists spent their days, but whether reason can be given intelligibly and philosophically for humanities be maintained undiminished in their ancient right. Leave in their traditional ■pre-eminence those arts that were rightly called liberal." If the devotees of dead languages would be content to leave half the earth to living truth, undoubtedly a compact of peace might be signed. GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 71 shoving natural sciences aside and putting Greek at the foundation of all possible liberal culture. Mr. Chamberlain in reaching the affirmative portion of his argument, makes the assumption that “college studies should have for their chief end and controlling object, the training, discipline, education of the mental faculties.” There is a beautiful theory that colleges are founded for such a purpose, and the pendent of the theory is that the discipline which Greek and Latin carry on in college must be begun with Greek and Latin four years before entrance in college. This beautiful and “scholarly” theory has done very much to depopulate our colleges, and bring collegiate culture into disrepute. However it may be suited to leisure and wealth, it is not suited to American life. We found colleges to serve as fountains of knowledge as well as agencies of culture; and since it is possible to have both, it is mere affecta- tion to pretend that knowledge would disgrace culture by its company. Unless we are seeking, like Mr. Chamber- lain, * to avoid knowledge, we shall not be content to spend time and fortune on Greek, — even if Greek is as cultural as painted. With this untenable principle as a corner stone, Mr. Chamberlain proceeds to prove that no means of culture is as effective as languages, and that of all languages Greek is the most perfect ; ergo, Greek ought to hold the supreme place in collegiate education. Let us learn vvhy languages are the most efficient instruments of culture. “ Language is the universal medium of thought ; the chief, almost the only vehicle by * And like the Mathematical Society of London, tvhose toast is said to have been “Pure mathematics, may it never be of use to any man.” 72 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? which thought in all its forms is, or can be communi- cated. In a strict and very high sense, language is thought. Reason, reflection, emotion — all the highest powers of human nature — must seek language for expres- sion and for influence on men.” This being so, “the study of language — its nature, its structure, its uses, its capacities, its highest manifestations, its noblest and most powerful forms — is necessarily the first and highest instrumentality for developing, training, education of the mental- powers ; absolute in its necessity, first in order of time, highest in the scale of importance.” Whatever the validity of this reasoning, the argument appears to be incomplete. Language is not the sole vehicle for the conveyance of thought. It is one of the vehicles. Sound is another vehicle. Without the intervention of sound, the existence of spoken language would be nugatory— it would be an impossibility. Light is another vehicle. Without the intervention of light, written language would be nugatory — it would be an impossibility. The auditory organ is a vehicle for the transmission of thought borne by spoken language. Without the hearing ear, spoken language would be nugatory — it would be an impossibility. The visual organ is another vehicle. Without the seeing eye, the existence of written language would be nugatory — it would be an impossibility. In the conveyance of thought, language is no more essential than sound and light, the ear and eye. The nature of sound and light is some- thing as worthy of admiration as the nature of language. The pulsations of the media are marvelous beyond com- parison. The physical principles of acoustics and optics yield themselves to profound mathematical investigation. GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 73 And so tlie structures of the ear and eye are admirable and perfect beyond all comparison with human devices. These are indispensable media and means for the trans- mission of thought by language. We may therefore supplement Mr. Chamberlain’s argu- ment in a manner somewhat as follows : Sound and light and senses for audition and vision are also universal media of thought ; the chief, almost the only vehicles by which thought in all its forms is, or can be communi- cated. In a strict and very high sense, sound and light, ear and eye are thought. Reason, reflection, emotion — all the highest powers of human nature must seek sound and light, ear and eye, for expression and for influence on men. This being so, the study of sound and light, ear and eye, their structure, their uses, their capacities, their laws and modes of action, their capabilities, their highest and most marvelous manifestations, their noblest adapta- tions, their most exquisite and beautiful revelations — is necessarily the first and highest instrumentality for developing, training, educating the mental powers ; abso- lute in its necessity, first in order of time, highest in the scale of importance. I see no reason why the whole of the argument is not as good as a part of it. But on what ground does the validity of the argument rest ? Because language is the vehicle of thought, we must hold in highest esteem the study of language — its nature, its structure, its uses, its capacities, its highest manifestations, its noblest and most powerful forms — that is, concisely, grammar [including, it may be sup- posed, philology and rhetoric] and literature [if it does not convey scientific truth] . That language and litera- ture deserve very considerate study I do not deny. That 74 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? grammar — which embodies the elementary facts and laws of language — is the most appropriate study for a child, must be denied, since as elsewhere more fully stated, it demands faculties not developed in the child, and neglects the faculties which are developed. Grammar and all abstract study of language belong to dawning and completed maturity. Childhood is adapted chiefly to language inductively presented. If we take the “completion” of the argument and examine its validity, we perceive at once, that there is much in sound and light, ear and eye, which adapts them to the grade of childhood and youthful studies. Mr. Chamberlain may feel pleased at the unexpected application of his reasoning. But even with language-study established as first in order and highest in importance, is Greek the most useful representative of linguistic study ? Mr. Chamberlain says, yes ; and these are his reasons : 1. The fact that it is no longer spoken is immaterial, since the knowledge exists, and its masterpieces of litera- ture still survive. 2. In all times past, “the Greek language has been regarded as the most perfect form of human speech, and its study has been regarded as the best means of intellec- tual training.” 3. The superiority of the Greek language consists in (1) The fact that it is ancient — “the mold and form which reason and the spirit of freedom first took : ” (2) the fact that it was a growth “which in the main, and to a degree greater than in any other, was natural and regular, according to the genius and spirit of one peo- ple;” (3) “Its structure and vocabulary became to the GEOLOGY AND CULTUKE. 75 highest degree artistic, flexible and rich ; ” (4) The development of the language into the Greek literature. I think these reasons are well considered and weighty ; and I need not state here any point of dissent. If then, culture were the exclusive or chief end of education [which it is not] ; and if the study of language were the best means of culture [which it is not], then Greek, being a highly perfect language, would constitute the most appropriate study for the young. But since American education does not aim solely or chiefly at culture, and since if it did, language is not best suited to symmetrical training of all the mental powers, it follows that Greek is not best adapted to the ends of American education in general. Mr. Chamberlain’s further reasons for pronouncing Greek the most useful representative of linguistic study relate to the literature. He acknowledges that “the materials of modern literature are incomparably richer, the results of modern thought are immeasurably more valuable and beneficent ; ” but we should study Greek literature because of its consummate and artistic embodi- ment of all which was then known or had been thought out. This literature should be read in the original, he thinks, since no translation can carry with it that finish which is imparted by the language itself. While education and instinct incline me toward Mr. Chamberlain’s views, and led me formerly to give such views endorsement, I have to acknowledge that experi- ence and reflection have lighted me to other conclusions. 1. The study of Greek literature as literature is work . belonging to the maturity of life, and a life of leisure at its maturity. But the discussion here is in reference to 76 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? the most suitable study for youths from ten to twenty years of age. We cannot afford to compromise all the earlier years for the sake of being prepared to critically appreciate Greek literature at twenty-fire or forty. 2 . If the content of Greek literature possesses value, it may be found embodied in good translations. If these are not quite up to the original, the difference is not large enough to justify the expenditure of half the period of youth in purchasing it, 3. The content of Greek literature is important chiefly as noting the drift of human thought among people remote in time and place. The study of it is fruitful in philosophic and philologic investigations. 4. For these special advantages it is asking too much to turn all our schools into nurseries of Greek scholars. Modern civilization cannot afford the cost. American citizenship demands an education less dreamy, less languid, more vigorous, more versatile, bet- ter suited to grapple with the questions* of the modern age. We feel inclined to aver with Montaigne: “Ko doubt that Greek and Latin are very great ornaments and of very great use, hut we buy them too dear.”* After due consideration of the views cited in the preceding pages from the best authorized representatives of “ culture ; ” after listening to the echoes and re-echoes of the phrases of the apostles of culture from the lips of its minor representatives, I fail to be persuaded that literary studies are possessed of any such specialties of disciplinary * Montaigne: Essays, Bk. i, ch. xxv. Among the uses of Latin and Greek are their contributions to scientific terminology. Thus in the acquisition of natural science, the classical student possesses an advantage over the non-classical one. But I am per- suaded that all the Latin and Greek which is specially available in scientific study can be acquired at vastly less cost than six or eight years of the plastic period of youth. GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 7 efficiency as to justify us in permitting them to engross the attention of any student in any grade of general education, to the exclusion of studies belonging to the order best represented by geology. I hold this conclusion with such candor and freedom from bias, that I believe every one similarly prepared to judge will acquiesce in opinion. Without the disposition to depreciate the real value of literary study ; without any desire to establish a system of education from which literary studies shall be excluded; with an honest desire that the “ humanities ” may continue to humanize, and even Greek, and Latin continue to be honored by such devotees as can discover the time, means and motive for their study, I am still compelled to think that the greater part of the clamor raised in behalf of literary studies is mere cant and sound, exerting only an influence repellent rather than conciliatory to thoughtful, critical minds. This reaction against good judgment is well exemplified in a passage which I will quote without adoption, but which has in it a sarcasm to which truth has lent a keen edge. “According to the special culture-worshippers, it seems that certain things must be done, and certain other things left undone to entitle to entry into the fold of culture. For example, above all things, the Latin and Greek lan- guages and literatures must be mastered, for the main object in life must be to make and understand classical allusions, and there can be no more grievous sin against culture, or more glaring evidence of want thereof than not to understand every innuendo or allusion made in polite converse which spring from a classical source ; not only ancient, but modern poetry must be read, and not only read but enjoyed [this too is essential] and the 78 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? principles of metric composition understood ; otherwise will the failing individual incur the charge of lack of culture.”* The outcome of this examination tends to make it appear that the controversy between the advocates of literary and of scientific studies is not for the adoption of either to the exclusion of the other. There are theorists who would do this. But the best representatives of literary study admit that all science, in its general results, ought to enter into general education. The differences between the two parties may be condensed into a few statements. 1. The literary party insists that linguistic and literary studies shall hold an exclusive place in early instruction ; and they deem it desirable as a rule, that every student devote four to six preparatory years to the study of dead languages ; they deny that any liberal education is possible without such sacrifice to dead languages ; in later stages of education they put foremost, and most generously encourage, studies of a literary character, and content themselves to remain in ignorance of scientific truth, scientific culture, and scientific habits of mind. 2. The scientific party insists that observational activity is both most natural and most useful in the stages of primary education, accompanied by such activity of the inductive powers as the progress of mental growth renders spontaneous and jileasing ; that linguistic studies may be appropriately begun in early years, but ought not to be pushed to extreme weariness, nor to the prejudice of largo devotion to the data of natural science ; that Latin and Greek may be begun in early years by a limited number of persons, but ought not to be pushed to the * Professor Theodore Gill, American Naturalist , June, 188S. GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 70 impairment of due devotion to observational studies, nor represented as indispensable to genuine liberal culture ; that preferably, German and French may be taken up and studied in an inductive way, but not to the prejudice of observational studies ; that in the middle and later stages of education the natural sciences, now more systematically pursued, should receive encouragements, facilities and endowments in equitable proportion to the favors extended to literary studies. This is perhaps an appropriate place to offer a remark on the allegation often made that students in scientific courses in college are conspicuously inferior in culture and polish to those pursuing the classical course. It is also alleged that students entering non-classical courses at first, manifest a strong tendency to work into the classical course. Such statements are unjust to scientific students, and illogical as grounds of inference disparaging to scientific education. “ The Scientific Course ” was established in the uni- versity of Michigan by act of the legislature passed in 1851. This appears to have been instigated by the reports of the Board of Visitors to the university, presented to the superintendent of public instruction during some years previously. It was shown that the number of students in the university was diminishing rather than increasing, and the Board of Visitors were of the opinion that the exclusive classical education offered did not meet the wants of the people. The legislature enacted that a course should be established by the Board of Eegents, to which candidates should be admitted without previous knowledge of Latin and Greek. This was before the arrival of Dr. Tappan in 1853. At first this course 80 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? and the preparation for it consisted of the studies left after the removal of Latin and Greek from the classical course, and an increase in the amount of mathematics and modern languages. This made admission compar- atively easy. Not more than a year of preparatory study was required. For the classical course two or three years were required. Finding the university open on terms so easy, a large number of young men applied for admission ; and the scientific course for a few years promised to throw the classical course in the shade. Subsequently the linguistic requirements for admission were increased, and Latin was placed on the same footing as German and French — any two of these being required. The introduction of somewhat extensive requirements in linguistics developed again an articulate demand for a course of science and English letters, and the so-called English course was added. To this entrance was made as easy as to the original scientific course. The state of the facts will be sufficiently clear without an attempt to present in any further detail, the history of non-classical courses in the university. It is obvious that when admission to such courses was made so easy, many of the students entering them would be lacking in polish, in general information, in habits of study and in general cultural preparation. Young men reared to manual labor — farmers and mechanics, would discover an avenue open for gratifying that thirst for knowledge which till then had found no practicable means of satisfaction. Of course they came often with little polish from contact with “good society,” but with vigorous intellects, and they made earnest and successful students. Of course, with minds but recently turned to study and reading, GEOLOGY AND CULTURE. 81 their general information was not diversified, and their adaptabilities were not numerous. Of course, with but a year devoted to preparation — and that perhaps, at broken intervals and under adverse circumstances, they came without the habits of intellectual life, without dexterity of mind, without even bodily conditions which could well endure a life of sedentary application. These are the young men who have been pointed at as representatives of the culture which science confers. These are the students who have been set over against the classical student, who, reared often in ease, with opportunities of social culture, with adequate general reading, with four years of thorough special preparation in Latin and Greek, have arrived at the university with scholarly habits formed, with suppleness of intelligence, self-confi- dence, familiarity with the world, and with a greeting of sympathy from instructors who hail him as on the only road to a true liberal education. Let the tables be turned. Give the devotee of science ease, leisure, means, society, reading ; give him four or six years of preparation in the elements of the leading sciences ; give him German and French, exercises in English composition and extemporaneous sqieech ; but rear the candidate for classics on the farm, shut him out of society, clothe him in homespun, give him a year of preparatory study, then put him by the side of the well-disciplined scientific student and we shall see, by parity of reasoning, where classics place a young man on the ladder of cultural scholarship. The claim that science does not make students equal to those reared under classical influences is disingenuous, because there has never been a proper footing for a com- 6 82 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? parison. The claim that scientific students become them- selves dissatisfied, and often seek, under many difficulties, to effect a change to the classical course is no proof of the superiority of classical studies, but rather of the superior mental drill which longer preparation has secured ; of an easier relation with the world, conferred by competence, leisure, society, reading; and of the controlling inflrfence exerted by the dominant literary interest in the institution where science is still struggling with the traditions of Jesuitism and the rivalry of income- paying professional schools. VII. THE ETHICAL INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL STUDY. I. THE ETHICAL INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. TN the preceding pages I had occasion to follow out a course of deductive reasoning from the generalization of geologic facts which presents the earth as a cooling body. Such process of reasoning, I attempted to show, bears our thoughts backwards by sure steps, over the past history of our earth to conditions so remote that to finite apprehension, the interval is practically infinite. By. means of accessory generalizations from the phenomena of other worlds, the entire solar system was revealed before us as a process of world-evolution on a grander scale. Of this the evolution of our earth is one part. So it appears that one method has dominated in the formation of an entire system of planets. We no longer conceive each world the theatre of a special system of world- making energies. In a still higher generalization we find the countless stars of the firmament other suns ; and from this discovery proceed securely to the inference that they have had severally histories analogous to our sun. Such history implies a prolonged career of annulation and planetation, and a primordial existence in the condi- tion of crude — perhaps non-luminous — matter gathering from distant realms of space about local centres of gravi- tation. Such a stage of inference brings us to a revelation 83 84 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? of the unity of the mechanism of the visible universe, and a unity of its past history. If, turning in the opposite direction, we attempt to trace from the principle of a cooling planet, the successive future conditions of the earth, the chain of causation carries us down through coming ages, which, as they stretch before us, produce on the mind the same impres- sion as the intuition of infinite time. The future which scientific deduction compasses is practically infinite. We stand then, on this isthmus between the two eternities, and attend to the reflections which the situation arouses. With the gift of mental vision through an eternity past and an eternity future, we feel ourselves in possession of a qualified omniscience. We gaze down the avenues of coming events, and survey the unfolding panorama. But while the magnitude of the events oppresses us ; while the transforming character of the impending changes strains the power of wonder to the utmost tension, two reflections deeply absorb us : one is that these coming events are a true prolongation of the course of change which has brought the present out of the ancient past, and has made man the very fruitage of unfolding ages ; the other is, that he is himself a being of capacities unfathomed. This conscious, thinking, mysterious self which seems so puny and incidental in the scheme of physical events crashing onward with the power of mov- ing worlds, is, after all, the only feature of the cosmos which has being for more than the passing moment — the only phase of being which can penetrate the realm of his- tories expired, and the realm of histories yet unenacted. I am sure that such revelations of the depth and capacity of the human soul not only widen our field of knowledge. INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 85 but bring us into a new attitude in reference to ourselves. We continue the search for truth from a new point of view. We glimpse the realm of insensible things, and find in ourselves the most astonishing adaptation to such a realm. From the moment when we discover ourselves in such relations to the cosmos, we feel ourselves under a new and comforting and beneficent ethical influence. To conceive the spaces of immensity pervaded by a physical system coherent in all its parts, bound together by one body of laws, pervaded everywhere by cognate phenomena, tending in every province of space in the same direction, every part coming out of antecedent conditions everywhere identical, and moving onward toward ulterior conditions also identical, each part and member approaching by visible signs, the same ultimate destination, to grasp once this eternity-spanning and immensity-comprehending harmony of being, is to listen to the real “ music of the spheres,” and understand it in the heart, as the real voice of one God. The pathway of geologic inference which we have pursued is the avenue opened by infinite Beneficence, through which matter- bound intelligence may find its way out of its prison- house to a revelation of its spiritual self, and a highest human apprehension of a spiritual power whose sceptre reaches all conceivable existence. * I cannot divest myself of the conviction that such an outcome of geological study is legitimate and real. My thought has ranged unnumbered times from premises to conclusion, with ever freshened assurance and ever exalted satisfaction. I cannot discern that the study of the forms *“ In the whole range of science we cannot find such fuel to kindle the flame of devotion, as a live coal from the altar of geology.”— President Edward Hitchcock. 86 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? of matter and the reverent interpretation of them, can exert any but a spiritualizing and elevating influence upon habits of thought and mode of life. When I return to the vulgar level of the ordinary apprehension of nature’s facts, I seem to mingle in a crowd which has never seen the stars — a stolid multitude which have never made the acquaintance of a human soul — not even of their own souls — and only know divine existence through the hear- ing of the ear, and the faint gleam of light in reason’s darkened window, the meaning and purpose of which they have never sought to understand. I hear around me the voices of the self-styled philosophers of education and apostles of culture. They stigmatize my pursuit as the study of a philosophy of dirt. In my better moments I do not indulge the feeling of resentment which the accusation arouses. I rise above them, as above the profanity of driveling intoxication ; and while I bestow upon them my sincerest pity, I gain a new understanding of the awful compass of human intelligence. There are other provinces of geologic information from which we receive influences no less ethical than intellec- tual. While the process of acquisition of geologic know- ledge brings under exercise and training a wide range of mental faculties, and while the acquired results are so often of a utilitarian and civilizing character, while there are results which, as just stated, exert directly an amelior- ating influence on our powers of apprehension and our mental predispositions, there are still other results which indirectly exert an ethical influence on our beliefs and modes of thought and life. This fact may be briefly elucidated. By a verdict of civilized man almost uni- versal, there are in existence sacred books which have INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 87 come to man through a medium usually denominated inspiration. For my present purpose it is not necessary to make reference to any particular body of sacred books — whether Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhistic or Brahministic. The principle which I wish to present applies to all. Nor is it necessary for writer or reader to avow acceptance of either. All have their adherents, and in civilized countries the Jewish and Christian books are almost universally received. Every sacred book is occupied chiefly with statements of assumed truth which is supposed to lie beyond the reach of attainment through finite powers. But every sacred book also touches on secular themes. It is necessary to use these as leverage for moving the credence of men, and bringing rational sanction to its utterances. Nat- urally, these books when touching secular themes, would dwell most on those phenomena whose explanations were hidden from men of the age and country in which the revelations were penned. Of necessity also, the progress of human knowledge has invaded progressively those realms of nature once relegated to the direct dominion of the supernatural and miraculous. The mode of origin of the world, and the antiquity of the world are subjects on which all the sacred books have something to say. But they are subjects on which scientific inquiry has shed much light since the epoch of revelations. We are there- fore led to inquire concerning the conformity existing between the statements of the sacred books and the determinations of research. If the sacred books have taught error, the mind will free itself from their thrall. If the sacred books have received from remote and ignorant ages an erroneous interpretation, the intelligence SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? will discover the true interpretation, and emancipate itself from tyranny of narrow and inadequate views, though sanctioned by the assent of an antiquity which is venerable. By such means applied to the secular problems, of the age of the human species, the existence of Preadamites, the universality of a primal deluge, the mundane egg of the Brahmins, the arrest of the sun in its course, the seat of paradise, primeval chaos — problems not exclusively geological, the mind arrives at truer inter- pretations of sacred books ; and thus first attains the real truths which they embody, or finds that no admis- sible interpretation is consonant with the facts as determined by scientific investigation. If it is a truer interpretation at which we arrive, the sacred books rise to a nobler standing in our esteem, and the religious system which they inculcate acquires new r strength and validity in the domain of intelligence. This corrected and harmonized relation of the sacred books to the intelligence conciliates assent and determines the ethical attitude or even the ethical and religious character of the student. If it is a conflict with the sacred books at which we finally arrive, the mind is freed from its reverence for error, and comes into an improved attitude for accepting the truth which is always antipodal to error. Evidently, this method of reasoning admits of much amplification, but I think it better to leave the reader with a clear understanding simply, of the nature of the argument which is here employed to enforce the efficacy of geological knowledge in improving our ability to exercise just judgment on certain secular questions which stand related to morals and religious faith. INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 89 II. THE ETHICAL INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL PREOCCUPATION. “ The vices of the people/’ says Condorcet, “ come from the need of escaping from ennui in moments of leisure, and in escaping from it through sensations, and not through ideas.” “These are notable words,” says Com- payre, “which should never be lost sight of by the teach- ers and moralists of the people. To cause gross natures to pass from the life of the senses to the intellectual life ; to make study agreeable, to the end that the higher pleas- ures of the spirit may struggle successfully against the appetites for material pleasures ; to put the book in the place of the wine-bottle ; to substitute the library for the saloon ; in a word, to replace sensation by idea — such is the fundamental problem of popular education. ”* The application of the principle thus enunciated is so obvious and so just that little amplification is needed. It is a weighty consideration, however, to bring to the argu- ment for the early study of the elements of geology. I intend hereafter to give that question special attention, and in this connection desire only to emphasize the moral influence of pleasant preoccupation upon the mind. No other study lends itself with such facility to the constant occupation of the senses, and prompting of inferences and reflections. All spontaneous action of the mind is delight- ful, and all delight seeks to perpetuate itself. If once the mind can be habituated to turn to the objects which lie about on every hand, it discovers a spring of delight which forestalls the search for grosser pleasures. He who picks up thoughts by the wayside forgets his longing for irrational gratifications. The pleasures of observation, * CompayrtL History of Pedagogy. Payne's tr., p. 381. 90 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? imagination and reflection are so much more engrossing than sensual indulgences, that the love of study becomes a guarantee against vice. The youth inspired with the love of nature has no time for dissipations. To attain to preoccupation of the mind with ideas, we must pro- pose occupations which are congenial and delightful. To the young pupil, abstract studies and naked efforts of memorizing are neither congenial nor natural. Some- thing which is congenial is pointed out by the boy’s spon- taneous and habitual attention to the material things in the midst of which nature has placed him. If, therefore, we desire the child to add to formal instruction of teach- ers and parents, such ethical influence as may be derived from the pursuit of study, we should select for him the study of nature. And if, with advancing maturity, we desire to throw around him all the moral guarantees which Providence has placed at our disposal, we shall endeavor to prolong the inclination of his thoughtful attention to the themes most accessible, most intelligible and most abundant in intellectual delight. By such a course of training, the man will have acquired a bent toward intel- lectual life which will prove the noblest and worthi- est insurance against the temptations of idleness and dissipation. III. ETHICAL INFLUENCE AS A REFLEX RESULT OF GEOLOGIC STUDY. I direct attention here less to knowledge than the pro- cess of acquiring knowledge. The ethical ordering of life deals with isolated instances and concrete facts. Ethical philosophy has its principles, hut an observance of them in individual life is a perpetual discrimination INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 91 among concrete instances. It is a deed or a word which, in human experience, elicits the activity of the moral sentiments. The accurate observation of facts, therefore, and the competent and unbiased formation of judgments on them, is the process by which all conclusions are reached which enter into the formation of conduct. But this is precisely the mental process by which conclusions are reached in geological reasoning or study. Aptness, readi- ness and spontaneity in the execution of those processes constitute what we mean by the scientific habit. Eager- ness to act on determinations reached by such processes is the scientific spirit. The scientific habit of mind is there- fore the precise habit required for most just judgments within the sphere of all activities possessing an ethical character. Geology is the best of the sciences for the cultivation and fixing of the scientific habit of thought. The connection between the study of geology and the ethics of common life is therefore obvious. * It may be useful however, to enter into some particulars for a fuller definition of the scientific spirit. This spirit, first of all, loves the truth supremely. It feels that the passive acceptance of error is an affront to truth and intelligence. It therefore seeks earnestly to arrive at truth and to avoid error, either in conception or conclu- sion. It therefore maintains a habit of watchfulness and scrutiny. It seeks to be accurate in its observation of facts, in its collocation of them, and in the inferences drawn from them. It is cautious ; it pauses and reflects ; it repeats its observations ; it accumulates many facts to * The relation between the scientific habit and the ethics of life has been forcibly brought to view in the Commencement Address of President T. C. Chamberlin of the University of Wisconsin, delivered at Ann Arbor, June 28. 1888, entitled The Ethical Functions of Scientific Study. 92 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ' enlarge the bases of its generalizations. It enounces inferences tentatively, and verifies them at every oppor- tunity. It refuses to swerve from the teachings of the evidence. Interest, prejudice, friendships, advantage, all must be pushed aside. An attitude of absolute indifference toward collateral ends must be maintained. It knows no motives but one, that is the exact truth. This is the true judicial attitude. It is an ideal attainment. Probably, under human conditions it is never reached ; but the scientific spirit approaches it, as the asymptote approaches the curve. If not reached, it is a spirit which comes nearer the truth than any less cautious and scrupulous one. Even when far short of perfect develop- ment, the scientific spirit and the scientific habit which it creates, are conditions of the human soul keeping it near the truth, saving it from inaccurate observation and apprehension of facts, from hasty and probably erroneous inferences, and from those errors of action and life which we base on false assumptions. How many of those errors of action and life fall within the sphere of our ethical conduct ! How many blame- worthy things are said and done because the premises on which we act are simply erroneous understandings — erroneous, because inferences too hastily drawn, without sufficient basis of facts ; erroneous, because the facts are not carefully ascertained before inference is built upon them ; erroneous, because interest or prejudice or influence has distorted our apprehension of the facts or biased our inferences from them ! Such inaccurate observations, such hasty inferences, such biased judg- ments make up a large proportion of daily doings and sayings— alas ! too large. From them come misstate- INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 93 ments of facts ; colorings of facts ; prejudiced inferences, misconstrued motives, unmerited denunciations, baseless antipathies, unreasoning hostilities, alienations, calum- nies, wilful damages, duels, murders, disgrace. I think the connection between a lack of the scientific spirit and the misunderstandings, calumnies, slanders and mutual injuries of society is perfectly intelligible, and demon- strably causal. An alienation between friends we often style a misunderstanding. Nothing could be more truly stated. One if not both misunderstands the facts at the basis of the dispute. Or else one or both misunderstands the nature of the inference supported by the facts. Miss A's friend meets her on the street and passes without speak- ing. Miss A assumes this as a deliberate slight, and a coldness springs up between them. The truth is that Miss A’s friend was preoccupied at the moment of meet- ing, and did not see her. Many church members fall into errors of life, and a man of worldly predispositions denounces the church for fostering wickedness ; or denies the salutary influence exerted by churches over the lives of their adherents. Here are errors of hasty induction. The platform of one political party proclaims adherence to the principle of protection, even if a growing surplus of revenue should make it necessary to abolish all internal taxes. An op2iosing party declares its policical foes favorable to free whisky and free tobacco. Here is an erroneous apprehension* of the premise. Another party declares for the reduction of the import taxes which do so much to create a surfeit of the treasury, and their political foes insist that they hold the doctrine of free trade, or a doctrine which necessarily leads to it. The first is a misstatement of fact, and the alternative is a 94 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? false deduction. Thus from imperfect use of their intellectual powers, men and women are led to false assumption of motives, ascription of principles and opinions entirely alien to the facts, and to lives of pre- judice and bickering and slander which the exercise of a true scientific spirit would correct. The action of these influences is seen in religion almost as much as in politics. President Chamberlin speaks truly when he says : “ The propagation of the spirit of untrammeled inquiry is working, and is destined still more fruitfully to work, a beneficent modification in the phases of religious thought. A genial change is gradually creeping over the theological discussions of our time, and bringing with it broader sympathies, a more reverent spirit, a more just recognition of the good and the ill in current doctrines.” Even moral reforms are sometimes conducted according to immoral methods. I know of no stronger motives to action than those supplied by the moral sense. It seeks its ends with eagerness, persistence and self-abandonment. Discernment is not one of its attributes. This is a func- tion of intelligence. If the intelligence, therefore, be not trained in the true investigative spirit, it fails to present the case to moral impulse in a truthful and unprejudiced light. The impulse — noble in itself — the very instinct of purity — fails in the discernment of relations, becomes impatient of opposition, refuses to weigh reasons which would render the accomplishment of its ends more cir- cuitous though more sure, misjudges the motives of those having ways of their own, finally substitutes its own par- ticular methods for the great moral end for which it INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. 95 started, and brings hindrance and detriment to the reform which all pronounce desirable. “ Investigative study/’ says President Chamberlin, in summation, “calls into continuous exercise certain noble activities and attitudes of the mind : — to love the truth supremely, to seek the truth assiduously, to scrutinize evidence rigorously, to withhold judgment when evidence is insufficient, to look upon all sides equally, to judge impartially, and to make conscientious corrections for personal bias. The continued exercise of these sterling- activities during the formative stages of the mind, devel- ops corresponding habits of thought, and forms a perma- nent disposition which influences all subsequent action for good. This disposition displaces other dispositions upon which immoral tendencies more easily implant them- selves. It thus works at the very source from whence spring moral issues. Its effects are slow and unobtrusive, but radical and pervasive.” Thus on a survey of the ethical value of geologic study, we discover that the knowledge to which we rise expands our apprehensions, and enlarges and liberalizes and enno- bles our souls ; the preoccupation of the mind with per- cipient activities and exalting contemplations excludes the desire for groveling indulgences ; and the very habits which we acquire in attaining to such knowledge and employing such activities, are the implanted germs of better balanced lives and higher morality. It can be only a most inadequate conception of the nature and influence of geologic study which would permit an educational philosopher to assign it a low position in the scale of cul- ture agencies.* *1 find a glowing plea for “Geology as a branch of Education” in “Notice of the Ward Cabinets,” at Rochester, 1863. VIII. GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. T HAVE stated that geology has a two-fold claim upon the regard of educators. It must be evaluated as a means of useful knowledge not less conscientiously than as a means of culture. Even the “apostle of culture” has admitted that natural science supplies us with knowl- edge the acquisition of which is indispensable in all gen- eral education. Mr. Arnold only objects that “ it is not put up for us in relation with our sense for conduct.” Perhaps those who understand better what geology is and how it is “ put up,” may discover it standing in some dis- tinct and important relation with our “ sense for con- duct.” However that may be, the value of the knowledge is something to which Mr. Arnold could not be blind, and it is this which I wish next to examine. I believe the mass of mankind, influenced too much, probably by material interests, are placing a higher estimate on the knowledge value of geology than on the culture value of it. If so, their preference cannot go unheeded in fitting an educational fabric to the wants of the citizens of our nation. The marvelous advances of modern civilization have been depicted so many times that exclamations are trite. If we attempt by analysis to ascertain the factors of this civilization, we discover first, that they are, in general terms, spiritual products and material products — institu- tions and industries. Of our institutions — governmental. 96 GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 97 ecclesiastical, educational, charitable, I am not called upon to speak. With the industries of modern civilization geology has had something to do. I need not claim for the influence of industries a greater importance than for the influence of institutions, in reminding the reader that the influence of industries has been creative and control- ling in all the visible forms of our civilization. In modern industries, geology has sustained relations which I will attempt to point out in a comprehensive manner. No previous age has been witness of the great influence of geology, and no previous age has been in position to pass judgment on the fitness of geology to contribute to the advance of the characteristic activities of civilization. If we seek for the position of geology in modern activi- ties, the wide existence of public geological surveys is dem- onstration of the esteem in which geology is held among statesmen, as an agency for contributing to public welfare. The intelligent reader scarcely needs to be reminded that public surveys have been instituted by all the leading gov- ernments of the Old World. Surveys are at this moment in progress in Great Britain, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Norway and other countries. In some of these countries surveys have been organized the second and third time, after intervals of years. The sur- vey of the United Kingdom has been in progress since 1832, and is still vigorously prosecuted. The annual appropriation for the survey proper is about $100,000. Geological surveys are in progress in India, in Queens- land and in New South Wales. A mineralogic exploration of France was ordered by Louis XV. near the close of his reign. In 1794, the Republic entrusted work of that kind to the School of Mines and the Corps of Mining Engin- 7 98 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? eers. Various advances have since been made. The present survey was organized in 1868. Various partial surveys have been accomplished in China under govern- ment auspices, and Japan has sustained a survey almost from the entrance of the empire into the sisterhood of nations. In Canada, a government survey has been in progress since 1841. The present survey was established in 1845, and since 1877 it has been known as “The Geol- ogical and Natural History Survey of Canada.”* Turning to the United States we learn that surveys began to be undertaken by state authority as early as 1824. Among the earlier surveys were those of North Carolina by Denison Olmsted ; South Carolina, 1826, by Gardner Vanuxem ; Massachusetts, 1830, by Edward Hitchcock ; Tennessee, territory of Arkansas, New Jersey and Virginia. None of these, except that of New Jersey, have been completed on the scale of magnitude and thoroughness deemed necessary in later times. The most important and most thoroughly completed state surveys are those of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey. Surveys in the midst of pro- gress are those of Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, *Some of the annual appropriations of foreign governments are given below : France [1884] about $15,440.00 Great Britain [1885], Survey $97,916.22 Museum of Practical Geology. . 19,085.53 Roval School of Mines 72,329.24 189,330.99 Bavaria 4,000.00 Austria-Hungary: Austria [1871] 17,225.00 Italy [1883] 16,032.00 For 18 years preceding 1882 800,000.00 Sweden [1878] 22,250.00 Norway [1883] 2.6S8.00 Russia 19,350.00 Switzerland, Proceeds of map-sales and 2,S95.00 Canada [1883] 60,000.00 / GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 99 Arkansas, Alabama, Texas and Florida. Surveys in many of the states have been interrupted and left in a state of incompleteness. This is the case with Missouri, Tennessee, Connecticut, Maine, Virginia, North Car- olina, Georgia, Mississippi, California, Nevada and Ore- gon. In several of the states the surveys after suspen- sion for a term of years, have been taken up again and carried to completion, or are still in progress. Enter- prises have been resumed a second or third time in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina. The geological survey of New York was organized under the administration of Governor Marcy in 1837, and has received the renewed sanction of Wright, Hunt, Morgan, Seward, Fenton, and the successive state executives down to the present date. Professor James Hall, who has been in the service of the state on this survey, ever since its organization, and has performed a magnificent work for science, which has brought renown upon himself, the state and the nation, has always been devoted to the palaeontogical department of geological work, instead of those leading to immediate economic applications. The final results of his investigations are embodied in thirteen quarto volumes with many hundred lithographed plates of illustrations. One or two additional volumes are planned. In addition to these, single volumes were written by Beck, Vanuxem and Mather, and two volumes by Emmons. * * The principal publications by other states are as follows' Illinois, Final Report, 8 vols. 8vo. Ohio, “ “ 9 “ “ Indiana, Annual Reports, 14 vols. ( See next page.) 100 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Beside enterprises carried forward under authority of individual states, our general government has always promoted geological investigations of the interior. Hardly an exploration has been undertaken within the area of the public domain, or a survey for a wagon-road, or a railroad, that geologists have not been attached to the corps of explorers. Featherstcnhaugh was geologist of an expedition to the Coteau de Prairie in 1836. Houghton was attached to the Schoolcraft expedition to discover the sources of the Mississippi river. Dr. C. C. Parry and Dr. Arthur Schott attended to the geology of the Mexican boundary survey. Oliver Marcy accompanied a corps for the survey of a route for a wagon-road in Mon- tana. We may mention also, Stansbury’s expedition to the Great Salt lake, the geology of which was written by Professor James Hall ; Ives’ exploration of the Colorado, of which Dr. J. S. Newberry was official geologist ; Simp- son's Exploration across the Utah Basin, the geology of which was worked out by Englemann and Meek, [1859 ; published in 1876]; Lieut. Warren’s exploration of the Upper Missouri, the geology of which was thoroughly studied by Dr. F. V. Hayden and Mr. F. B. Meek, and Wisconsin, Final Report, 4 vols. 8vo and Atlas. Michigan, “ “ 4 “ and Atlas. Minnesota, “ “ 2 4 to Annual Reports, 16 vols. Vermont, “ 2 “ “ California, “ 2 “ 8vo. Iowa, “ 2+2 “ “ Annual Reports, 2 vols. Missouri, “ 1+3 “ “ and Atlas. Kentucky, “ “ 4+6 “ *■ and 35 Special Reports and maps. Tennessee, “ “ 1+1+1“ “ New Jersey, “ “ 1+1 “ “ and Atlas, and 14 Annual Reports. New Hampshire “ 3 “ “ Alabama, Annual Reports 3+8. Pennsylvania, about 85 vols. and atlases of miscellaneous reps., 2 Ann. Reps. First Survey, two heavy 4to vols. and maps. GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 101 Professor Joseph Leidy ; Macomb’s expedition with J. S. Newberry as geologist, from Santa Fe to the junction of the Grand and Green rivers, in 1859, of which the report was published in 1876 ; Ludlow’s reconnoissance of the Black Hills in 1859, of which N. H. Wmchell was geologist ; and Ludlow’s reconnoissance from Montana to Yellowstone National Park, with E. S. Dana and G. B. Grinnell commissioned for geological duty. I forbear to cite other instances of this class. The great national enterprise of a survey for a railroad route from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean was a signal instance of the nation’s appeal to geology to contribute what it could to the stock of information needed to guide an undertaking so stupendous that it has scarcely been equalled in the history of the world. Three routes were surveyed — a northern, a central and a south- ern ; and geological observers belonged to the scientific corps attached to each of these surveys. On the northern route, John Evans and George Gibbs acted as official geologists. On the central route, William P. Blake and Jules Marcou were the geologists ; and on the southern, Thomas Antisell and T. A. Conrad. On a collateral survey from the Sacramento valley to the Columbia river, J. S. Newberry acted as geologist. The reports of these geological observers and investigators cover about a thousand pages in the volumes of the official quarto reports of the surveys. These are twelve in number. But the attention given by the United States Govern- ment to direct and exclusive efforts in geological investi- gation form a chapter in our civil history of such import- ance and interest, that some mention must be made of it. 102 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? These efforts and expenditures are the crowning evidence of the high position of geology in the esteem of enlight- ened statesmanship, in its efforts to promote, not culture, but the material prosperity of the nation. The pioneer in specific geological surveys under the auspices of the Gen- eral Government, was Charles T. Jackson, who made a scientific survey of the mineral lands of the Lake Superior region in Michigan. This survey was provided for by act of Congress approved March 1, 1847, and the report was printed in 1849, forming an octavo volume of 845 pages, with maps and illustrations. The survey of these lands had been begun at the instance of Dr. Houghton in 1842, who as State Geologist of Michigan had connected geo- logical and linear surveys under a jfian devised by him, and approved by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The survey was continued by Joseph W. Foster and Josiah D. Whitney, the latter at present the senior professor of geology at Cambridge. Their report was published in 1851, and embodied investigations by James Hall, E. Desor and Charles Whittlesey. In 1847, a great geological investigation was begun by D. D. Owen, under the auspices of the General Land Office, and a final report was rendered in 1851, entitled “Report of a Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota/’ contained in a quarto volume of 638 pages, fifteen plates and many other illustrations and numerous maps. About 1866 began an era of public geological surveys which has witnessed an ever widening extension of work down to the present time. After the completion of the geological work of General Warren’s exploration in the upper Missouri region, a succession of special geological GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 103 surveys was placed under the direction of Dr. Hayden, which extended into Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana and Idaho, and were meantime, formally organ- ized under the Secretary of the Interior as the “ United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Terri- tories.” The investigation enlisted the cooperation of many of the foremost geologists of the United States — including Meek, Newberry, Cope, White and Leidy. The publication embraced twelve annual reports, making sev- enteen octavo volumes, and twelve heavy quarto volumes with a wealth of illustrative plates. A Bulletin was also published containing special investigations, and this ex- tended to six volumes. A folio atlas and separate maps appeared during the progress of this great work. Meantime, in 1867, another great national survey was organized under the direction of Clarence King, known as the “ United States Geological Exploration of the For- tieth Parallel” — or briefly, the “ Fortieth Parallel Sur- vey.” This was under the supervision of the Chief of Engineers. It was especially intended to supply geolog- ical maps of the country about to be opened up by the Union and Central Pacific Railroads. The reports pub- lished number seven quarto volumes ; and the volume on systematic geology is illustrated by twenty-eight plates and twelve analytical geological maps, and is accompanied by a geological and topographical atlas. A third national survey of similar magnitude developed into form from 1872 to 1874, under the direction of the Chief of Engineers. This was in charge of Lieut. George M. Wheeler, and was denominated “ Geographical and Geological Surveys west of the One Hundredth Meridian.” 104 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? The results of this work are embraced in six quarto volumes, an atlas of maps and many lithographic illustrations. A fourth national survey grew into organized form during 1874 and 1875, under the control of the Depart- ment of the Interior, with J. W. Powell in charge. The personal connection of Major Powell with the public sur- veys really began in 1867, and was continued under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution until 1874, when the quarto volume entitled “Exploration of the Colorado River of the West ” was ordered published by Congress. The work committed to the charge of Major Powell was now organized as the “United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Second Division ;” but, in 1877, it became the “United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountains.” Under the immediate direction of Major Powell, six quarto vol- umes were published. Finally, in 1879, all the existing national surveys were terminated by act of Congress, and provision was made for the organization of a single survey, to he known as the “United States Geological Survey,” under the charge of the department of the interior ; and Clarence King was appointed director. Resigning at the end of a year, Mr. King was succeeded by Major J. W. Powell. Since this event, the work of the survey has been prosecuted with energy, thoroughness, and magnitude of organization unequaled in the history of nations. Beginning with an annual appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars, the provision has expanded until, in 1SS8, it amounts to nearly one million dollars. This however, includes one GEOLOGY AYD MODERN CIVILIZATION. 105 hundred thousand dollars for reclaiming desert lands.* The results are too abundant even to summarize in this place. I will only state generally, that they are embodied in six annual reports already in print, of royal octavo size ; twelve quarto volumes of monographs ; four octavo volumes on the ‘“ Mineral Resources of the United States and about eight octavo volumes of bulletins. As the printing department of the government is greatly in arrears, a very large amount of matter ready for the press remains accumulated, f The foregoing statements have been made for the sole purpose of showing the estimate which has been placed on the value of the results of geologic investigation by all the enlightened governments of the world. A mere enumeration of the fact and general character of these surveys presents rather a voluminous record ; but I have thought such an amount of information useful in creat- ing an adequate impression of the magnitude and universality of such surveys, and of the general con- viction of the usefulness of geologic knowledge. * The following sums have been appropriated by Congress for the several surveys last mentioned : Hayden survey of the territories $720,000 00 King survey of the Fortieth parallel ... 386,711 85 Wheeler survey west of the One Hundredth meridian 599,310 72 Powell survey 279,000 00 U. S. Geological Survey, 1880 106.000 00 “ “ “ 1881 156,000 00 “ “ “ 1882 156,000 00 “ “ “ 1883 864,940 00 “ “ “ 1884 399,640 00 “ “ “ 1885 489,040 00 + A vast amount of statistical information relating to the United States geological survey, and to topographic and geologic surveys in other countries is communicated by Major Powell in “ Testimony before a Joint Commission” “on the organization of scientific work of the general government,” December, 1884, and August, 1887. 106 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Governments in other ways have furnished testimony to the same effect, in the maintenance of mining schools and museums of geology. Museums have been created in the capitals of all the leading countries of the world — London, Paris, Dresden, Rome, Madrid, Stockholm, St. Petersburgh, Berne, Washington, New York, Albany, San Francisco, Buenos Ayres. Celebrated mining schools exist in Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin and various other cities. In America, they are maintained in New York, Michigan and Missouri. Chairs of mining or economic geology exist in most of the great univers- ities of the world. These, like provisions for public surveys, are all testimonials of the existence of a public opinion which holds geologic information in high esteem as answering a demand of modern civilization. The volume of this class of evidence may be still further augmented. Hundreds of geologic surveys are made under private auspices. In every mining district throughout the civilized world, geologic experts are in constant employment in seeking for valuable deposits under the indications of geologic data, or determining on geologic grounds the value of properties already located. They are summoned to give counsel in the opening of mines, in the search for coal and petroleum and gas. Besides competent experts, hundreds of pretenders and so-called “practical miners” are engaged in the same employments. Even if the latter misinterpret geological principles, or make no use of any geological principles whatever, still every one understands that real principles rightly interpreted, lie at the foundation of a rational and hopeful search. The vastness and costliness of the enterprises predicated GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 107 on geological conditions is another expression of faith in the value of results sought by methodical geologic opera- tions. The Comstock Lode” was a fissure in the solid crust of the earth, filled with a gangue rich in gold and silver. Its location was on the eastern slope of the Virginia range, a spur of the Sierra Nevada. It was 10.000 feet long and 600 feet wide, and was mined by thirty-three leading incorporations. The deepest excava- tions were sunk 3,080 feet. Enormous volumes of water rushed into the works, and it was necessary to remove it by means of steam pumps, the most powerful ever used. The difficulty of removing the water increased with the depth of the excavation. A miner named Sutro devised a great tunnel for the easier drainage of the mines. As the lode was situated on the eastern slope of a mountain, his project was to carry the tunnel from near the bottom of the mines eastward at a moderate descent until it should emerge to daylight somewhere at a lower level. After incredible struggles ; after thirteen years of efforts of such character as to rise to the level of romance, the tunnel was completed and proved a success. It was 20.000 feet long. It left the mines at a depth of 1,900 feet. The water was pumped from the lowest levels to tributary tunnels which carried it to the main passage. Here it rushed out in a miniature river, flowed along the great tunnel, and finally issued at a temperature of 118 degrees. The cost of the tunnel was two million dollars. These vast undertakings were efforts of engineering, but they had geological conditions as a basis. I have so far made appeal only to public opinion in support of the claim that geology offers most valuable contributions to enterprises which characterize our 108 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? civilization, and that for such reason alone, it is worthy of qtromotion almost regardless of cost to the public treasury. But the facts on which opinion rests are quite intelligible. They have been considered and weighed by the thousands who conduct our civilization and our legislation. The organizations which I have enumerated are the verdict already rendered, of the best judgment and fullest experience of civilized nations. To give an exposition of the facts, however, would be co compile a treatise on applied geology. But I may indicate the nature of the facts. Geology has shown that the various mineral deposits of value to man are distributed through the crust of the earth according to methods which are uniform and intelligible. A knowledge of the facts of general geology embraces a knowledge of the methods of mineral distribu- tion. A special study of these, and a completer acquaint- ance with them, constitute the department of the science known as “economic geology.” We have extensive treatises devoted to elucidating and illustrating the geol- ogic conditions under which we discover native metals and the various ores of metals ; so that, after the student has become acquainted with the arrangement of geological conditions in general, he may recognize certain ones as compatible, and others as incompatible, with the con- comitant existence of certain deposits of economic value. He must acquire the ability to determine the geologic age of a formation on evidences presented by order of super- position, fossil remains, or sometimes by occurrences of particular minerals which have been found associated only with certain other minerals or with rocks of a certain age. GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 109 For example, the great deposits of haematite and magnetite ores of iron are found only in certain formations older than any containing fossils ; hence there is no hope in the search for such deposits, except in such forma- tions. Such a pre-fossiliferous formation is likely to be sub-crystalline, and to occur in a region of considerable disturbance. If any continuous and general dip among formations exists, true crystalline rocks will be likely to appear in one direction, and feebly crystalline rocks in the opposite direction, and beyond these, fossiliferous rocks. The iron-bearing beds will dip beneath the fossiliferous strata, but will overlie the crystalline formations. The azoic rocks, dating from periods before the advent of life on the earth, sometimes include black slates. These have a resemblance to slates found associated with coal ; but the geologist will know how to distinguish them from such slates. They occupy a lower position in stratigraphical order, though upheavals have often raised them to the summits of hills and mountains. Moreover, slates associated with coal generally contain certain vegetable remains, or traces of vegetation, which indicate a higher stratigraphical position than most slates entirely destitute of organic remains. So in the search for petroleum, gas and salt. After the geologist has learned by observation what formations these products are associated with, he restricts his search for them within these formations.* This, how- ever, is no proof that such products will nowhere be found in other formations. The different formations or terranes are recognized by the geologist by means of *The author has treated the geology of these products in Geological Studies , pp. 186-202. 110 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? certain characters which they bear, and among these the most available are their fossil remains. But very gener- ally the order of superposition of adjacent terranes may also be observed. Thus, in central New York it is observed that certain shales associated with the brine supply dip southward under the limestone of Onondaga county. Hence geologists, fifteen years ago, suggested the probable occurrence of rock-salt at the depth of a thousand or fifteen hundred feet, in the region south of the Erie canal. All the world understands that such deposits have actually been found within four or five years. In the same manner, in Michigan, as soon as it was ascertained that the strata of the lower peninsula are arranged in the manner of a nest of dishes, it was announced as a geological deduction that the salt and gypsum beds in the western part of the state, near Grand Eapids, must come to the surface again in the eastern part of the state. Observation has verified the deduction, and an important gypsum industry has grown up as a consequence. On the same basis of facts, geology indicated the Saginaw valley as underlaid by the deepest portion of the salt and gypsum basin, and there- fore the most favorable region for salt-borings. The vast salt industry of the Saginaw valley, subsequently devel- oped, illustrates the soundness of such reasoning. The search for artesian waters is guided by principles partly geological and partly mechanical. Whether a boring for fresh water will succeed at a particular spot depends on the existence beneath the surface, of a porous or water-bearing terrane, whose outcrop at the surface takes place at a higher level topographically than the place of the proposed boring. Whether a porous forma- GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. Ill tion underlies is a geological question. Its place of out- crop is a geological question. At a certain position in the Cretaceous strata of middle Alabama, is a thick sandy stratum. This is found at the surface in many places in Greene county. As the Cretaceous rocks dip gently south- ward, the sandy stratum must underlie the counties of Marengo and Dallas, lying southward from Greene. Accordingly these counties are dotted with artesian wells. The water which overflows, fell on the surface in Greene, Hale, and other regions along the belt of outcrop of the water-bearing stratum. At Ann Arbor, the evidence from geology is that the attempt at an artesian well would not succeed. No underlying porous stratum exists whose outcrop is at a higher level than the surface. Underlying porous strata there are, but Ann Arbor is in one of the most elevated regions of the state, and the outcrops of those strata being nearer the lake borders of the peninsula, are at levels below Ann Arbor. The directions of the streams are evidence of this. If those strata therefore, contained fresh water, there could exist no head to force it to the surface at the University City. But those strata cannot contain fresh water, because they are rocky dishes with their borders elevated above their depressed centres, and hence hold all, or most, of the saline matter which the ancient ocean left in them. They are stored with brine, therefore, but the brine cannot rise to the surface. All these deductions were verified by an actual artesian boring at Ann Arbor. Geology has ascertained the regions in which artesian wells may be successful ; or is capable of ascertaining them. It pointed out the possibility of such wells at Chicago, and at other points along the eastern shore of 112 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Illinois and Wisconsin. The supplies in this region, spring from the Potsdam sandstone, whose outcrop exists along the more elevated interior. Geology has pointed out regions now desert in which by means of artesian borings, water may be obtained for irrigation. The great Sutro tunnel is in principle an artesian well, which might be applied to warming dwellings or greenhouses, or forc- ing crops of vegetables. Such illustrations are cited onjy to render intelligible some of the general principles on which geology becomes subservient to the ends of our civilization. But other service is rendered in the exposure of dishonest or ill- advised undertakings. I recall the excitement and cha- grin occasioned a few years ago, when Clarence King revealed the dishonesty of certain gold-mining specula- tions in California. It was only a few days ago that Professor Branner brought consternation to a series of fraudulent organiza- tions in Arkansas, in which innocent investors had been induced by misleading representations, to purchase value- less stocks. These enterprises were located in Garland and adjoining counties, and had been capitalized at one hundred and eleven millions of dollars. Dr. Branner reports, after a careful survey, that it is very doubtful whether a single one of the forty gold mines of Arkansas has ever legitimately returned an ounce of gold. In the recent wide-spread craze over the search for gas. we have seen manufacturing companies sink wells at the cost of thousands of dollars, in search of the “Trenton Limestone/'' in districts where that formation was either beyond reach, or so situated as to afford no comparison with regions already productive. During the oil excite- GEOLOGY AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 113 ment, enterprises were inaugurated in hundreds of dis- tricts lacking in the requisite geological indications, and in which geologic advice saved many thousands of dollars. And yet there were too many other instances in which competent advice was not asked, or was asked and spurned, with loss of the investment. I have seen pits dug for coal in the black slates of the Taconic system, and I have seen self-confident speculators journeying to New York to obtain assays of “ores” which geology recognized at once, as merely “fool's gold”; and in numberless other cases, I have been able to forestall con- templated investments by the identification of that seduc- tive mineral, iron pyrites, and the declaration of its worthlessness. In the extension of knowledge, geology does not serve an end directly utilitarian ; but by all increase of knowl- edge of the phenomena of nature, man acquires control over her forces, or learns better how to protect himself against their disastrous effects. To extend our knowledge of the causes and modes of action of earthquakes is to suggest improved methods of security against destructive occurrences In many respects, the knowledge attained through geologic research possesses no direct cultural value, and finds no economic applications, but it brings largeness of view, and truer apprehensions of the relations of man and the world to the totality of the scheme of existence. It thus has a moral value, though the influ- ence is not directly in the line of moral culture. To arrive at j uster views concerning the age of man or of the world is not, as a knowledge-result, to augment our power of creating wealth, or to contribute to intellectual or ethical culture. But such knowledge sheds light on great 8 114 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY 'i moral and religious questions connected with current faiths, and brings us into juster relations with moral and religious truth. It is a real advance in the condition of man. Geological knowledge thus, indirectly helpful in the advance of our race, claims a due share of our regard. IX. GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OE STUDIES. N previous pages I have endeavored to show that geologic study calls into exercise a diversified range of mental powers. Beginning with the percipient facul- ties, which gather the elementary data of geological reasoning, it advances to the exercise of the inductive faculties, the verbal memory, the philosophic memory, the imagination, and finally the deductive faculty. I have shown also, that geologic study and geologic infor- mation exert necessarily a very important ethical influence upon the mind and the life. And I have shown, in addi- tion to the training and cultural results of the study, it brings to us knowledge of practical value, and much which enters into the constitution of our modern civiliza- tion. I wish here to present reasons why the acquisition of this culture, this ethical result, this useful knowledge, should be begun in early life. It is a truth so familiar as to be a truism, that child- hood is the period for observation ; maturity, for reflec- tion. Widely as this principle has been recognized in the history of educational systems, a strange perversion has characterized the practices of the prevailing systems in all times. Thought, reflection, abstraction, verbal mem- orizing, have been pressed as chief duties upon the child. It is thought which rules the world, it is said. Life is empty without thought. A being without reflection is a brute or an idiot. Therefore thought is the most 115 116 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? important thing, the chief thing in education, and evidently ought to be the first thing. Malebranche says, “souls have no age,” and “the first thing to do is to nourish the child on abstract truths.” Quintilian would have the child first learn grammar and Greek. Rabelais puts Greek in the first place. The Jesuits devoted childhood and youth to Latin. This was also the system of Rollin. With Whewell, dead languages possess transcendent importance. That is the colonial idea in New England ; and most of our classical instructors still insist that the most perfect culture is only acquired by beginning Latin as early as ten, and continuing till twenty or older. * Payne calls the doctrine of the prior order of sensible things “a new superstition in educational theory,” f and reminds us “that intellect- ual inertness amounting almost to stupidity, is frequently the concomitant of an acute and persistent sense-train- ing ; ” and cites “ savage tribes as historical illustrations of what has been produced on a large scale by ‘ following nature.’ ”J Pestalozzi in a sort of craze for demonstra- tions, would abandon a large share of the time to arith- metic and geometry, § while Condillac would begin with metaphysics. *The present writer was disciplined on Adams’ Latin Grammar at twelve, and trained up on Andrews and Stoddard till twenty-two. t Compavrd, p. 107, note. tCompayrd, p. 2, note. § Undoubtedly many children possess marked aptitude for numbers, and I think nature in this way, points out a line of training for success. But the intuition for numbers must not be understood as the dawning of a power for higher mathematics. The present writer recited the “ multiplica- tion-table” complete at the age of five, and had “ciphered " through Willett's school arithmetic at ten, but never possessed readiness in mental calculations. There is little valuable discipline in mental arithmetic. It disciplines none of the leading mental powers. Great facility with numbers does not involve thought. Nor is it of much utility in ordinary life. It is a valuable gift for a keeper of accounts. GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 117 By a revulsion from sucli extremes, Rousseau would have nothing whatever learned from books ; and Pestalozzi, with that extravagance and unreason which is the besetting sin of reformers, banished all reflection, and led his pupils no farther than the world of sense ; while the effort of Froebel consisted chiefly in bringing into method and system the sense intuitions the primacy of which Pestalozzi discovered as with a lantern, but could not bring into orderly working relations with the other mental powers. More rational conceptions of the place of sense-per- ceptions have been entertained by many authorities worthy of our respect. Eabelais caught “ a glimpse of the future reserved to scientific education and to the study of nature,” and was certainly “ the first in point of time, of that grand school of educators who place the sciences in the first rank among the studies worthy of human thought.”* Comenius, a prince among educational thinkers, asks: “ Why, in place of dead books, should we not open the living book of nature ? * * * To instruct the young is not to beat into them by repetition, a mass of words, phrases, sentences and opinions gath- ered out of authors ; but it is to open their understanding through things. * * * Instruction should commence with a real observation of things, and not with a verbal description of them.”f Xicole, one of the writers of the Port Royal School, with exact truth says: “The intelligence of children always being very dependent on *Compayr£. History of Pedagogy. Payne's tr., pp. 91. 96. t Comenius: Orbis sensualium pictus — the illustrated world of sensible objects [1658]. This is the “ Janua linguarum accompanied with pictures in lieu of real objects, representing to the child the things that he hears spoken of, as fast as he can learn their names.” 118 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? their senses, we must so far as possible, address our instruction to the senses, and cause it to reach the mind, not only through hearing, but also through seeing. ”* Bonneval claimed for children the education of the senses. La Chalotais indicts the established system as “ that narrow education and that repulsive and austere discipline,” “which seems made only to abase the spirit,” and that “sterile and insipid teaching” as something whose most usual effect is to “ make study hated for life.” “Let children,” he says, “be shown many objects ; let there be a variety of such, and let them be shown under many aspects, and on various occasions. The memory and imagination of children cannot be over- charged with useful facts and ideas, of which they can make use in the course of their lives.” f La Chalotais was the leading spirit in the revolt against the educa- tional system so long used by the Jesuits to tyrannize over the intelligence of Europe. Lakanal, of the “ Con- vention,” represents the survival of this spirit of a new education. He recommended the method which consists “in first appealing to the eyes of pupils, * * * in creating the understanding through the senses * * * in developing morals out of the sensibility, just as under- standing out of sensation.” \ * Nicole : On the Education of a Prince , quoted from CompayrC t La Chalotais: Essai d' Education nationale [1763], t Quoted from Com pay rC In reproducing these passages, I wish to dis- claim the doctrine that the understanding is built out of sensations. I hold with Hamilton, as against Locke, to the existence of inborn principles of reasoning, constitutionally independent of sensations. But not formed for independent activity, they wait on the occasions presented by sensations. And thus it happens, that the preexistenee of sensations calls into exercise the higher powers of conception and judgment. This is the view under which the early education of the senses is advocated in the present con- nection. To suppose that sense-training without reflection is education, is the weakness of Pestalozzi ; and to suppose that the modem reform aims at this, is the weakness of certain modern philosophers. GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 119 The corresponding views of Spencer and Bain are so well known that I desist from citations. With reference to these writers I will only remark that it seems to me they betray tendencies to an extreme which time and experience will not sanction ; and they thus illustrate the foibles of all reformers who mount a hobby which runs away with them. It is my leading purpose, as announced, in considering the proper place for geological study, to bring forward the reasons which justify the thinkers whose views on the early training of the senses I have just quoted. The most obvious reason, and the most cogent, is that which is most generally ignored. It is that the observing powers of the mind are the ones first developed into efficient activity, while geological studies begin with the presentation of objects for these powers. It seems almost a platitude to say that a child’s studies should be such as are best suited to his stage of mental development. It is impossible to argue the point without falling into puerilities. By what name then shall we call an educa- tion — a prevailing system of education, which is organized and conducted as if this truism were not a fundamental truth of educational philosophy? It is even admitted in words by philosophers who ignore it and belie it in their systems. One of the very arguments with which they oppose early sense-education, is the allegation that it is not new — that it is as old as Moses * — and yet it seems these theorists require more time for consideration of its claims. If then, sense-education has been signalized by the author of our human constitution as most appropriate * Compare Payne: Contributions to the Science of Education , ch. vi. especially p. 117. Yet this is Payne's -‘new superstition in educational theory.” 120 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? for childhood, by what reasoning do we sanction the engrossing occupation of the early years of school train- ing with book study and the abstractions of arithmetic and grammars of languages living and dead ? I do not demur at short exercises in these things, lengthening as the years lengthen, for I know that memory and under- standing dawn also at an early age. It is the total exclu- sion of the sciences of observation which constitutes the breach of nature’s canon fixing a natural order of studies in education.* To the existence of this illogical feature of prevailing education I would direct the candid atten- tion of teachers. I desire to emphasize in passing, a psychological truth to which I have heretofore alluded. It is not imagined that the senses of the child will come into exercise with- out awakening the powers of reflection. If we sujypose the senses under exercise by a rational being, higher powers will spring into incipient and progressive activity. It is impossible to observe without some thought — unless we look with the eyes of a brute or an idiot or a savage. As soon as the child has made two cognate obser- vations, he becomes conscious of that fact. lie reflects. On accumulating observations cognate with these, he involuntarily unifies them through processes of com- parison and reflection. Then the intuition of cause comes into play — hut not into consciousness. He is impressed by evidence of a community of cause or occasion for all the phenomena of the group. And then, before he is aware of it, he begins to conceive all those * Minds possessed of judicial balance will continue to employ these significant and useful terms, notwithstanding the opprobrium thrown upon them by some modern criticisms of a loose and somewhat dis- ingenuous style. GEOLOGY IX THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 121 phenomena as standing in a common relation to some cause, occasion, or condition. That is, he generalizes. The rational being never ceases to abstract, compare, judge and draw general inferences. It is easy to show that the rational being begins at a tender age to unfold inferences by deduction from generalized principles. But these earlier exercises of the higher powers are spontaneous and unwearying. They are sustained by sense-perceptions, and their existence is conditioned on the prior existence of these. Thus the stimulation of the senses is not a sense-education exclusively, and cannot be ; and those who deprecate sense-education and preach “ideas — ideas,” plainly expose the dominion of a defective psychology. And when they attempt to belittle the value of sense-education by pointing to the savage who has a life-long and exclusive sense-education, as an adequate illustration of the error of the doctrine of the prior education of the percipient faculties, it is obvious that the nature of sense-education is entirely misconceived.* To see is more than to converge rays of light behind a lens, and form an image on a screen. To see is to be capable of the intellectual affections which * “ A prolonged and acute training of the senses is irrational in its tendency; it magnifies the animal, and minimizes the man. * * * The savage is a living example of persistent sense-training.” — Payne: Con- tributions to the Science of Education , p. 82. “ An inquiry into the mental condition of savages will show that, concurrent with the acutest sense-training, there is intellectual ineptness amounting almost to stupidity. This conjunction raises the query whether the modern doctrine as to the effect of sense-training on intelligence is well founded. The fact just cited at least permits a reasonable doubt on this point.” — lb., p. 27. “Savage tribes are historical illustrations of what has been produced on a large scale by ‘following nature.' "—Payne, note in Compayr6's History of Pedagogy, p. 2. If nature gives no signs of resentment at the libel, I can allow my high personal respect for the author to restrain me from impeach- ing the statement as a little disingenuous. 122 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? ensue when the screen is the retina of a conscious being. The fulness of seeing exists when the conscious being is a rational soul. Advance through the contributions of perception cannot be expected unless the}’ be planted in a good intellectual soil ; and if so planted, the advance cannot be prevented. To this purport I beg to quote an author summoned by Chancellor Payne to do service of a contrary kind: “The highest manifestations of intel- lect,” says Sully, “abstract thought and reasoning, illustrate this dependence of intellectual activity on the elements, materials or ‘data’ of sense. The growth of intellect by repeated exercise thus implies a continual supply of sense-material, a multiplication of sense-impres- sions, to be worked up into intellectual products.”* If then, the supply of sense-material in the mind of a savage is not accompanied by advance of the higher intelligence, this is due, (1) To the poor quality of his intelligence; (2) To the absence of educational guides and prompters; (3) To the lack of a written language through which he may profit by the capitalized experiences and reflections of his ancestors. To dispense with teachers and written records has never been conceived by those who advise us to follow “nature” in the order of studies. The attentive reader will notice another disingenuous feature in the quotations made. It is held that “a prolonged and acute training of the senses is irrational in its tendency.” “ The savage is a living example of persistent sense-training.” The writer, if we take the letter of his language, condemns something which is not advocated. To give the senses fair play is quite different from subjecting them to a “severe” and “persistent” * Sully : Outlines of Psychology , .p. 48. GEOLOGY IX THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 123 training to the exclusion of reflection. This is another victory over the celebrated “ man of straw.” If there is another characteristic of early life equally prominent with love of sensible activity, it is the love of physical activity. 'This being so, studies should be selected with a view to securing opportunities for bodily exercise. This again, is only a truism ; but this is a truism quite forgotten save in the kindergarten. Geo- logical study provides occasions for excursions ; calls the hammer into use in breaking off and “ dressing up ” specimens, calls muscle into action in bearing them home, in providing drawers or cases to receive them, and in moving and arranging them as the progress of study requires. The child who can move his body and work his muscles while he observes and thinks, is better com- plying with the commands of his nature than he who sits pinned to a hard bench with solemn injunctions hanging over him. The attention of the child is best controlled by the presence of concrete things. The child’s attention is notoriously volatile. It is difficult to fix it on an abstrac- tion ; but a material object controls the eye, and that controls attention. “ One of the reasons which best justify the use of object lessons,” says Compayre, “ is that they are based directly on this fundamental prin- cqile, that it is best to exercise the attention on concrete and sensible objects, before applying it to abstractions.”* Thus the search for a quartz constituent in a crystalline rock will fix the attention incomparably better than the attempt to recite a passage from Green’s History of the English People. It is worthy of remark, too, that the *C'ompayr<;: Lectures on Pedagogy , Payne's tr., p. 103. 124 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? very motion attendant on the work of observation is a further aid to the control of attention. This is one of the secrets of the kindergarten. Here again, the best I can do is to quote from the same authority: “Observe the child who is repeating his lesson. It is impossible for him to stand still ; his eyes wander to the ceiling, to the right, to the left; his legs, his arms, his whole body is in motion. * * * In a word, the child has need of movement even when he is studying.”* Now, these mean- ingless movements are entirely apart from his lesson. If. however, they are suggested or demanded by the subject on which the attention is to be fixed, their effect on atten- tion might be much more controlling. A wise reason, as it seems to me, for the preference of geological study over studies of a sedentary and more bookish character, is the delight which the student expe- riences in the observational kind of study, f Such delight is experienced at all stages of life, because it is generally less wearying to give attention and thought to concrete themes than to abstract ones. But it becomes the greater as the student is nearer the stage of life when observation is the characteristic activity of the mind. I have never known the student of any age to pursue the subject by the observational method without experiencing great sat- isfaction. More often, the work is described as delight- ful. Boys and girls in the Ann Arbor Grammar School have no need of declaring their pleasure in the element- * Compayr6: op. cit., p. 104. + The spirit of the prevailing education is expressed as follows : "The public school aims at information as well as discipline ; it cultivates reflec- tion even more than observation; where spontaneity fails to enlist the pupil’s efforts in prescribed lines, it resorts to enforced activity ; when attrac- tive motives fail, it employs some sort of painful stimulation : it purposes to inform or furnish the mind through the interpretation of books."— Payne: Science of Education, p. 130. GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 125 ary study of geology.* since tlieir zeal and interest are expressed in their faces, and in the industry with which they strive to enlarge the store of their obsevations. f It is proper here to again remind the reader that it is not necessary to infer that the pleasure of learning by obser- vation arises solely from the exercise of the perceptive faculties and the ease with which the attention is fixed on concrete objects. There is as much reason to believe that delight arises with the exercise of the reflective powers which perception wakens into activity. On these themes, the data of which are held before attention so easily and so steadily, the thinking faculty acts with clearness of conception and jileasurable stimulation. It is reasonable to insist, therefore, that part of the pleasure which accom- panies seeing is the pleasure of thinking. How grandly this view of observational culture rises above that which contemplates it as a mere animal activity. The nature of the pleasure experienced during observa- tional study, deserves a still closer scrutiny. A peculiar pleasure accompanies the discovery of truth. That which * Under the instruction of Eliza Ladd. 1 1 beg to append here part of a communication from Rev. J. T. Sunder- land, of Ann Arbor, under date of December 1, 1886. “I have a son of thirteen,” he says, “and a daughter of eleven who, through the influence of your books, in the hands of a good teacher, have become deeply interested in geological study. Especially is this true of the boy. A year ago he was given in school, a term upon your ‘ Excursions,’ and to my surprise, I found him within two weeks, more eager to find out the marvels which the book reveals in garden and field, than to play ball or marbles. Nor does the inter- est show any sign of waning. Every spare hour he can get he is either digging into some book on geology or out ivith his hammer looking for 1 specimens.’ “ I am convinced that there is no scientific study better adapted to the wants of children than geology, partly because it is capable of being made so interesting, even to the very young, and partly because it takes them out of doors so much, and affords so much training for the hands and the eye.” A great amount of similar testimony is at hand from various parts of our country. 126 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? is learned by independent search, whether perceptive or reflective, is an original discovery, and brings a peculiar intellectual delight. No scholar or student can fail to understand this. In the progress of observational study, every new observation is of the nature of a new discovery, and every new conception is also of the nature of a new discovery. These are discoveries pure and simple only in proportion as the observer and thinker has proceeded without external prompting. But unless the prompting has been of such unwise character as to take the pupil’s mind off its feet, and literally bear it along, there still remains an element of discovery, which is accompanied by a portion of the discoverer’s delight. Thus the pleasure which accompanies observational study is derived, (1) From the exercise of the bodily organs; (2) From the exercise of the senses; (3) From the exercise of the reflective powers; (4) From the process of the discovery of truth new to the learner. It may be necessary to remind the reader that this is largely intellectual delight — not a pleasurable state of the ordinary emotions. It is the essential constituent of enthusiasm. A student experiencing one or more of these forms or sources of delight is in the condition styled enthusiastic. Every one recognizes it as a sound psy- chologic, and therefore, sound j)edagogic, principle, that enthusiasm is a motive power; and therefore an enthusias- tic student proceeds nnder a stronger impulse, and conse- quently will accomplish more, than a student destitute of enthusiasm. Let it be remembered that enthusiasm is a pleasurable state of mind made up of four pleasures sepa- rable in thought. It must thus appear that the most suc- cessful pursuit of study is that accompanied by the pleas- GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 127 urable emotions awakened by the cognition of the truths which form the object of study. So far certainly, emo- tion and intellection are not only compatible with each other, but mutually creative. If, however, a boy in the eager and interested pursuit of some study receives intelligence of the sudden death of his mother, a new emotion is aroused, which takes com- mand of his attention and his thoughts, and of course interferes with study. So if a brass band passes along the street, the boy’s attention is at first diverted, and then held diverted by the new interest felt in the music, the step, the glitter of the instruments and the uniform. In a similar way, any occasion of deep emotion takes com- mand of the attention, and therefore of the thoughts, aud thus incajiacitates the individual for thinking on themes not connected with the occasion. This incapacity is most complete in reference to themes where the attention needs to be most exclusive and most uninterrupted, as in mathe- matical, metaphysical and other abstract reasonings. It will be admitted too, that intellectual enthusiasm based on the contemplation of any theme, may rise so high as to propel thought and speech more rapidly than the logi- cal perceptions are able to take note of the congruities or incongruities in the associations of concepts, or the legiti- macy of the relations of consecutiveness, or cause and con- sequence, in the concepts which rush before the mind. The simple result of excess of enthusiasm then, is, that statements may be made which, by not being duly exam- ined and criticised, go beyond the strict truth. In other words, enthusiasm tends to exaggerate — whatever may be its usefulness in warming the imagination, improving the style, and imparting an efficient propulsive power. 128 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? But do such exceptional cases of the antagonism be- tween thought and emotion justify the broad statement of some recent authors that emotional interest in study should be kept within narrow limits? Can it be logically inferred that the ready susceptibility to emotion disquali- fies for exact, patient and prolonged investigation? It seems to me the inconsequence is so obvious that it never could have attained standing as an educational dic- tum had it not found expression under the authority of respected names. Mr. Bain tells us the normal condition for thinking is “the quiescence of the emotions.” This evidently, is one of those partial truths more injurious than error. So Chancellor Payne informs us that “the mutual exclusion of thought and feeling” is a “first truth” in psychology, and he reminds us that “the direct tendency of mental culture is to weaken the empire of passions and emotions” — a sentiment which taken by itself, has not been called in question since the age of Plato. But Mr. Payne makes it an adjunct and argument in support of his thesis that “Sense activity y;er se is unfavorable to thinking,” and that this is illustrated by the fact that “the savage is a living example of persistent sense-train- ing.” These phrases are as conservative as the utterances of the Delphic Oracle. But they are employed in the progress of an argument the obvious effect of which is to discourage early observational studies. If they are not so intended, they have little connection with the general tenor of the discourse. But taken as utterances without such implication they are platitudes. Sense activity per se is nothing but sense activity, and the reader needs no telling that in such state of mind no thinking goes on. As a con- crete psychological fact, however, there is no sense activity GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 129 per se — that is an abstraction of thought. Sense activity is always accompanied by reflective activity, by memory, by imagination and by sentiment; and sense activity quickens these and is quickened by them. Philosophically, it is an idle speculation to inquire what must result in a percipi- ent being which only perceives. It is a truism to state that when only the senses act, there is no memory or reflec- tion. It is as fruitless as an identical equation. Some- thing similar comes of an analysis of the dogma that “thought and feeling are mutually exclusive.” If this is strictly true, they cannot coexist, but we know that they do coexist, and in many cases are mutually stimulative. If the dogma then is not true as a psychologic and peda- gogic fact, it can only be true as an absti’act conception — that is, thought per se or pure thought is exclusive of feeling per se or pure feeling. This is merely another truism. It now seems evident from this examination, that it is not a “first principle” in psychology that “thought and feeling are mutually exclusive,” but that the truth lies in enunciations somewhat like the following : Feeling interferes with thought when its cause is incon- gruous with the subject of thought. It then diverts attention from the subject of thought. Feeling promotes thought when its cause exists in the subject of thought. It then fixes attention on the sub- ject of thought. These propositions are true whether the feeling is an emotion, a sentiment or an enthusiasm.* * This assumed -'broad psychological principle " has been more copiously discussed by Principal J. M. B. Sill of the Michigan Normal School, and he has clearly exposed itsuntenability. His conclusion is expressed in such sen- tences as the following: “We know that the roots of all directed thinking, 9 130 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Now, since it is also a true principle that juvenile study needs most the stimulus of congenial feeling, it follows that the pleasing pursuit of observational geology meets the obvious requirements of juvenile education. Other reasons exist for the early pursuit of observa- tional geology. It deals with common and familiar things, and these better deserve attention and study than things remote and unfamiliar. The common facts about us sug- gest incomparably more answers than things uncommon and seldom seen. The every day inquiries raised by intel- ligence — especially in the child — are most prompted by things most seen. Around these the great body of the child's mental activities cluster. The greater part of the familiar things in the data of the child’s life are data of geology. The, pebble serves him for attack on a dog. The thin stone 1iq “skips” on the surface of the pond. On a “slate” he works his weary “sums” in arithmetic — writing his figures with a different slate, or spreading them with chalk crayon on the blackboard. He finds the potter and the brickmaker moulding the clay, and at the top of the clay-bed finds marl. He notes the iron-stain along the bottom of the hillside rill, and stumbles over the iron-ore in the bog. The tearing action of the recent storm arrests his notice by the roadside, and the broadened distribu- tion of the material at the lower levels illustrates the nature of all sedimentation. The points of contact be- tween the boy and the data of geology are innumerable, of all choosing and willing, flourish only in the soil of feeling.” * * * “ Without certain limitations, [the assumed law] does not conform to the facts, and is moreover, a dangerous warrant for excluding feeUng, that is to say, interest and animation, from the processes of instruction. Limited so as to make it true to the facts, it is only the fragment of the truth, and of no pedagogical value.” — Sill, in Report , Superintendent of Public Instruction for Michigan , 1887. GEOLOGY IX THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 131 and stretch along the entire history of his school life. Why should he not early learn as much as he easily can about the nature of these objects and the purport of these actions ? It is a great advantage possessed by these studies, that they can be pursued out of doors, and without books. Bookish studies are not only a persecution of Nature, but require generally, an in-door life so repugnant to the boy’s instincts. With geology as recognized study, he pursues it while he goes fishing or hunts his chestnuts. He cannot conceal himself from the presence of the stimuli to his study, and feels no disposition to do so, since every observation made, or truth learned, is the answer to one of the questions which his curiosity had raised. Interested in these things which have commanded his attention, and yielded him answers to the spontaneous questionings of his intelligence, he makes no appoint- ments to meet with boys of evil influence, and remains inexperienced in the low pleasures of ribald conversation in the street or the saloon. By these studies too, he preserves that symmetry of mind and that equable susceptibility to appeals of truth from all directions, which tend toward balance of charac- ter and happiness in life. The influence of the prevailing education is to bring atrophy to the powers of scientific observation, and to encourage pride in the confession of total ignorance about certain matters with which we daily collide ; and which thus exert a happy influence on our daily life, if we can understand and control them ; but which checker it with ignorant blanks and stupid imbe- cilities if we learn to look upon them from no higher stand-point than the ox or the ass. The glibness and 132 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY t lack of shame with which people confess such ignorance of the common things which environ them, is in itself a lamentable state of helplessness, and a daily impeachment of the educational system which permits it. Before the hebetude of the percipient faculties has been accomplished by school-room tasks ; before his predispositions have been determined in directions which exclude observa- tional study, the boy (or girl) should receive such sense- training as will start all his faculties on the way to equal culture and equal usefulness. It is a monstrous doctrine that early years must be consumed in committing the par- adigms of etymology, while other subjects exactly suited to the predispositions of childhood must be postponed to maturer years. It is a shocking error of some of our pedagogic veterans, that geology is difficult, and must come after the mental powers are mature ; that geology is dry, and must be imposed on the student when his good judgment and strong will may whip his faculties into assent ; that geology has low culture value, and therefore need not he introduced, unless some cramped and obscure little corner can he found, in which the curriculum is not yet filled. When, in later school-life, the pupil is asked to take up geology, he is likely to have acquired prejudices which avert his choice : or he has predisposi- tions acquired which carry him with resistless momentum along the grooves in which his early tutelage placed him. While this is the very result which the advocates of the current system desire, I cannot regard it otherwise than with regret and disapprobation. Another reason of grave importance for the early intro- duction of the elements of geology is found in the fact that the school-life of most children is so brief that unless GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 133 taken early, the pupil acquires no information on the sub- ject. What a total lack of information means, and costs the person, I have heretofore attempted to render evident. I have also enforced the duty of the schools to introduce geology in sub-collegiate courses, for the reason that most students do not enter college and must obtain geological education in the lower school or not at all. I press the thought still farther by recalling the fact that most pupils do not complete even a secondary education, and must therefore obtain geological training early in the sec- ondary course — often in the primary school — or conclude their schooling in total ignorance of the subject. The inference from these facts is that the primary school should supply a course of trainiDg in the simplest facts of geol- ogy ; the grammar school should supply a more extended course, suited to the intelligence of pupils of that grade ; and the high school should supply a course embodying such elements of the science as would obviate the necessity of beginning with the elements again with such graduates of the high school as enter college. Thus, when the subject is resumed in college, the student would be some- what advanced and would begin to discern both the utility and the higher cultural influence of the study. And such graduates from the high school as do not enter college, would carry with them at least a fair conception of the nature of geology — such as would enable them to continue the reading of popular works — and insure them- selves from the mortification and losses resulting from blank ignorance. This method is an application of the correct principle that the education imparted in every grade should be general, so that if the pupil leaves school early or late, he may have some knowledge of every 134 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? subject important to know ; but with a grade of knowledge symmetrical with that which he takes with him in the generality of subjects. This wise principle was enunciated by Comenius, “who thought the studies should be so arranged in the elemen- tary schools, that in leaving them, the pupil should have a general education which makes it unnecessary for him to go farther, if his condition in life does not destine him to pursue courses of the Latin Schools/’ “We pursue,” says Comenius, “ a general education, the teaching to all men of all the subjects of human concern. * * * The purpose of the people’s school shall be that all children of both sexes, from the tenth to the twelfth or thirteenth year, may be instructed in that knowledge which is useful during the whole life.” * Please note that these are prin- ciples for the organization of the “ common ” school, or vernacula, as he styled it. It was one of the principles of Pestalozzi, also, as Morf has educed the principles embodied in Pestalozzi’s prac- tice, that “in each branch instruction ought to begin with the simplest elements, and to progress by degrees while following the development of the child, that is to say, through a series of steps psychologically connected ;” * * * and “instruction ought to follow the order of natural development, and not that of synthetic exposition.” If, happily, the child is allowed to remain in school, the subject of geology should be taken up in each success- ive grade, and in each, such a general view of the science should be imparted as is consistent with the general advance of the pupil’s education. Each successive return to the subject will, therefore, be more thoughtful, more * Comenius: Orbis pictus, as quoted by CompayrA GEOLOGY IN THE ORDER OF STUDIES. 135 detailed, and more extended. These returns to the study will secure proper equilibrium of acquirements ; will con- firm habits of inductive thinking and, in the later courses, elicit the higher powers of deduction, and secure the higher culture which belongs to more advanced thought ; and, not the least, they will establish that scientific habit of mind which I have described as capable of exerting a very important ethical influence in all the relations of life. X. EDUCATION VALUES. ^PHE cultural value of geology lias thus far been discussed solely from general principles. These undoubtedly conduct to a true and philosophic result; but it will gratify the intelligent reader to learn what estimates have been placed by others on the educational value of the inductive sciences, and in particular, on the science of geology. It is obvious that as different studies call dif- ferent powers into exercise in different ratio to each other, the educational values of different subjects must be very diverse. The diversity must be grounded on, (1) The relative rank of the various intellectual powers: (2) The amount of exercise afforded by different studies to the several powers. If we take a simple two-fold grouping of the powers — something very inadequate — into percipient and reflective, we may consider, (1) The influence of a study on the percipient powers; (2) Its influence on the reflective powers; (3) The correlation between its influ- ence and the successive stages of the child's mental devel- opment; (4) The ethical influence of the peculiar habits of thought fostered by it. Such discriminations have sometimes been made; and various writers have discussed the relative value and rela- tive successional position of studies suited to discipline especially the percipient faculties, and on the other hand, of those especially suited to discipline the reflective facul- ties. I have already had occasion to cite opinions both 13(5 EDUCATION VALUES. 137 opposing and favoring the early introduction of obser- vational studies; and I have presented an array of reasons supporting their early introduction. I desire here espe- cially to cite and discuss Chancellor Payne’s views on the educational value of certain different subjects of study, and of geology in particular. He states and clearly illus- trates the two kinds of educational value commonly recognized, the practical and disciplinary — that part of the result of study which I have called useful knowledge, and that which I have called culture. He then lays down these principles: 1. “Educational science must have first and chief ref- erence to the pupil as a member of the human race, and living under the law of ascent toward the type of his kind ; and a subordinate reference to the pupil as an individual destined to move in a fixed habitat. 2. “ The type of education should be humane or liberal, rather than professional or technical. 3. “The type of instruction should be disciplinary rather than practical. 4. “In the acquirement of disciplinary knowledge, the mind must work under high tension; a much lower tension suffices for the acquisition of useful knowledge. Even in this domain, action and reaction are equal.” * In combating the positions of Mr. Spencer, Chancellor Payne asserts that practical and disciplinary values are not the same, and that “they are usually in the inverse ratio to each other.” In reference to practical knowledge, he introduces a discrimination into direct and indirect. That is direct “ which we use for daily guidance, that we must have as * Payne: Science of Education, p. 59. 138 SHALL WE TEACII GEOLOGY t a personal possession.” That is indirect “ which we need only on occasions, and that we cannot afford to acquire, but which we can hire.” The practical value of physio- logical knowledge is mostly of the indirect kind, and should be left to professional study. “ Only the simplest rudiments come within the range of the average pupil’s opportunities.” The direct value is therefore small. Speaking next, of the disciplinary value of studies, he divides them into specific and tonic — terms derived from the actions of medicines on the human body. Mathe- matics, exercising almost exclusively the faculty of deduc- tive reasoning, are a specific. “ The disciplinary value of local geography is of the specific type, for the study chiefly involves the effort of memory. The tendency of botanical study is to teach the art of classifying, and so it calls into play the power of observing and discriminating. The experimental study of physiology furnishes a training in inductive reasoning, and in this sense is specific.” “ Quite broadly distinguished from studies of the specific type are studies like history, geography and literature, that affect the mind as a whole, involving both thinking and feeling, calling into play several distinct modes of intellectual activity, and so producing what is known as culture. * The disciplinary effect of studies of this type I would call tonic.” The tonic value he otherwise would call “culture value, for, if I mistake not,” he says, “the *.The author’s conception of culture is modified in the latter part of the essay. “ Culture is not so much a state of potency as a possession ; or rather, it is a state of potency accompanied by the pleasing consciousness of posses- sion. Hence knowledge may be acquired, [1] For the practical use that can be made of it; [2] For the mental power generated by the efforts at acquire- ment; [3] For the mental satisfaction coming from the consciousness of it. If I mistake not, that state of soul we caU culture implies serenity, poise and contemplative delight.” The literary conception of culture has been con- sidered in a former portion of this discussion. EDUCATION VALUES. 139 main elements in culture are catholicity or comprehensive- ness of mind, and emotion, tempered, refined and subser- vient to the intellect and will. It would seem that a study to have a high culture value, must embody the fol- lowing characteristics: It must be concerned with a unit that is vast and imposing, capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity; and involving the main activ- ities of the whole mind; must appeal strongly to the nobler sentiments of humanity; and must impress the mind with a sense of a comprehensive, organic unity. All these marks are found in geography, literature and his- tory, as will be seen from the following statements: The unit of geographical study is the earth, regarded as the dwelling place of man; the unit of literature is the aggre- gate of the best things thought by the human race; the unit of historical study is the aggregate of the most nota- ble things done by the human race. In each case the unit is imposing; embodies a very large human element; and in the end, remains a comprehensive, concrete aggregate.” * * * (( j n one respect astronomy is a culture subject par excellence — the unit of study has such vastness and complexity. In another respect, the human element, it is inferior to geography. Geology, as an independent study, lias still less culture value than geography — it has no independent unit that is imposing; though when super- added to geography, it raises the culture value of the latter. Chemistry has scarcely any culture value, as it has been defined. It has neither of the three marks required. The same may be said of physics, botany, mineralogy and zoology. If there be any exception, it is in the case of botany and zoology, in which there is the phenomenon of life.” Thus the author frames a definition 140 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? and by its use relegates the different studies to their places in the scale of education values. To illustrate further Chancellor Payne’s method, and the conclusions to which it has guided him, I reproduce here, one of his tables, in which the education value, practical and disciplinary, of several studies is indicated. Subjects. Practical. Disciplinart. Direct. Indirect. Specific. Toxic. Reading, . . High. Low. Low. Low. Grammar, . . Medium. Low. High. Medium. History, . . . Low. Medium . Low. High. Geography, . . Low. Medium. Low. High. Arithmetic, . Medium. Low. High. Low. Physiology, . . Low. High. Low. Low. Physics, . . . Medium. High. Low. Medium. Botany, . . . Low. Medium. Low. Medium. Literature, . . Low. Medium. Low. High. In another table Chancellor Payne has given an analy- sis of the cultural value of certain studies, showing at what he estimates it for each of the faculties exercised, thus: Subject. Memory. Observa- tion. Reason. Imagina- tion. Feeling. Compre- hension. Arithmetic. Botany. Geography. Medium. High. High. High. High. Medium. High. Medium. Medium. High. History. Literature. Physics. Physiology. Grammar. High. Low. Medium. Medium. Medium. Medium. High. Medium. Medium. High. Medium. High. High. High. Medium. Low. In this table a blank does not imply that no effect is produced by the study. By comprehension he means “ the mental grasping of a definite whole. A study that serves this purpose must be concerned with a unit that is large and imposing.” EDUCATION VALUES. 141 I have given a somewhat extended exposition of Chan- cellor Payne’s views, because they constitute the ablest and most discerning attempt known to me to reach the core of the question of education values. It may appear presumptuous for a writer little known in the field of ped- agogy to offer any serious criticisms. The first impulse of diffidence and personal friendship is to refrain from criticism; but second thought assures me that Chancellor Payne would desire another to express his convictions with the same freedom as he has himself exercised; and if this is done with the candor and good spirit which he has employed, I think some progress may be made toward a clear and adequate conception of the subject. A divergence between us begins in the statement of general principles. His second principle is not suffi- ciently defined. I assume the reference to be to child- hood education, and with that understanding I consider the principle sound, unless the author, by “ professional education,” contemplates much more than I understand by it. As subsequently, he sets down geology as having a low culture value, and, in respect to practical value, affords knowledge which it is better to “ hire ” than to possess, I infer that geology is viewed as a “professional ” study, to be excluded from general education. From this position I dissent ; and I hope good grounds for this have been shown. In his third principle we discern an outcrop of the Jesuitical doctrine which, from time to time, has offended the better judgment of educators during three centuries, but which Chancellor Payne arises in the latter part of the nineteenth century to reassert and rehabilitate. For reasons which I have given, childhood education should U2 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY i be both disciplinary and practical* If there are any stu- dies which afford both culture aud useful knowledge, they should in preference be pursued. The antithesis of prac- tical and cultural learning is a fiction. The discipline received by the engineer in the acquirement of his pro- fession does not disappear on the discovery that his knowledge is useful. The distinction which the author makes between direct and indirect practical knowledge is intelligible, but impos- sible of application. Physiological knowledge, he affirms, has little direct, but great indirect value. That is, for the profession of medicine, it is constantly and widely useful, but for the average citizen it possesses but little use. Now that depends on the status and intelligence of the citizen. Many citizens desire to possess for their own use quite an extensive knowledge of the laws of physio- logical action, and of the hygiene which is based upon them. Several state legislatures have made the teach- ing of physiology compulsory in the primary schools. This is pretty strong evidence that the civil authorities * This true philosophy is reaching the convictions of students who think for themselves and refuse to follow the leading strings of tradition. In a recent number of “ The Chronicle” published by the students of the University of Michigan, I find very explicit utterances from which I extract the following passages : “ A great deal of nonsense has been and is being constantly written about the value of the classics as a ‘ means of training the intellect.’ If the training of the intellect is the end and aim of a classical education, the sooner classical education is cast aside as a worn-out and useless garment, the better it will be for everybody concerned. If the chief recommendation that a study can claim is that it is adapted to be used as an instrument for mental gymnastics, that study had better be consigned as quickly as possible to the limbo of forgotten things.” * * * “ My college education, so far as the classics have been concerned — and the classics have constituted a large part of it— has been a complete, an ignominous, a disgraceful failure.” Whether such failure is due to defective instruction in one of the most famous universities of the country, or to inadequate adaptations inherent in the nature of the subject, will with many, remain a question. EDUCATION VALUES. 143 do not regard such knowledge strictly professional. Sim- ilar statements may be made of a knowledge of land mensuration; a knowledge of injurious insects and their habits; a knowledge of common minerals, useful and use- less. How much of knowledge capable of professional use shall be put before the common learner is a question which ought to be generously answered; for, plainly, the better the citizen is prepared to estimate the competency of the professional man who takes his money, the less the incompetent will flourish. Quackery in the professional luxuriates by the side of ignorance in the client. If the distinction here noted is observed, it might be designated general and professional practical knowledge. Of the distinction of disciplinary studies into specific and tonic, I have to say that it does not seem to exist as a fact. What is the “tonic” or constitutional influence exerted by “ studies like history, geography and literature” — Mr. Payne's trivium of culture studies ? He says they “ affect the mind as a whole, involving both thinking and feeling, calling into play several distinct modes of intellectual activity, and so producing what is known as culture.” Take first history: if it brings into activity “the mind as a whole,” that must be the same thing as “involving both thinking and feeling,” and “calling into play dis- tinct modes of intellectual activity.” Now, what are those modes ? Is it not notorious that pursued in the grammar school, and even in the high school, the verbal memory is the principal power exercised P That is the complaint of pupils. So far then, the influence is specific and not tonic; and it holds the same place as mathematics, which trains chiefly the deductive reason. Should it be replied that history is often pursued in college in such a 144 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? way as to elicit into play a much wider range of powers, that may be granted; but this does not prove history an efficient culture study for the lower schools; and my argu- ments here concern chiefly the lower schools. Take geography, another one of Mr. Payne’s culture trivium — a study which, as generally taught has gained little repute for breadth of discipline — what are its precise claims culturally ? Mr. Payne states that “ local geogra- phy” exerts chiefly an influence “of the specific type, for the study chiefly involves the effort of memory.” How then does it become a “tonic” study in Mr. Payne’s table, where it is set down as having a high “tonic” value ? Does Mr. Payne here contradict himself ? Or does he use the term geography in a different sense from “local geography?” Or does he even join geolog}- to geography — since he says afterward, “when superadded to geography, it raises the culture value of the latter ” — though he does not say “tonic” culture. Mow, in our inability to arrive at the author’s meaning, let us consider the subject on its merits. By geography we generally understand “civil geography.” Books on this subject generally begin with preliminaries of an astronomical and geometrical kind. When we have passed equinoxes, sol- stices, tropics, parallels, meridians and zones, we enter upon a desert of “local geography” — made up of names of continents, islands, capes, rivers, countries, cities, populations, productions, exports and other matter for stocking a catalogue. The study of school geography consists chiefly in committing to memory this catalogue. This throws a burdensome effort on the verbal memory. The study is therefore chiefly specific, as Mr. Payne first describes it. But so far as maps are used, an opportunity EDUCATION' VALUES. 145 exists for bringing imagination into activity. This result is obtained chiefly by drawing maps from memory, and not by sets of rules. I conceive that something may also be learned of the population of nationalities and districts. Though this is ethnography, we may credit it to geogra- phy, and still find little beyond an exercise of memory. How then does geography become a “culture study” of “high tonic” value ? How does it find place in the hon- ored “culture trivium ?” Apparently it does not belong there. Obviously, several other studies could be named which exercise more than the memory — more than memory and imagination. With all humility, I think geology can do it. But perhaps by geography Chancellor Payne under- stands “civil geography” plus “physical geography.” The latter I confess, possesses many excellences for cul- ture which the former lacks. But it is made up of a large constituent of physiographic geology, large constit- uents of botany and zoology, and a considerable constit- uent of ethnography. It is a happy combination, and finds an appreciative reception in the school. But the whole study is a study of facts, and levies exactions chiefly on the verbal memory — since such treatises do not go far enough to disclose the great doctrines which may be generalized from the facts. Why should this study be regarded as highly capable of “tonic” culture ? Take literature, * the third member of Mr. Payne’s *1 find the term literature employed in the three following senses: — 1. The broader sense. All thoughts, perceptions and sentiments reduced to expression by letters is literature, etymologically speaking. Every branch of science has its literature. Whatever has been written upon it, belongs broadly to this category. 2. The humanistic sense. This excludes writings which are the products of exact or abstract thought. It excludes mathemat- ics and its applications. It excludes treatises on science in which the leading 10 146 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? “culture trivium” — what is it ? He says, “The unit of literature is the aggregate of the best things thought by the human race.” Evidently, the author does not include the geometry of Euclid, nor the “ Principia ” of Newton, nor the “ Mecanique celeste ” of Laplace, nor any of the other “ best things thought ” within the realm of physi- cal and natural science. It does not even include the masterpieces of composition on themes within those realms. If I may judge from the outgivings of the literary guild, it does not include the “ Old Red Sandstone” of Hugh Miller, nor the eloquent “eloges” pronounced over the the decedents of the French Academy of Sciences. It excludes therefore, all compositions fruitful and rich in scientific thought. The whole range of scientific con- ceptions lies outside of “ literature,” and their disciplin- ary influence cannot be claimed for literature. They are not claimed. Literature ignores them. Literature does not claim the best thoughts of phil- osophy and theology. Kant’s “ Kritik der reinen Yer- nunft ” has no more place here than Leibnitz’s “ Theo- dice,” or Aquinas’ “ Summa Theologite.” None of these themes would be pursued in college as literature. Gro- tius’ “ Law of Nations ” and Kent’s “ Commentaries ” are equally beyond the pale of literature. object is to impart information. It excludes grammatical, logical and metaphysical works. It includes, however, all treatises on these themes -which, with instruction, unite appeals to imagination, sentiment or emotion, and thus aim to please as well as to instruct. In this sense, certain writings on astronomy, geology, or organic life are admissible to recognition as literature. Many historical treatises would be admitted here. 3. The nar- rower sense. This embraces belles lettres or polite literature. Its aim is to move chiefly the emotions, sentiments and imagination. It seeks to please. Thought is secondary. Instruction is widely alien to its purpose. Still, the most enduring specimens of polite literature are those in which moral and religious lessons are taught by implication. The narrower sense is that employed by Chancellor Payne. EDUCATION VALUES. 147 Literature in the present connection does not embrace historical writings, for they are bracketed with literature in the culture trivium. With all these exclusions liter- ature is pronounced by Chancellor Payne to be “the aggregate of the best things thought by the human race.” What remains of the recorded thought of the world is made up chiefly of poetry, romances, tales. All poetry, good and bad, has entrance here. I suppose poems like the elder Darwin's “Botanic Garden” would be excepted. Poetry is addressed to feeling and imagination. Good poetry is the work of rare genius, and the masterpieces of poetry are worthy almost of veneration. Prose works of fiction belong here. They are addressed to the same departments of our nature. Many works of this class are also masterpieces of genius to be enjoyed by all, and analyzed by the scholar. The feelings concerned are mostly of the social class, but sometimes ethical or relig- ious. They bring us nearer to humanity and to God. But this is an ethical, not an intellectual culture. A lower grade of fiction claiming the literary christening, floods the book-stalls, drives out good reading, makes but feeble appeals to intelligence or even imagination, but strives chiefly to awaken feeling — even ignoble, groveling or sensual feelings. Through feeling they appeal to favor, and gain some popularity if not standing. Many of them are scarcely to be classed among the products of mind. Such is literature in its psychological relations. As means of culture, it exercises the imagination, the social feel- ings, and to a smaller extent taste, verbal memory and the ethical sentiments. 148 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Behold then, the “culture trivium.” Geography, training chiefly the verbal memory. History, training chiefly the verbal memory. Literature, training chiefly the imagination, feeling and taste. The types of culture studies provide for little or no training of Observation, Comparison, Classification. In- duction, Thought-memory, Deduction. They inspire no scientific spirit, create no scientific habit of thought, and give us no enlarged and ennobling views of God’s world. Geology, which does all this, must be believed to possess only a low culture value, and ought not to find place in the curriculum. Can such philosophy find credence among intelligent teachers ? I wish again to remark that my present investigation concerns studies as usually taught, and in schools of the lower order. In college, history and literature are often pursued in a nobler and more cultural way; and physical geography, [if that is what Chancellor Payne means] is studied as a part of geology, and yields its appropriate cultural influence. It is to be presumed that Chancellor Payne conceived these studies under their most favorable conditions for producing culture. In these examinations it does not appear that any of the favored studies exert either a constitutional influence on the soul, or an influence “ involving the main activities of the whole mind.” So that I do not discover ground for a distinction of cultural influence into “specific” and “tonic.” All cultural influence when analyzed, is spe- cific, but some is of a wider range. I desire to carry the examination somewhat farther. According to Chancellor Payne’s definition of study EDUCATION VALUES. 149 having high cultural value, it must embody the following characteristics: 1. “It must be concerned with a unit that is vast and imposing, capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity, and involving the main activities of the whole mind. 2. “ It must appeal strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity. 3. “ It must impress the mind with the sense of a com- prehensive organic unity.” These marks, he thinks, are found in geography, litera- ture and history. The “ unit ” of geographical study is the earth, regarded as the dwelling-place of man. But geology, he says, possesses low cultural value, because it has a unit less “vast and imposing,” and less “ capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity.” Is such reasoning intelligible? The unit of geography “involves the main activities of the mind.” We have scarcely found this claim founded on fact. It is a narrow study; it exercises chiefly the verbal memory. To geology Chan- cellor Payne denies the power to elicit into activity the leading faculties of the mind. We have found it more capable of doing this than any other study. Is this the reasoning by which the interests of the prevailing forms of education are to be promoted ? “If geography also bears the second mark of high cul- tural value, it appeals strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity. ” Every boy of twelve years understands how strongly geography appeals to his nobler instincts. Every teacher understands how frequently Chancellor Payne’s “painful stimulus” needs to be brought into use. But geology. Chancellor Payne says, has low cultural value, 150 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? because it does not appeal to the nobler instincts of humanity. Is such reasoning intelligible ? I beg the reader to find answer in what I have said on “Geology and Culture.” If geography also bears the third mark, “ It impresses the mind with the sense of a comprehensive organic unity.” The conception of the world as divided up among a thousand nations and tribes — more or less — is not the con- cept of an organic unity — neither of a unity nor an organ- ism. But geology. Chancellor Payne says, possesses only low cultural value, because it does not impress the mind with the sense of a comprehensive organic unity. It does not deal with the totality of the terrestrial globe, and does not present that globe as consisting of mutually related parts, coexisting under an intelligible system of law — neither unity nor organization. Is such reason- ing intelligible ? Again, he says that literature bears the mark of a highly cultural study. “The unity of literature is the aggregate of the best things thought by the human race.” But this, as I have shown, is not understood to embrace the best thoughts recorded in physical science, in natural sci- ence, in philosophy, in theology, in jurisprudence or in history. Is this a philosopher’s conception of the best thoughts of mankind P Is this his conception of an aggre- gate conveying the “ concept of unity ?” Is this an intel- ligible unity, either concrete, ideal, or constructive ? About the same as that possessed by the literature of a hotel “ register.” Further, he says this unity of literature is “imposing, capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity.” What an imposing “aggregate of all the EDUCATION VALUES. 151 best thoughts of the race” remains after all the truly best thoughts are hewn away ! Literature, he thinks, bears the second “mark” by appealing strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity. In this view I am happy to agree — if, by common consent, we can disown those floods of fiction and tales of society which appeal chiefly to the animal sentiments, and sap intelligence of all virility. Literature, he thinks, bears the third “ mark” by “ impressing the mind with the sense of a comprehensive organic unity.” Its comprehensiveness comprehends a certain remainder of “best thoughts,” after most of the really best thoughts of the race have been banished to the outer realm. It is comprehensive, however, in the sense of including all vapid fiction and limping metre, from the country newspaper story to the bit of doggerel hidden in the corner of the little -read weekly. Its unity is expressed in the endless diversity of themes treated, of tales recited, of styles employed, of languages which enshrine it. In matter and method the unity of litera- ture is that of a common-place book. One fibre of genuine unity runs through it — high and low, good and bad alike — its basal motive is human sentiment and human passion. Again he says that history bears the marks of a highly cultural study. “ Its unit is the aggregate of the most notable things done by the human race.” This unity is “vast and imposing, capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity, and involving the main activities of the whole mind.” On the contrary, the unity of his- tory is difficult to conceive. Its matter and form are as diverse as nations, tribes, customs, enterprises, and languages. There is no obvious inclusion of the most 152 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? notable things tinder one concept, with exclusion of less notable things. The human movements which history records tend in directions as various as those of the insects in a jungle. The only unifying principle is the humanity which inspires every movement. In the con- sentaneous movements of nations under one leader and one impulse, the unity is manifest, and the unity is truly “ imposing,” and possesses a moral “ grandeur.” In the due contemplation and interpretation of national or racial movements, we have a spectacle which widens the intelli- gence and impresses the ethical sense. But this belongs to the grade of collegiate study. When further we con- sider the application of the first criterion of a highly cul- tural study, we do not find that history involves the main activities of the whole mind. It occupies verbal memory, comparison, analysis, imagination, and, in advanced study, generalization to a limited extent, analysis of motives, elimination of the forces which move bodies of men, and furnishes occasions for inquiries in physical geography and its connection with history, ethnography, geology, systems of religion, basal religion, morality, laws, customs, languages, civil society and other things. But these ranges of historical study are never reached in schools below collegiate grade. History he says also, “appeals strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity.” The little Miss memorizing par- agraphs from “Green’s History of the English People” can respond to this claim, so far as the lower schools are concerned. In its appeal to the “ instincts ” of pupils of maturer years, it moves chiefly the warlike sentiments: for history is chiefly a narrative of military movements: in which indeed, conspicuous leaders inspire a personal EDUCATION VALUES. 153 interest analogous to that excited by the heroes in tales of fiction. That the central principle in national life is the army, is taught by the lesson of pervading military uni- forms; a national head on daily inspection of his favorite corps; a state executive traveling about in time of pro- found peace, accompanied by his “staff,” and the forms pertaining to the organization of department headquar- ters; the astounding pension-roll; the annual “encamp- ment,” and a thousand other evidences that at least one national eye is always fixed on war. Wars, conquests, surrenders, treaties, — these are the themes of history. Can such history “ appeal strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity ?” History, Chancellor Payne affirms, in applying his third criterion of a highly cultural study, “ impresses the mind with the sense of a comprehensive organic unity.” On the unity of history I have remarked. Its compre- hensiveness is a fugitive concept. Its “ organic ” char- acteristics are a name — vox et pr cetera nihil. Adopting then, Chancellor Payne’s three criteria of a highly cultural study, and applying them to Chancellor Payne’s selected type-studies, we find that those studies shrink away from the test, while geology, kicked into the limbo of neglect, rises with a prompt and intelligible response, and establishes its claim to a first place in the “trivium of culture.” An examination of Dr. Payne’s table of educational values would provoke considerable dissent, but as he has not honored geology by mention among studies having noticeable culture value, I proceed to an exhibit of the education value of geology which seems rational and just. I present first, a logical scheme of the principal divisions 154 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? of geological study, and next a scheme of the forms of education value afforded by the study. The Roman numerals in the second scheme correspond to the same in the first scheme. O O ci > Scheme of Education Values of Geology. EDUCATION VALUES. 155 The rationale of the above schemes has been presented in chapters IV and V. In the scheme for education values it is supposed the capacity of the subject is exhausted, without regard to age of pupil. It is obvious that while for children, observational geology has high cultural value, deductive geology has very little. While for adults, inductive and deductive geology have a high value, observational geology has a lower value than for children. It is lower both relatively and absolutely. It would be interesting to draw up a table in which an estimated numerical value should be assigned to each of the forms of education-value given in the last scheme; and these might be fixed for three different stages of mental development. Such a table is attempted below. The scale is 1 to 10. Education Values. Age. Age. Age. 10- 15. 12-18. 15-20. General practical ...... 1' 1 3 •5 8 -18 12 Professional practical 0 2 10 12 Observation 10’ 10 1 6' 26 Sense-memory ►4 10 10 6 26 Comparison o Eh O H 7 7 8 22 Inductive judgment .... 3 •39 6 -56 10 -68 19 Thought-memory 3 6 10 19 Imagination 4 7 8 19 Deductive judgment 1 5 10 16 Imagination 1 _ 5 10 J 16 Nobler views l' 10 17 Enlightened faith ►4 1 6 10 17 Preoccupation o 10 ^22 8 -30 p 6 i 34 24 Scientific habit of mind . . . la 10 . 10 . 8 J 28 62 91 120 273 Quantitative estimates for different stages of mental development. 156 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? The accuracy of such a table depends of course on one’s best judgment. Supposing this table to possess approx- imate accuracy, it shows that for aggregate intellectual culture, the later years excel ; for the formation of habits of observation, the earlier years excel. For aggregate ethical influence, the maturer study is most effective ; but for the establishment of the scientific habit, the earlier years are the most favorable. Practical values are of course greatest in maturer study. The special reason for early study is, that the observing powers are then in full exercise, and geology supplies a most apt employ- ment ; while the reflective powers have not yet come into exercise, and abstract studies are egregiously misfit. The sums in the last column show the relative total values of each kind, when the study is pursued through school-life. The sums at the bottom show the aggregate education value of geology at each of the three stages of intellectual development. This table is to be regarded as tentative ; and further suggestions would be very gladly received. It would be instructive to have tables similarly con- structed to set forth the education values of the other studies pursued in the schools, especially the lower schools, but I prefer to leave others to assume the res- ponsibility of recording estimates. I permit myself, however, to form a table of educational values of Chan- cellor Payne’s “culture trivium.” I do not present it as an estimate exactly parallel with the estimate which I have made for geology. The geological table, as I have stated, represents geology at its best, while the trivium table represents the trivium studies as ordinarily pursued. Should we form a table for geology as ordinarily pursued, and a table for the trivium studies taken at their best, Numerical Estimates for different stages of devolopment. EDUCATION VALUES. 157 CULTURAL. ^ H S 3 ? O 2 <5 ^ - So ETHICAL. tr o cp o ~ O ® p - 'z - o CD ~ INTELLECTUAL. © O O lO o o — © Practical. O a o n KH o < f 1 ? > OOOOIOOCOh-*- o ^ o co t<* > OOOO O^rf^COCOCOOCC CO i O O O O O H-t. O CO CO 4^ O or to »— »■ co o o co ^ co o OOOO . »"*■ I- o I OOOO i-* h J © O O O ^ ^C0h^C0h->-C 0O^ o CO t— *■ h- | 00 CO 1 O O O >-*• ! COrf^COOCOOOCO : o OOOH-*-OOOTCOO — oo o Or O GO o o o g p JO > ^ aq 00 P £ > O O O CO CO o o to o 00 O O CO o 0 ^-‘-tOOO i ©0 5 !' ^ CO 05 CO CO o o o o o OT J> cn ^ CO CO 05 O O 1 O CULTURE TRIVTUM OF PAYNE. 158 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? the education values of the former would be much low- ered, and those of the latter much raised — especially in geography. Still, we should find important faculties left by the culture trivium entirely or nearly unaffected ; and in general, the ethical influence would be compara- tively low. The ethical influence of literature is an uncertain quantity — sometimes high and positive, some- times zero, and sometimes negative. The scientific spirit would be hardly aroused at all. As to jn’actical values ; it is the characteristic of the prevailing pedagogic doc- trine, that the most appropriate studies are those which do not possess them ; and with that view, the trivium studies are well selected types. XI. OBSTACLES TO REFORM. N an earlier part of this discussion I have reproduced returns from numerous schools in the state of Michi- gan, showing the extremely subordinate position of geolog- ical study in those schools, with condensed statements of the reasons assigned for the general absence of geology from the courses pursued. This exposition of facts has been followed by a consideration of what geology is, and the claims it presents for ampler recognition. I trust the reader has followed the discussion with just and generous sympathy for the rights of geology. If so, he will be pre- pared to recall the facts stated in the returns from the schools, and to join in an examination of the validity and reasonableness of the causes assigned for holding geology back from a prominent place in the education of the State and of other states. I desire first of all, however, to acknowledge my obliga- tions to the numerous teachers, principals and superin- tendents "who have taken the pains to reply to my circular, and to express my admiration of the intelligent manner in which so many of them have treated the subject. Three facts are prominently conspicuous in these re- turns. 1. A general appreciation exists of the interest and value of geological study, and a desire for its intro- duction in the higher grades. 2. An almost unanimous conviction that it ought to have a place in the lower grades. 3. The possession of the ground by other subjects 159 1G0 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY P which the ruling authorities regard of more fundamental importance. The first two facts are of an encouraging character. Without the assent and good wishes of the teachers, the effort to improve the educational status of geology would be extremely arduous if not hopeless. With their general sympathy and approval, little remains but to examine in detail the practical obstacles to the end proposed, and if possible to remove them. The nature of the antagonistic influence of the Univer- sity may be explained in few words. In the academic department, the University maintains four general courses popularly denominated: 1. The Classical course, lead- ing to the degree of Bachelor of Arts [A.B., or Artium Baccalaureus\. 2. The Latin-Scientific course, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy [Ph.B., or Philo- sophic Baccalaureus ]. 3. The Scientific course, lead- ing to the degree of Bachelor of Science [B.S.], and, 4. The English course, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Letters [B.L.]. The general course for the degree of A.B. is the standard course in the history of universities, requiring Latin, Greek, Mathematics, French. English and Philosophy. The requirements for graduation in the several general courses are indicated by the letter G, in the following table.* * Since this chapter went to press the Academic Faculty have decided on some changes, to go into effect at the beginning of the academic year 1S90- 91. Botany thus becomes a required preparatory in all courses; and in the courses for B.S. and B.L. , astronomy is admitted as an elective preparatory, with chemistry, geology, physiology and zoology. Of these five, the student must be prepared in three — a slight gain for the natural sciences. OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 161 52 © ?! 5 s O* Examinations are held at the University, of all candi- dates for admission to the academic department, except such as have studied at certain approved schools, and n 162 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? bring “ diplomas ” certifying that they have completed properly the courses of preparation prescribed by the University. Such schools are under the quasi-supervision of the University, and are inspected often enough to know that the instruction is satisfactorily efficient for admission to one or more of the general courses. According to the Calendar of 1888-9, there are 58 “ diploma schools,” of which 16 are in other States than Michigan. The responsibility thus thrown upon the diploma schools arouses a sense of honor and awakens aspirations to maintain a good character. The diploma relation to the University is regarded as a distinction, and the diploma policy is believed to have exerted a good influ- ence, both upon the schools and the University. The policy, in principle, has been widely adopted. As the diploma relation is generally the object of ambi- tion, many of the schools make very strenuous exertions to meet the requirements of the University, even when their equipment is insufficient to do this and also carry on the work of general secondary instruction in a thor- ough way. Every nerve is strained to do acceptable work in the studies required for University preparation. On these all energies are bent. Studies not thus required are less efficiently provided for, or are completely neg- lected. In cases where two or more preparatory studies are elective, as shown in the foregoing table, it is custom- ary to provide for only one, and entirely neglect the others. Thus, in the general courses for B.S. and B.L., chemistry, geology, zoology, and physiology are alternates — only one being required. As state law requires instruc- tion in physiology, this is generally the favored elective. But chemistry, viewed as a science having many relations OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 163 to industry and practical life, is also quite commonly admitted into the curriculum of study. After this, geol- ogy and zoology have little to expect. It is intelligible now, that geology has within a few years, been dropped from so many Michigan schools. As long as each study rested on its own merits, geology held a fair and improving status. But as soon as the Univer- sity sent out its demands for other studies, and notified the schools that geology was not required, human nature began to sacrifice its intelligent convictions to that econ- omy which everywhere attempts to save first, by cutting down allowances for spiritual needs. The question whether it is wise for the University to omit geolog}’ from the list of requirements, both for pre- paration and for graduation, is one which I do not pur- pose to discuss in this }fiace. The impropriety of throw- ing it out of the schools is something which seriously deserves attention. If we attempt to educate at all, it is the part of wisdom to give the best education. Unless the showing which I have made is egregiously fallacious, that is not the best education which omits geology entirely from consideration. The school officials are bound in reason, and in justice to the people, to provide for the teaching of geology. If it does not suit the University to include the subject among requirements for entrance upon any of its general courses, the schools are still bound to provide for adequate instruction in it. The schools are not established by the people solely to fit students for the University. Not over one-tenth of those in attend- ance meditate any connection with the University. Only a fraction of those who complete a grammar school course proceed with their studies, and gain entrance to the 104 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? University. Only a fraction of those who complete the usual high school course proceed farther. The comple- tion of this course is a more extensive education than a majority of our young people ever acquire. A majority are limited to the grammar school course, or something still inferior. They are turned out into society com- pletely ignorant of the important facts and principles of the history of the earth on which they dwell, deprived of the culture which ought to be secured in the pursuit of that study, and helpless as babes in the presence of everv simple geological question. To such ignorance their lives are consigned. They hear of the great doctrines of geological science, and no intelligent response is awakened in mind or feeling. “ Geology was not studied in school when I was a boy,” or “when I was a girl,” is the only consolation for a state of ignorance which would be as embarrassing, as it is deplorable, if it were not so universal. It is well for the schools to organize themselves in cor- relation "with the University. But it should be borne in mind that they are provided and maintained by the peo- ple at large, and their whole duty is not performed by making ample qn'ovision for the education of the few, and neglecting as a consequence, the proper education of the many. The first and greatest effort should be to provide a properly balanced and effective education for the great mass. The schools are created to serve as agencies for dis- seminating general intelligence, and furnishing enlight- enment on all subjects about which the American citi- zen needs to be informed. Such dissemination is not very complete as long as such a state of ignorance exists that it is not disgraceful to jeer a science for the employ- OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 165 ment of the simplest terms of its vocabulary, or turn aside from a plea in behalf of a scientific object, because its conceptions are entirely outside the routine of the cus- tomary education and business life. A high educational dignitary — one of the highest in the land, recently under- took to amuse me by narrating how, when Professor X came to plead for a grant of means for the continuance of some specific palaeontological investigation already far advanced, he requested him to put his plea in popular lan- guage. This distinguished official regarded it extremely funny that he could not comprehend the language neces- sarily employed in a scientific work of which he, alas, had the official supervision and control. But Professor X’s experience was the universal experience of those who have public geological enterjnises under their direction. Evidently, popular information about geology is needed among our public men. Evidently, this will never be acquired unless imparted before they enter public life and the busy lanes of industry. The wide neglect of geology is not all ascribable to the “ diploma relation.” It existed, though to a diminishing extent, before the diploma relation was established. It is the inheritance of a past which had not heard of geology.* * The anachronism of medieval notions in modern schools is something so glaring that our students are making the discovery for themselves before their scholastic term of life is fully wasted. “Whether the old currieulums are modified or not,” writes one who is a representative of his class, “stu- dents of the present day cannot be made to devote all their energies to the prosecution of a certain prescribed line of work. The conditions of to-day are different from those of a generation or two ago; preparation for profes- sions requires a different line of study; and the colleges that do not realize this cannot hope to hold their own .”— The Chronicle , Ann Arbor, Dec. 8, 1888. In this connection, as also with reference to the general question of science-study, I beg to refer the reader to a valuable paper by Dr. W. X. Rice, in the American Naturalist for September and October, 1888, on “Science- teaching in the Schools.” Another paper full of wise suggestions has 166 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Our school courses have come down to us laden with the learning which our ancestors most esteemed. Our ances- tors rode in dog-carts and lumber wagons, but this age travels by rail. There are those who still think the old dog-cart the most orthodox mode of locomotion; and the same spirit sits on the old dog-cart system of education trying to hold it securely. It is quite true that modern committees have also sat on it, and have ostensibly revised and modernized it. They have done much good, but the curriculum is still on Erasmian plans of the early renais- sance. It is well filled with the traditional school learn- ing, with a few modern ideas “hanging on behind,” like street urchins stealing a ride. The teachers send back word that “the course is already full;” there is “lack of time;” “ we haven’t teachers enough.” Now, dear friends, devoted teachers, I knew the course was full: I under- stood that the school-board would provide you full em- ployment; I knew that the period of schooling had been cut down to the lowest limit, and had already been crammed with arithmetic and geography and grammar, and I was satisfied beforehand that these would be your reasons for the omission of geology. I was not certain that the teachers were alive to the interest and value of geology as a study, and were already willing and eager to greet its introduction, if only the grim monster conservatism would cease to gnash its prohibitions. It is only in a few cases that the teachers seek to justify the exclusion of geology on the grounds of reason. It is simply that the other studies are in, and no room is left recently appeared from the pen of Professor V. M. Spalding, of the Univer- sity' of Michigan, in The Academy for October, 1888, on “The Scientific Advancement of the Age, and its Relation to Education. ” This paper fans precisely in the line of the present discussion. OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 167 for geology. “Mathematics was in; geology must stay out.” This argument is naive, if not logical. Now, what is the reason that mathematics should be permitted to usurp the whole time, if, as the respondent concedes, “ for argument’s sake,” geology is capable of exerting an equal educational influence ? Is it the same kind of edu- cational influence ? Is it not a more diversified influ- ence ? Is it not an influence exerted on mental powers which mathematics — least of all arithmetic — never call into exercise ? Isn’t the discipline of all these powers of equal importance with the training of the mathematical faculties ? Is a defender of the status quo doing justice to the cause of education when he inertly permits mathe- matics to completely rob the pupil of that broader, more symmetrical, more modern, and more beautiful discipline which comes from more diversified mental activities ? The question implies the answer. Plainly, the inert plea of prescription cannot long prevail over the living principle of progressive education. “All progress in science has its corresponding effects on education.”* But if arithmetic is in and has taken root from centu- ries of luxuriance, how shall it be displaced ? If we really think it ought to give way, to some extent, the practical problem is to make it give way. I fully appre- ciate the difficulty of the situation. I sympathize with the reluctance of the teacher or principal to urge or even propose innovations in the much-lauded school course. The controlling Boards are generally under the thrall of the “ literary” spirit. Most of the authentic and recog- nized influence which they have received has been derived from literary men or public officials, like themselves unfa- * CompayrA 168 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? miliar with the great truths of geological science. It is not a secret, that many principals and superintendents are covered with the same spirit as with an atmosphere, and feel no desire to innovate on the traditional course. Still, it can be no offense to make suggestions and prefer argu- ments. It needs only a discernment of the truth to make converts of all opposers. It is a hopeful sign, as well as amusing, to note the methods by which teachers smuggle in a little geology in the form of “object lessons,” “general exercises,” “sup- plementary reading” — more proposed than practiced — and “ physical geography.” Luckily, some publisher or book agent, some years ago, won the ear of the school officials, and introduced a new study into the schools. It was called physical geography — a good name, but the subject matter is made up of geology, zoology, and botany. The taste of this has proved gratifying, and the study has grown popular. But meantime the school officials have not opened their eyes to the fact that one-half the study is pure geology. It is almost unavoidable that the intel- ligent teacher should “branch off” occasionally and smug- gle in some geology not in the book. The irregularity is to be commended. By the other methods also, much geological information may be insinuated into the instruc- tion, and everybody will he delighted, if it is done with discretion. I desire, in another connection, to be more explicit on this point. If the teacher, convinced of the usefulness of geological study, will avail himself — or more probably, herself — of these methods of pressing the claims of the study, it will soon happen that the doors will open, and geology will step in, and arithmetic will step out — somewhere. OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 169 The reform is also pressed upon us from without. It already appears that most of the leading teachers are fav- orable to the admission of geology into high schools and lower schools. Some increase of apathy is revealed in proportion as we enter the atmosphere of the controlling personalities. But the body of teachers represent the pub- lic sentiment. There are thousands of intelligent adults in every State who have informed themselves respecting the grandeur of geologic studies. They have not yet descended to the simple facts which serve as starting- points for geologic study, in distinction from geologic dilletantism. But they feel favorable to geology, and desire their sons and daughters to become more thor- oughly acquainted with it. The popular books which have been so widely circulated within a few years, are generally credited with the dissemination of a popular taste for geologic reading and study.* The establish- ment of the Agassiz Association, under the energetic management of Principal II. H. Ballard, is also an im- portant agency in the increase of popular intelligence on geology and cognate subjects. This is an organization of young persons, with an aggregate membership of several thousand, f Most of these young persons are still in the public schools, and would probably have taken natural history in school, if the public schools had provided for * I will ask the reader's pardon for stating that, of the authors ‘'Sketches of Creation,” about 20.000 copies have been sold: and of his more recent work, ‘‘Walks and Talks in the Geological Field," 4-3,000 copies are in circu- lation : while of the latter, 2.500 were sold in Michigan. t Superintendent Ballard's last manual, entitled “The Three Kingdoms,” does not give this aggregate. A personal communication, however, from Superintendent Ballard informs me that the aggregate enrollment since 1880 is about 15,000 members, organized in 1.000 chapters. The number of active members to-day is about 7.000. and the number of chapters, 050. 170 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? the demand. The existence of such a vast association of young persons seeking to satisfy wants not met by the schools is a burning rebuke to the “school system ” which still survives, and continues to turn a deaf ear to the rising outcry. What means this other organization known as the “Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,” with its 50,000 members, all of whom are reading, among other things, a popular work on geology ? Are not these evidences that the public taste, public appreciation, and public demand have quite outstripped the ponderous and weary pace of our decrepit old “school system ?” It is perfectly obvious that general information is rap- idly increasing, and its influence will press more and more sensibly against the conservatism of the schools. In other states the schools are already yielding to it. The fact is a conspicuous one, that Michigan is behind several other states in friendliness to geological study. As exam- iner of candidates for admission to the University, I am in position to contrast the paucity of Michigan applicants prepared in geology with the numbers sent especially by Illinois and Ohio. It is a matter of knowledge also, that Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts so often the leader in educational enterprise, are extending to geology a hospitable greeting. In Massachusetts much is due to the energetic and rational efforts of Mr. Alpheus Hyatt of the Boston Society of Natural History, and the excel- lent teaching system organized by Professor W. O. Crosby of the Institute of Technology. But it must be remem- bered also, that Massachusetts has long been favored with a body of educational officials friendly toward natural history studies. Writing from memory, I recall the lect- ures, years ago delivered before teachers’ instituted, by OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 171 the elder Agassiz, under state authority. I recall the names of Professor Sanborn Tenney and William Denton, official lecturers before the institutes of the state, on zoology and geology; and I recall the assemblies of teach- ers gathered under state authority, at Boston, to listen to the instructions of Hyatt, Crosby and other experts. In the advance of educational ideas, Massachusetts has gen- erally been in the van. To some of the objections raised by teachers who have corresponded with me, I desire to give special attention. The misapprehension exists to some extent, that geology is a study suitable only for pupils of advancement and maturity. “ Our high school is but recently organized ” is the reply of some. “We have no pupils sufficiently advanced ” is the response of others. “ We have no teachers competent to take up the work” is learned from some quarters; while one respondent declares that geology belongs only in college. It is an error to imagine that geology in all its grades and departments is an advanced study. It begins with the simplest and most familiar facts. It advances by processes of wider observation and awakened reflection, to a grasp of the fundamental principles; it stimulates imagination, and in its ultimate processes, elicits the best powers of deductive thought. When I recommend geology for the very young, I contemplate those features of the science suited to the stage of intellectual development of the young. When I recommend the study for maturer minds, I con- template the same method of beginning with familiar facts, but proceeding more rapidly to the induction of principles; and to the higher efforts of intelligence de- manded by the higher ranges of the science. 172 SHALL AVE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Analogous to this misconception is that of the necessity of a considerable illustrative collection at hand. “ We have no facilities for teaching geology,” says one. I have no doubt the impression prevails to some extent, that the teaching of geology with success, requires a col- lection of “ rare and costly” specimens. This is a great error. The more rare and costly, the more useless for the beginner. He works most successfully with the common- est and cheapest. He is surrounded by a geological museum more valuable than the .most bewildering array of strange and striking beasts and petrifications, ores and glittering minerals, which exists on the continent. Wher- ever the Drift is distributed, the student is supplied with more rock varieties than three collectors could bring together in three seasons spent in the wildernesses about Lake Superior. These are as truly rock specimens as if found in place. They show as truly the characters of the different species of rocks and of minerals forming them, as if brought at great expense from their native ledges. These cost nothing. They are not only the gift of nature, but a gift delivered at our doors — carriage free. The elementary course in the University employs for its inauguration, no other “facilities” than the bowlders from the fields. Each class collects these for itself. Thousands are retained by individuals, and kept labeled for future reference, in distant homes. My esteemed correspondent at Bay City affirms that in his place “ there is little to enthuse one in the subject of geology, except our salt formations, while zoology has much to make it full of life.” I feel that the exception is bigger than the body of the affirmation. “Nothing except our salt formations !” — the most productive and OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 173 most wonderful salt formations on the continent. How deep do they lie ? What are they ? How does the brine occur in those rocks ? How did it find its way into them ? How were the rocks formed ? Have you examined the borings which come from the wells ? Have you attempted to classify them mineralogically ? Have you inquired into the position which those strata hold in the entire series of rocks ? How many brine-bearing formations under the Saginaw valley ? Any coal encountered in boring there ? Look at it ; what is it ? What infer- ences may be drawn from it as to nature, origin, his- tory ? Have you traveled a few miles east or north from Bay City, and found the outcropping rocks ? Have you taken some of your boys there ? Whac kind of rocks are they ? Which way do they dip ? Do they apparently pass under Bay City ? Any fossils in them ? How did they get there ? Step out of your class-room and sink your feet in the alluvium at your door. What is it ? What is it made of ? Where did it come from P To how high a level can you trace it ? Is the amount of alluvium increasing P Do you find any layers of sand and gravel underneath it ? How do they differ from solid rocks ? Had rocks any analogous origin ? These and a thousand other queries on the geological facts existing even at Bay City, awaken thought, beget interest, and start the inquirer on a road which he will jmrsue with ever increas- ing momentum. Saginaw has the same geological sur- roundings as Bay City ; but at Saginaw, Mr. Sherzer found a good deal to “enthuse one.” I found him man- aging a class of fifty or sixty pupils, in two sections, and every individual appeared to be enthused. These state- ments are not intended as censure on my Bay City 174 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? correspondent for the choice made between zoology and geology — that was right — but only an exposure of the groundlessness of the last — and I may believe the least, of the reasons for his choice. Several correspondents who say nothing about crowded courses, complain of the lack of a suitable text-book. Those who are teaching by means of object lessons have caught the correct idea. “ Whatever presents itself to our senses,” says Montaigne, “is a sufficient book.”* The fields are a text-book, the bowlders, the ground, the soil, the gorge dug by the streams, the river- valley, the alluvial plain, the peat-bog, the marl-bed, the outcropping lime- stone or sandstone. These are full of suggestions — and equally full of questions for the teacher and pupil to ponder over. But the proper use of nature’s text-book demands some previous knowledge ; and the teacher probably was educated in one of those schools where “geology was not taught.” In such case, the teacher must rely upon the aid of a text-book. It is undoubt- edly such a teacher who complains that the text-books are unsatisfactory. The statement is quite true. They are generally compiled after the didactic fashion, like a work on logic. It is not surprising that one correspond- ent complains that the study proved uninteresting to both teacher and pupil ; and that another declared that only a portion 'of the study was enjoyed ; and still another, that it was lacking in educational value. Ivot improbably, the tough text-book was the cause of that other opinion, that the study was suited only for minds of considerable maturity. We understand now, that it is only the book which possesses such mature adaptability. The subject, Montaigne : Essays, bk. i, eh. i. OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 175 unobscured by a misconceived text-book, possesses the utmost simplicity. But good text-books, following the method of nature, are now to be had ; and the teacher who from necessity or choice, and without previous train- ing, assumes charge of a class, needs no longer to shrink from the undertaking. XII. APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. HE spirit of the observational method requires that each instructor in geology begin the subject with the facts which immediately surround him. Supposing him possessed of adequate knowledge to proceed inde- pendently, he may begin by directing attention to the prominent geological features of the neighborhood. These may be, in one place, the bedded rocks of a quarry, as at Berea, Joliet, or Portland, Connecticut ; in another, deep-cut rock gorges, with or without inclosed fossils, as at Ithaca, Watkins’ Glen, or Claiborne, Alabama ; in a third, a widely eroded and crumbling surface strewn with organic forms weathered out, as at Cincinnati, Nashville, or Selma, or other places in the southern states ; in a fourth, a rock-girt beach of crystalline masses of various composition and character, as at Lynn, or Nahant, or Mar- quette ; in a fifth, a prairie surface, as at Chicago, or Peoria ; in a sixth, a deep broad, alluvial expanse, as at Cairo, or New Orleans, or Detroit ; in a seventh, a group of coal mines, as at Wilkesbarre or La Salle. Each situation is what it is through the action of geo- logic forces. Each is a geologic result, and stimulates inquiries like these : What kind of action caused this ? What actions have I been witness of whk-h produced results analogous to these ? Were they actions of rivers, or overflows, or waves ? Would any of the actions with 1T6 APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 177 which I am familiar produce these results if their scale of activity were greatly enlarged ? Are the results which I see here a completed work ? or is the work still progress- ing ? If it continues to progress, what condition will be reached in the remote future ? These and a thousand other queries may be raised over every situation in which we may be placed. But these queries are really reflective. Their answers imply reasoning. Their answers require a closer observation of the facts which prompt them. To such observation our curiosity drives us. Let us then look somewhat particularly into the facts which we see — which we all see — which all see equally well. But the particular facts are different in different situations. We must suppose ourselves in some particular situation. Let us then place ourselves successively in several different situations, and consider what may be seen in each, and what may be reasoned from it. 1. A Quarry Region, as at Potsdam, N. Y., Portland, Conn., Berea, 0., Joliet, 111. Here I address myself to the young student. You notice that the rocks which these workmen are quarrying lie in beds or layers. Each of these is a stratum. The separation between one stratum and another is generally a very narrow fissure or joint. Often, however, you find the joint filled with some other kind of material. This is a seam. Sometimes the seam is of an earthy or clayey character. Sometimes one stratum is so closely joined to another, that one can scarcely say there exists either seam or joint. Observe all this for yourself. Generally you find several strata in immediate succession much alike. Do you see them so here? Or do you find a decided contrast of two adjoin- ing strata ? In what does the contrast consist ? Are 178 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? they of different color ? Of different fineness ? Of different degrees of homogeneity, or likeness of substance from side to side ? Can you detect any lines running along the broken edges of any of the strata ? What are they due to ? What renders them visible and distinguish- able ? These are lines of lamination. If we have a sand- stone here, perhaps we shall find some laminae running obliquely across the broken edges of certain strata. This is oblique lamination. Look at some of these blocks which have been quarried ; tell me which was the upper side. How does the upper differ from the lower side ? Do these strata lie in a horizontal position ? Does the upper surface present any inclination ? What angle does it make with a horizontal plane ? Is it five degrees ? Is it twenty degrees ? This angle is the dip of the stratum. Here is an angle of ninety degrees between this horizontal and this perpendicular line. Half of this is an angle of forty-five degrees ; and half of this is an angle of 2211 degrees. Represent such an angle. Represent an angle of eleven degrees. Toward what direction does this stratum dip ? It is southwest, perhaps. Then the strike is northwest and southeast. How thick is this stratum — measure it with a rule. How thick is the nest one? Come to the wall of the quarry and measure its entire height. Sit down and make a sketch of this wall. Dis- tinguish each stratum exactly as it is. Preserve their proportional thicknesses. Describe each stratum sepa- rately, beginning at the bottom. Let the strata be desig- nated A, B, C, D, etc. In describing give kind of rock, color, texture, solidity, purity or impurity, homogeneity or want of it, thickness. State which stratum is best adapted to the uses to which the stone is applied. As APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 179 bearing on the uses, yon may take a fragment home and weigh it in its natural condition — then weigh it after dry- ing as completely as you have means for. If you have no balance, go to the apothecary, or omit this experiment. Then also with reference to use, you may observe whether the stone wears away much on surfaces exposed to the weather. Does it weather smooth ? Does it weather into concave depressions ? Do fissures appear in it ? Does it develop rusty specks or blotches? If so, these are proba- bly caused by iron in it. At some time, we will reason out the changes which take place. Do you discover some circular iron-stains, with rings of various shades of color? But we pause here. The points noticed are all geo- logical facts which the young pupil will see for himself, especially if judiciously prompted. What I have sug- gested would be the occupation of several hours — of several eager and delightful hours. But the lesson of the quarry is only partly told. Look particularly at the composition of this sandstone. Use a magnifier. Do you see the separate grains ? About how large are they ? Are they sharply angular ? Are they precisely spherical or are they rounded-angular ? Do they seem to have been angular once, and afterward rounded at their angles ? How hard are these grains ? Can you crush them between your teeth ? Take the flat side of your knife-blade and draw it across some of these grains. Do they produce scratches? Then the grains are of quartz. Quartz is a mineral. It is the hardest mineral which exists abundantly. At some time I will show you some crystals of quartz. Look again with your magnifier ; do you discover anything which sticks these grains together ? Nothing ? That is very unexpected ; what holds them together ? This must be 180 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? inquired into at some time. Yes, you say, you do see some white substance filling the little spaces amongst the grains. Does it look like chalk or limestone ? There is a quick way to test it. We will take a piece home and put a drop of muriatic acid on it. If effervescence ensues, the cement is a carbonate. But this must be explained in due time. So we may proceed and detect by inspection the presence of an argillaceous substance. This makes an argillaceom sandstone. The rock may be reddish or rusty. This shows the presence of iron-oxide. What this is can be explained and illustrated at some time while the substance is at hand. The reader will understand how a thoughtful inquiring concerning the features observed in the quarry must con- tinue to lead our thoughts deeper and deeper into the subject. With an informed teacher to prompt, to answer questions which the pupil cannot answer, to give the names as occasion for them arises, the occupation will be delightful and improving. In due time, we think about the origin of these strata. We point out the resemblance of the bedding to the beds of silt left by the last overflow of the stream ; and, so by degrees, the pupil’s thought rises to the conception of sedimentation as the cause of the layered arrangement. If fossils are included in the rocks, these confirm the evidence of aqueous sedimenta- tion. By due processes of comparison, we perceive that these fossils belonged to salt water and not to fresh. The sediments were therefore marine. The sea therefore, was once here. And thus we are led on to the various conclusions which constitute the doctrines of geological science. All these lessons from the quarry may well and profitably occupy a term of school. APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 181 2. A Fossiliferous Region, as at Cincinnati or Lebanon, 0., Nashville, Columbia or Lebanon, Tenn., Frankfort or Lexington, Ky., Watertown or Rochester, N. Y., Petoskey or Alpena, Mich., Winona, Rochester or St. Paul, Minn., Goderich, Woodstock or Montreal, Canada. Let us suppose ourselves at Cincinnati. We ascend the hills on the north of the city, and look over the valley in which the city lies. High ground appears also on the south of the Ohio. The river has evidently cut a passage for itself, and is now sunken deep into the gorge along which it flows. On the west, the hills on the opposite sides approach each other. Thus as we prolong our outlook and continue to receive the suggestions of the situation, we arrive at a clear conception of an eroded river valley, of a stupendous work performed, and think of the material removed and its place of deposit — alluvial flat, delta, io,r, gulf-sediment and so on — of the organic forms mingling in the Gulf with the subsiding sediments — of their future consolidation — of the work of rock- making everywhere. Thus from the very heights — from the simple outlook, a volume of geology may be read. But these are not the observations which on later occa- sions would occujiy us. In ascending by the inclined railway, we notice the outcropping edges of strata. On these we may observe and reason until we shall have induced all the conclusions sustained by quarry-studies, as already pointed out. But here are still other facts. Of these w r e wish to speak. Let us collect a quantity of these fossil forms strewn over the surface. We may well spend some days making collections before we attempt to study them. We may note what sorts of fossils we obtain at the summit of the hill ; what, at 182 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? different distances down the slope. We may go to the Kentucky side of the river and learn whether the fossils appear to be the same as those on the Ohio side ; and whether they are distributed in the same way at the dif- ferent elevations. We may fix on some method of indi- cating the level at which the fossils occur on either side. We may prepare small tickets and attach them by means of geological cement, and on these write letters or Roman numerals, or other marks denoting place in the series of strata at which each fossil is found. All good geological workers do this. But now, whether this is done or not, let us begin to study our fossils. Suppose the collection before us all in confusion. Every one can state that some of the objects are corals and some are shells. Separate the corals from the shells and lay them aside. Now assort the shells as best you can. You note at least, some groups like the following : Numerous specimens are somewhat semi-cir- cular in outline. There is one edge straight, and the length of it is nearly a diameter of the semi- circle formed by the other sides. In some it is a little less, and in others a little more, so that the extremities of this dia- meter reach into little earlike projections. We call them ears. Notice how rigidly straight this line is. We call it the hinge-line. The two valves or pieces which con- stitute the shell were hinged together along this line. But observe, the two valves are no longer open. They are attached closely by mineral material. You feel aston- ished at the thinness of some of these shells. There is a convexity on one side and a concavity on the other, and it looks as if the two valves were only one. Do not be deceived. Both valves are here. You see the exterior APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 183 of both. But they must be nearly in contact. How little space existed for the ancient animal which dwelt between them, like the clam between the two valves of its shell. Inspect the exteriors. Do you notice little ridges starting from the middle of the hinge-line, and diverging toward the opposite margin ? We call these ribs. That is only the name for them, since they possess no real analogy to ribs of vertebrates. Perhaps these ridges are fine or very fine ; if so, they are strife. Some- times the ribs themselves are striated. Count the ribs on one valve. Count the striae on another shell, if they are not too numerous. Count them on other specimens looking exactly like these. You find them nearly the same in number. Do you find the same number around the margin as half way up to the middle of the hinge- line ? Or does the number increase as you approach the margin ? What is the method of increase — do fine strias branch off from the main striae ; or do the main striae split each into two ; or do new striae or ribs appear mid- way between two former ones ? If you were reading some palaeontologist’s description of one of these shells you would find these distinctions noticed. You observed that one valve is convex and the other concave. Look again at the convex valve and notice that the striae or ribs (whichever they are on this specimen) converge toward a point which is a little more prominent than the other parts of the valve. This point is the beak. Does it project beyond the hinge-line ? Does it stand out from the hinge-line, or bend over toward it ? If it bends over, the most prominent part of this valve is just behind it. This is the icmbo. But you will notice a difference among these shells as to the valve which has the most 184 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? prominent beak ; sometimes it is tlie convex valve, and sometimes the concave one. In the latter case, the beak stands out sharp and conspicuous. The valve having the most prominent beak is called the ventral valve. You will find in studying many shells with central beaks, that the ventral valve is almost always the most convex. Now if you look behind one of these prominent beaks — that is, between it and the hinge-line, you will discover a small flat space ; this is the area. Often the area extends, with narrowed width, quite to the extremities of the hinge-line. In some of the semi-circular forms, you find an area in each valve. Observing closely, you will see in some of these shells, just beneath the beak, a triangular opening. This is called the notch or fissure. In some you find a fissure in each valve. Now, there is one feature further to be noticed. Along the convex valve, in some of these shells, may be seen a depression extending from the beak to the opposite margin. It is narrow and incon- spicuous near the beak, and gradually widens. Sometimes it begins near the middle of the valve ; but in such case it begins somewhat wide at once. This depression is the sinus. Often it contains several ribs. It belongs to the ventral valve. Also, when the sinus is present, there is generally an elevation on the opposite valve. Search the specimens and find it so. This is called the fold. Often several of the ribs are located on it. AVe are considering only the shells having a somewhat semi-circular form. Place them all in a group. Now select those in which you discover a sinus and fold. From these select the ribbed forms, leaving those simply stri- ated. In these you will find an area in each valve — is that so ? These areas are nearly equal. Also, there is a APPLICATION" OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 185 triangular notch in the middle of each area — is that so ? Now, besides these which have the semi-circular outline, you have numerous others which closely resemble them except in having a longer hingq-line, with sharp pro- jecting extremities. Then there are some intermediate between these extremes. They are all coarse-ribbed. The sinus is deep and wide, with several ribs ; and the fold conspicuous also with ribs. Put them all together. They all belong to one genus, and probably one species. Now, the name of the genus is Or'-tliis, and the name of the species is bif-o-rd-ta. The complete name of the species is Orthis biforata. Or this corresponds to the sur- name of a man, and biforata to the Christian name. There are many other species of this genus, and they all appear quite differently from these ; so you must not form your conception of Orthis from these specimens. The real characters of the genus are found on the inner surfaces of the valves. When you collect separated valves, you can see many of the internal characters. At some other opportunity we will ascertain what are the common characters of Orthis, however the different species differ externally. * Next, if among the forms with sinus and fold, you find any simply striated, these belong to a genus known as Stroph-o-me-na. Now, of the semi-circular shells you have separated only those which have a conspicuous sinus and fold, and you have placed with the ribbed forms, many which are not plainly semi-circular, because in all other respects they agree. Next, consider the semi-circular shells which have *This subject is further explained, with illustrations, in the author’s Geo- logical Studies, p. 228. 186 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? no sinus and fold, or scarcely any. In these also, you find an area in each valve, but that in the ventral valve is broadest, and has a triangular notch which is sometimes covered by a convex shelly covering, called a pseu-do-del- tid'-i-um. Do not be startled at this name; it is very uncommon for length, and got its enormous growth by having to prefix pseudo (false) to the pretty little name deltidium (which means a triangular piece — shaped like the Greek letter Delta). A true deltidium is flat and not firmly attached in its place. This is not flat, and is firmly attached. In these shells you find the ventral valve some- times convex and sometimes concave. The hinge-extrem- ities are generally sharp or scarcely rounded, and the hinge-line is the greatest width of the shell. These nearly all belong to the genus Stroph-o-me-na. There are several species. You may find a small, rather elongate sort, with a silky or pearly exterior, which belongs to the genus Lep-tce' -na, and the most common species of this is Leptcena sericea. I ought to state that many geol- ogists are of the opinion that those forms having the ventral valve concave ought not to be regarded as belong- ing in the same genus with those having the ventral valve convex. If we separate them, they fall into the genus Hem-i-pro-ni' -tes. We have remaining a lot of specimens which cannot be described as semi-circular, but still the hinge-line is from two-thirds to one-third the greatest width of the shell. It is sometimes even longer. The extremities of the shell and of the liinge-line are rounded. Neither valve is really concave, but sometimes the ventral valve has so deep and broad a sinus, that the dorsal is most prominent. The beak of the ventral valve stands out at right angles with APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 187 the plane of the shell. You can readily select the shells of this sort. They all belong to the genus Orthis. Put them apart. Now separate them into their separate sorts or species. We might go on and point out the characters of the dif- ferent sjiecies. A well qualified teacher will do this. But in all cases, the pupil must perform the work first, ac- cording to his best ability. He must not be allowed to dismiss it without care and study, nor to escape by saying he is unable to do it. His reluctance will be found to result from diffidence — not lack of interest. We have mentioned only the shells which are semi-cir- cular or nearly that, or at least have a hinge-line a third as long as the shell. But you will also notice a consider- able number with little or no length of hinge-line. The valves come to a point. The ventral valve projects much. The sinus is mostly deep and the fold sharp and high. These are RTiyn-cho-neV -la. There are many species. You remember that we laid the corals one side at the beginning. These may be taken up and learned in a sim- ilar way. * But I am not here attempting to make a pal- aeontological presentation. I wish only to show that a well-informed instructor may advantageously go to the fields and teach from nature rather than from books. Suppose again, the teacher is located upon the fossili- ferous region of Nashville, Tennessee. He may proceed as I have indicated for Cincinnati. Or he may vary the method. 1. He may spend three or four days with his pupils in making a collection of fossils. 2. He may range over the hills and note the characters of the outcropping *See the author’s elementary treatment of corals in Geological Studies, 188 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? limestones, studying them as I have indicated for a quarry. 3. He may study the succession of strata as exposed along the Cumberland Eiver — having pupils discriminate them, measure their thicknesses, describe them, make diagrams of them, and determine the accordances found at different exposures. 4. He may study the springs and the under- ground streams, and ascertain what are the chances of their pollution. 5. He may direct attention to the sul- phur waters, and inquire what is the source of their sul- phur. 6. He may cause his pupils to assort their collec- tions of fossils, and then proceed to study them in such manner as I have indicated for Cincinnati. 3. A Lake-shore Region, as at Milwaukee or at Chicago or Evanston, Illinois ; Monroe or Petoskey, Michigan ; Sandusky, Ohio, or Toronto, Ontario. Suppose we stand on the shore of Little Traverse Bay at Bay View, Michigan. The rounded pebbles strew the beach. By the water’s edge they are white and clean, for the waves continually wash them. The accumulation rises in a gentle slope to the height of five or six feet, where it terminates abruptly. A few feet beyond is a little valley, and still farther from the shore is another pebble ridge at a somewhat higher level. This is partially overgrown with vegetation. Apparently the lake-waters never reach there now ; but at some former time they must have piled up that ridge of pebbles. Either the storms were severer, or the waves stood higher. But glance back among the cedars and jack-pines — there is a still higher ridge all overgrown. It runs paral- lel with the shore as far as we can trace it. If the other ridges were the result of lake-action, so is this. They are all alike. But it has been a century or more since this APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 189 higher ridge was formed. Evidently a century or more ago, the lake must have stood at an elevation twenty-five feet higher than at present. Walk along the shore as far as you will, you find such a succession of beaches. There is much more to discover. Let us take a walk back from the lake. The surface is strewn with frag- ments of limestone rounded and regular, and they are incorporated with the soil. See these magnificent maples growing in this northern latitude. They find a strong, calcareous soil, and the body of lake-water protects veg- etation from the severest freezing of winter. Notice the rock-terraces — one, two, three. They are old ledges of stratified limestone. They are the gigantic steps into which a great formation has been worn and broken by some action exerted at an altitude of fifty to one hundred feet above the present level of the lake. What sort of action produces that kind of result ? Do you remember the limestone cliffs at the water’s edge, a quarter of a mile from Petoskey ? Do you remember how the strong waves pounded the face of the crumbling cliff ? How the great fragments strew the shore, which had tumbled down from the undermining by the waters. These lie also, under the water ; and there are the bottom shelves of the bluff, projecting into the lake, and cringing beneath the crushing blows of the waves. Here is the agent which destroys formations. It gnaws away the outcropping edges, and they shrink back in steps to the safer positions. These terraces at Bay View are such steps. The water must have been up to them once. Yes, confirmation is furnished by the lake-worn pebbles stretched in another beach along the top of the higher terrace. Follow back. 190 SHALL WE TEACH HiEOLOGY ? Beach rises above beach. The green and vigorous forest has grown over them since the waves fashioned them. Many a forest — for these trees are nourished by the decay- ing forms of trees which have been prostrate for a century. Under these are other trunks further gone to decay ; and still deeper are the relics of tree-growths three or four generations of trees back. Up to a hundred and fifty feet, more or less, such terraces may be traced. Think of it. If this bay ever stood a hundred and fifty feet higher than at present, the whole of Lake Michigan must have stood at the same height. There must there- fore be high lake-beaches all around this bay and Lake Michigan. Does any one know anything of them ? Have you ever heard about such lake-beaches ? But even this is not all. You know that steamers pass through the Straits of Mackinac from Lake Michigan into Lake Huron. These two lakes must stand therefore, nearly at the same level. Indeed, it is understood by all, that steamers pass all the way from Chicago to Detroit and Buffalo. There cannot be much difference of level between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. It must be then, that when the highest beaches at Bay View were formed, the waters of all the lakes from Chicago to Buffalo, stood a hundred and fifty feet higher than at present. Have you ever heard of high lake-beaches along the south side or the north side of Lake Erie ? You may inquire for them. But when the waters were thus high, where was St. Clair river ? Where was the Detroit river ? How much of the country on each side of them was submerged ? These inquiries may be followed out. The ancient condition of Niagara river may be reproduced ; and many other con- sequences of the high water. APPLICATION" OF THE OBSERVATION AL METHOD. 191 But let us return with our thoughts to Bay View. What sorts of stones are these pebbles along the shore ? Almost all limestone. These are the ruins of the old ledge which once stood here. Many of these ruins are more than mere stones. Notice the beautiful coral- structures shown on some of their surfaces. These are the remnants of fossils which once lay buried in the mas- sive strata of the bluff. The same may still be found in the bluffs both sides of Petoskey. Many of these you have seen cut by the lapidaries of Petoskey and beauti- fully polished. I am sorry they have never learned better than to call them simple ‘"'Petoskey stones” — a name which expresses neither science nor poetry. Corals buried in the bluff ? Corals are products of the sea. Yes. These fossils testify that the sea once covered this region. Was that before or after the high water of the lakes ? Was the lake here then ? But I have seen the same corals on the opposite side of the State: and the same kinds of rocks. Do you suppose it possible that these limestones extend across the width of the State ? And that the ocean covered all the northern part of the State ? Examine more carefully the pebbles on the beach. Do you observe that they are not all of limestone ? What are these blackish and greenish stones P Did they come from the crumbling limestone blufE ? Impossible. See, here also, is a rounded mass of granite — I must give you the name of it — but we can study all these old stones after- wards. Old stones — real hardheads. And now you probably remember that "when we walked inland to the high beaches, we found many rounded stones which were not of limestone. Here lies one — very interesting and 192 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? quite peculiar — on a stump, by the office of the Associa- tion. We can take these old stones and examine the minerals which they contain, and learn the names of the rocks. But whence come they ? That question you can- not answer ; but I can tell you that I have seen the same sorts of rocks occurring in vast formations “in place” on the north of Lake Huron, and in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. These regions are a hundred miles away ; but unless you know of some nearer localities where such rocks could be found, we shall have to consider whether it is possible that they have been brought a hundred miles or more from the north. And then if we decide “yes,” we shall be under the necessity of considering what agency is capable of transporting them. But we must break off. We seem only at the begin- ning of lines of reasoning suggested by the various facts presented to us along the beach at Bay View. Some suit- able person may follow out the threads of thought and the connections of facts. I aimed only to show that threads of thought start in many directions from Bay View. 4. On the Prairie, as at Champaign, Springfield or Mat- toon, Illinois ; La Porte, Indiana, or Three Rivers, Mich- igan. Within reach of almost all prairie localities, may be found bowlder or gravel ridges, or islands, in the midst of the prairie ; and these afford the same opportunities for geological study as are enjoyed upon a surface univer- sally drift-covered. Such Drift outcrops, or stray bowl- ders, are found at Englewood, Normal and many other places near Chicago. But if we wish to begin the study with only the facilities afforded by the prairie deposit, we may note first, the dark color of the formation. This is APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 193 like the color of ordinary rich soils. As in these it arises from the presence of vegetable matter, so probably it does on the prairie. But we find this dark soil-like material extending to great depth. There must have been a pecu- liar action to accumulate so much vegetable matter. But the deposit is only colored by vegetable matter. If we sub- ject it to burning, nearly all remains ; and this appears to be chiefly argillaceous matter and extremely fine sand. Somewhere in the neighborhood we shall find a deep excavation for some purpose. It is perhaps a canal or a mining shaft. Here much of the material thrown out is strictly clayey, and of bluish or whitish color, with little evidence of vegetable matter. These may alternate with black materials. Notice the horizontal and bedded ar- rangement of the various substances. Do they not look like the strata or beds seen in a quarry ? Do they not appear to have been laid down like sediments in water ? Indeed here is almost a demonstration of this, for the spade has thrown out some whitish, decaying shells. Fifty miles from Lake Michigan, and twenty feet above the surface, they could scarcely have been derived from the lake as we know it. Inspect these shell fragments. Inspect them critically. Are they the remains of marine shells or of fresh-water shells ? It is easy to decide. If you are not familiar with common lake and river shells, you have now a motive to make a little study of them. But I will assume that you have already made the acquaintance of the common mussels ( Unio and Anodonta), and the snail-like forms which are called Pal-u-di'-na and Me-lan'-i-a. These crumbling fragments belonged as you see, to fresh water forms. The same species are living in Lake Mich- igan. There must have existed here a lake. It must have 13 104 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? been large enough to have deposited the sediments which form the wide prairie. It must have been a very large lake. Look abroad over the surface of the prairie — how sea-like the wavy expianse. Its very exterior gives the expression of a drained water area. But if lake-water stood above the level of this prairie surface, where w r ere its shores ? It would be well to obtain the elevation of this region above Lake Michigan. This can be learned from the railroad surveys. The infor- mation can generally be furnished in engineer’s offices in Chicago. Suppose this point twenty feet above Lake Michigan. Then it is evident that the shores of the lake in which the prairie formation was deposited must have been over twenty feet above Lake Michigan. Me may pursue the search for surrounding regions high enough to serve as shore-barriers for the great prairie-lake ; and I suggest it for an investigation. But for the present, let us leave the question open. We see plainly the evidence that a lake was here, higher than Lake Michigan is now. It is also a matter of common knowledge, that in the direction of Lake Michigan, there was no shore. In short then, the prairie lake must have extended into Lake Michigan. In other words, Lake Michigan must have stood at a higher level, and must have spread its waters over the prairie region. Here we arrive again at the evidence of a former high condition of the Great Lakes. The terraces which sur- round the lakes supply evidence confirmatory of that which the prairies furnish. The bowlder-strewn islands to which I alluded show that the prairie formation rests on the Drift. All around the margin of an island you find the Drift disappearing APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 195 under the prairie. The Drift was here before the prairie. The Drift was here before the lake existed whose sediments formed the prairie. In all the regions which received the Drift, we ought to find Drift by digging to the bottom of the prairie. Now, have you learned any facts corroborat- ing this inference ? Have bowlders and gravel, so far as you know, ever been found at the bottom of the prairie deposit ? Thus we may reason. It is confessed that the data of actual observation on the prairie are comparatively few ; but the opportunities for reasoning are many and full of interest. Yet the teacher on the prairie would do well to provide himself with fragments from bowlders found at some near locality. Bowlders are cheap and freightage is cheap. 5. On a Drift-covered Surface, as at Ann Arbor and most parts of lower Michigan, and generally throughout the northern states and Canada. Here opportunities for observational study are excellent. After many years’ experience, I am inclined to think them better than in any other situation. With quarries or river-gorges, or fossils readily accessible, some things can be better studied than in a Drift-region. But by no means so many things. If the phenomena of stratification are desired, they may be seen in the Drift (if imperfectly) and in lake deposits and alluvial sediments. If fossils are desired, the Drift often supplies a larger number of species than a single formation at hand ; for the Drift has brought them from many formations, and we are prepared to declare their origin. As organisms, they present the same structures as fossils found in place. Many times, delicate structures are better preserved under the weathering received in the 196 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? Drift than when inclosed in the solid rock. Most of the best ana minutest descriptions of palaeozoic corals have been based on specimens found in the Drift. I have cata- logued 175 species of Drift fossils at Ann Arbor, and I am sure the list could be made 250. If rock- specimens are desired, the Drift is an exhaust- less reservoir of hundreds of species. There are three hundred species and marked varieties of rocks supplied by the Drift of Ann Arbor. These rocks possess the same characters as rocks collected from the ledge ; and the supply is such that a student in three weeks can accumulate a larger and better collection than by a summer’s search over the outcropping formations of Lake Superior or Massachusetts. The bowlder rocks sub- mit themselves to the same kinds of study as rocks found in place — be it macroscopic, microscopic or chemical. They form as beautiful and as useful a collection. For all the ends of petrographic study they answer perfectly. It is only as indexes of the geographical geology of a district, that they are inadequate. As petrographic studies have acquired new and great importance since microscopical methods and polarized light have been brought into requisition, it would seem that a Drift loca- tion ought to be the chosen site for a petrographic insti- tute. As petrographic studies ought to hold a prominent place in the curriculum of a university, a Drift location is one of the most suitable as a university site. More than the rock and mineral constituents of the Drift renders it a suitable starting point for the student. The Drift presents the phenomena of bedding — many kinds of bedding. Wells and springs depend on acci- dents of the Drift. The Drift is the source of many min- APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 197 eral waters, especially carbonated, calcareous and chalyb- eate. The Drift supplies marl and travertin, and bog- iron and manganese ores. Reposing on the Drift are fluviatile and lacustrine deposits, and beds of peat, marl and ochre. Then finally, the Drift ever presses on our attention the problem of its origin and history, and sends us into other countries and climes to search for acting causes which can be known with us, upon the Drift, only by their effects. I have heard it objected to the assumption of the Drift as a starting point, that it is a complicated effect, and involves problems which the utmost abilities of learned geologists have never yet fully cleared up. It is enough to reply that we do not propose to begin with the dif- ficulties of the Drift. The student may never advance far enough to grapple with them. But assuredly, it is the Drift which supplies us with all our simplest and most familiar and most accessible data. Assuredly, those por- tions of the Drift which answer such a description can be neither intricate nor out of reach of children. It is not my purpose to illustrate here the details of a practicable method of procedure in utilizing the Drift as a starting point. My methods are before the world,* and they have received the highest sanction of many teachers. I will only add that the observational method in its application to the Drift has been with me an object of thought for many years. 'Though the text-books to which I have referred do not date back farther than 1885, I can remember putting the method in practice at a *1 beg to refer the reader to my two text-books, Geological Excursions, for very young students, and Geological Studies, for maturer students, of the elements of the science. Also to my Walks and Talks in the Geological Field, written especially for the “ Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.” 198 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? teachers’ institute held at Brighton, Michigan, as early as 1858.* All experience and all reflection have convinced me that the observational method is quite as natural and quite as practicable in geology as in biology. I have so far supposed the teacher sufficient of an expert to make proper use of the situation in which he is placed. There are many such teachers, especially in collegiate institutions ; and their best method in treating the ele- ments of geology, is to begin at home. A thoroughly competent teacher needs no text-book, and will succeed best without one. But the pupil needs a textual help, however competent his teacher. This is especially appar- ent in the attempt to reduce to logical order the mass of facts accumulated by somewhat desultory observation. But what, the reader will ask, is to be done by a teacher who is not himself an independent geologist P There are many persons who find themselves called upon to teach geology without having enjoyed the advantages of ade- quate study and experience. How will they pursue the observational method ? That is the exact question which I placed before me four years ago, when I fully appreci- ated the desirableness of this method, and found a body of teachers prepared to teach only from text-books framed on the old didactic plan. I determined to write the de- tails of a procedure which might serve as a model. In sup- plying a model to teachers scattered in various situations, the subject-matter must be such as exists in every situa- tion. I could not begin with fossils of any particular * For an application of the method at a rocky gorge, see the author's Sketches of Creation, pp. 14-17. For application at a coal-mine, see the same, pp. 139-148. For application at a peat-marsh, see Address at the Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Agricultural Society , Lansing, 1865, pp. 16-18. For application to the Drift, see the writer’s contribution on geology to the History and Statistics of Washtenaw County. 1881. pp. 141-152. APPLICATION OF THE OBSERVATIONAL METHOD. 199 age, because the fossils of dilferent regions are of dif- ferent ages ; and besides, some regions supply no fossils whatever. I could not begin with strata and formations, because many regions are destitute of outcropping strata. There is no geological feature so nearly universal as the northern Drift. To prepare a guide to the Drift is to supply an aid to teachers throughout the northern United States and Canada ; and to render it easy for teachers beyond the limits of the Drift, to supply themselves with the same materials as those who live in districts for which the text-guide was specially prepared. This text-guide is simply the printed talk of the living professor. The teacher who, without due preparation, is under the neces- sity of taking a class in geology, or chooses to take a class in geology, has no need to hesitate. By proceeding with the text-book, page by page, the subject is simple and delightful ; and the teacher experiences the same delight from this method of study as any younger pupil enjoys, and great success and satisfaction are certain to be achieved. I make these statements no longer from a theo- retical stand-point. Scores of teachers stand ready to testify from their own experience, that the observational method is more beautiful in practice than in theory. XIII. PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF GEOLOGICAL TEACHING. HE foregoing pages set forth the position held by geology in the public schools and in some of the universities. Then, with a view of showing this to be an unworthy position, an inquiry is made as to the relations of geological study to culture — intellectual and ethical, and to the elements of modern civilization. The superior claims of classical and literary culture are incidentally brought under review. The relations of geological study to the developing powers of the mind are discussed, and contrasts with other studies are drawn. Every aspect of the discussion points toward the same conclusion — that the best interests of education demand for geology earlier and larger consideration. The practical questions are then taken up, of introducing reforms in the school-cur- riculum, and of securing effective instruction in geology, while so many of the teachers have been deprived of ade- quate training. It seems appropriate, in concluding, to offer a resume of the most important pedagogical princi- ples laid down ; to glance at modes of instruction coordi- nate with the observational, which I have more especially urged because best suited to early years, and to correlate the important work of popular instruction with that especially scholastic. The so-called “inductive sciences” are by no means exclusively inductive. Nor can all science-teaching be 200 PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 201 conducted exclusively by observational methods. On these two points much erroneous doctrine has been incul- cated, and I wish to avoid the appearance of propagating it. Aside from certain rational principles which regulate all intelligential processes, it may be said that the so-called inductive sciences begin by induction, and are founded on facts of observation. The knoivledge of the facts is the condition of the existence of the science. The facts, while not constitutive of science, are the data of science ; and in a process of education they must be acquired. A real portion of the science consists of the body of gener- alizations based on the facts. Any real knowledge of the science must grasp these principles. But the body of propositions generalized from the data of science may next be employed as grounds of deductive inference. Only thus does science attain to a knowledge of facts inaccessible to observation. Thus science becomes a seer, and her vision penetrates beyond the limited range which bounds the ken of the human race. It is only by deduc- tion from generalized principles that geology, for instance, can venture any affirmation concerning the history of the world in the ages before human observation, or can pre- dict vicissitudes impending in the remote future. Those portions of a science reasoned out from general principles often constitute its most important domain. They gen- erally afford the most entertaining and inspiring themes for contemplation, and this is evidently because the method carries us through time and space and causation to distances most remote from the little circle which lim- its the sphere of facts merely observed. We are thus reminded that the subject matter of a science, aside from the transcendental concepts and 202 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY? cognitions which are always implied, consists of : 1 . Facts of observation. 2. Principles generalized from the facts. 3. Other facts deduced from those principles. Here are three different kinds of knowable materials to be dealt with by the teacher of science. As to the facts, I hope 1 have made it plain in the preceding pages that the most effective method of imparting a knowledge of them to others is the observational. If the facts of science are to be learned, the best way is to bring the facts and the learner together. The method of the kin- dergarten, the laboratory and the field is truly the most efficient and the most agreeable. Too much cannot be said of the importance of giving full exercise to the per- cipient faculties, within all the range where their activity is possible. But next, if direct observation is impossible, the pictorial method is the best substitute, provided the pictures are intelligible and correct. Poor pictures are misleading and a weariness. But if these are not available in imparting a cognition of the facts, we must employ the descriptive method. Here everything depends on the clearness of the describer’s conception of the thing, and the power of the learner to picture mentally the thing described. These are powers of the imagination. Their exercise by the teacher gives vividness, reality and clear- ness to the fact set forth. Their exercise by the learner gives vividness of conception which is the next thing to visual perception. In the description of objects of natural history, some describers, with the object before them, cannot phrase a description out of which a picture could be formed. Some who read the most accurate and vivid descriptions have no power to render them in a clear mental picture. Hence the descriptive method as a PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 203 dernier resort, is neither to be employed undiscriminat- ingly, nor condemned unconditionally. Next, as to the generalizations, the ratiocinative process of acquisition should be promoted in all cases; but where the powers of the learner are incapable of seizing the gen- eralization, it must be enunciated dogmatically. The generalization is the first attainable constituent of the science. It is of preeminent importance, and is imagined by some to be the only genuine scientific material. It is well if the pupil can view the facts under such a presenta- tion as to draw the inference for himself. But the infer- ence must come into his possession, if only received on the authority of the teacher. As to the deductive materials of science, they presume the existence of generalized principles, and their acquisi- tion by one of the two methods just indicated. The deductive inferences from them should be drawn by the unaided action of the learner’s intelligence, where the process is not too recondite. More frequently, however, the learner can do no better than to listen to the detail of inferences drawn by a teacher of adequate knowledge, reflection and power of statement. The teaching is either ratiocinative or dogmatic. The data and principles of science and of teaching, thus recalled to mind, reveal, manifestly, a certain range of scientific knowledge which may be approached by the observational method, and should be so approached. But this does not justify any extreme or exclusive dogmas. The acquisition of all which remains must be left to the action of the learner’s ratiocinative powers, or, more fre- quently, to the dogmatic enunciations of the teacher. This discrimination cannot possibly be ignored. To 204 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? insist that all scientific acquisition shall be by the obser- vational method, is to betray ignorance of the material of science. The most important, the most real and the only fundamental part of science is accessible only to rational perception, not to sensible perception. To denounce the didactic or descriptive presentation of facts is to assume that all facts can be brought before the sense of the learner, and this is a baseless assumption. To denounce all dogmatic statement of general principles, is to assume that the tottering intellect of the young learner is capable of drawing the same generalizations as have been framed by the sturdiest efforts of experts, and this is a baseless assumption. To denounce all dogmatic state- ment of deductive inferences is to confess inability to per- ceive the cogency of a priori evidence, and thus abdicate the privilege of passing judgment on it; or, if the validity of deductive science is admitted, it is to assume that the learner is already capable of taking, unsupported, the loftiest flights of scientific speculation — a consequence, the very mention of which annihilates the assumption. There must be sometimes a descriptive statement of facts. There must be a dogmatic delivery of inductive doctrines. There must be, unless we would have our teaching grossly defective, a frequent dogmatic exposition of the necessary consequences of established principles. Finally, as to the times and circumstances under which these various methods of teaching may be employed, a few words may be offered. Let us first consider the learner of tender years. It requires no argument to make it appear that the generalized and deductive principles of science are not appropriate, or, in any event, are less appropriate, than the facts, to the active percipient PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 205 powers and the late-awakened reflective powers of the young, It seems, however, to require argument to establish the belief in the minds of educators, that the learning of the facts of science is positively suit- able to the faculties and aptitudes of the young. If the proposition were accepted, we should not see chil- dren and youths shut up for years to the abstractions of arithmetic and grammar, the soporific and com- paratively unproductive details of historical names and dates, or the meaningless and profitless lists of capes and headlands along some remote barbaric shore. I am not denying the usefulness of these things, nor even their comparative usefulness. I strongly feel, however, that during the stage of childish perceptivity, there is greater appropriateness and productiveness in the exercise of the faculties upon facts of present interest, and which actually enter into the organization of sciences of tran- scendent influence and importance. But, whatever finally may be agreed as to the propriety of introducing the natural sciences to the attention of the child, it can hardly be denied that the most rational method of doing this is to bring the child into contact with the facts, and leave his own mind, as far as it is able, to draw the gen- eral inferences to which the facts point. It follows that books and teachers which aim at a systematic, synthetic presentation of one of the natural sciences, forget the order of development of mental faculties, and prepare to leave a sense of weariness and disgust where there might be a feeling of interest and delight. The only rational procedure with the child, in the study of rudimentary geology, for instance, is, therefore, to take him into the field and permit his faculties of observation and thought 206 SHALL WE TEACH GEOLOGY ? to lead him, by the natural processes of investigation and discovery, to the apprehension of those principles which constitute the inductive department of the science. His own faculties then are active, and to some extent, in all cases, the principles reached are principles discovered; the child feels a consciousness of success — a pride in it, an exhilaration over it, and the whole exercise is a delight. If the case be that of a person entering on a thorough course of scientific study, then equally, an examination of the facts which constitute the data of the science is the first thing in natural order. This is the nature of the study in an elementary course, whether the pupil be a child in the grammar school or a senior in college. But the style of the presentation will vary with the maturity of the learner, and so will the prompting needed in draw- ing the appropriate lessons from the facts. It is a need- lessly prosaic, heavy and deadening process to start a course in science with the conning and memorizing of abstract general statements which rest on no evidence visible to the learner, and sustain no recognized relation to any body of knowledge which interests and inspires, and lifts up the mind. With all the inspiration which belongs to science, it is easy to give it a cold and soporific presentation to the beginner. The order of ideas in the historic development of a science is nature’s order in the development of the same ideas in the individual mind. What is most natural is most pleasant and most profitable. As the study of the science proceeds, the student’s mind is prepared for the reception of the higher generali- zations, and the far-reaching results of deductive reason- ing. The skilful teacher will cause the data to pass PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 207 before the learner’s mind in such order as to prompt the mind through its own energy, to reach these inferences as original discoveries. That is the best teaching, and those are the best text-books, which secure the most of this productive spontaneity. But, as before stated, much must always be enunciated by authority. Especially, while the person continues in the relation of pupil rather than independent investigator, will it remain appropriate and best for the teacher in his own language and way, to enlarge upon the far-reaching consequences of those modes of being and action which are expressed in the higher generalizations of science. To trace those conse- quences leads the learner’s thoughts and imagination into realms so remote from present experience that novelty and wonder lend new incentives to attention and add exalted interest to the conceptions of the science. These higher generalizations and loftier deductions are a grand sequel to the earlier details of facts and the later formu- lation of doctrines, and they may advantageously be reserved for formal lecture presentation. There are still other circumstances in which every teacher of science is liable to find himself sometimes placed. Multitudes of persons who cannot or will not pursue any thorough course of scientific study, still desire a knowledge of the grand results of science. This, indeed, is all which the world at large cares for. It is iu truth all which enters into the cultural influence which science exerts upon the intelligence of the masses. Now, as has been shown, this class of scientific knowledge, to those who have not reasoned up to it from the facts, must necessarily be imparted by means of dogmatic state- ments, and the learner must rest content with the results. 208 SHALL WE TEACH CxEOLOGY ? ignorant, largely, of the data from which they have been reached. This may be half-knowledge, but beyond ques- tion, it may be very interesting and very valuable knowl- edge. This is the department of scientific knowledge best suited for impartation through popular lectures. It is the aspect of science to which the popular intelligence always turns with eagerness. Still, it is not to be sup- posed that the highest appreciation requires the exclusion of all statements of fact. The mind — even the popular mind — takes delight in its own activity. It likes to trace the relations of causality by means inductive and deductive. The lecturer, for instance, may direct the attention of his hearers to the familiar phenomena of erosion, occuring within the narrow sphere of his own observation. The hearer will easily follow the generaliza- tion of this action into a universal phenomenon ; and then, by a mental process equally agreeable, he will accompany the lecturer in a delineation of the ulterior consequences of such geological action. The experi- mental sciences afford superior opportunities for conduct- ing the hearer over the steps of fact, generalization and deduction. But, to assume that no popular instruction in science is legitimate which does not accompany every conclusion by its appropriate proof, is the affectation of a mind which has been running in a rut. To summarize results, we may say that instruction in natural science intended for youthful learners, should deal chiefly with the concrete data, giving occasional glimpses of the ratiocinative procedures to be based on them. Definitions and general enunciations should come at the end instead of the beginning. This work compasses the rudiments of the science. For all persons entering on PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 209 a thorough course, a similar method should be pursued, extending the range of logical inferences as knowledge accumulates, or the maturity of the learner is more advanced. The inductive method may well be supple- mented by formal, descriptive, didactic and dogmatic presentations. This instruction may cover the funda- mental facts and doctrines, and the prominent theories in the science. It embraces the elements of the subject, and ought always to be acquired during the preparation for college. The third phase of scientific teaching, which may be noted as collegiate, should combine the same method with a larger supplement of lectures designed to gather into a unity, with a clearer coordination of parts, the somewhat disjointed results of observational and inductive study, and to lead the learner's mind over the lofty ranges of remoter generalization, and ulterior results of the causes in action. A fourth form of presentation is the popular, in which the interest and profit of the learner require a minimum of facts and a maximum of general conceptions. Thus the method of instruction in natural science is not one and uniform. It must vary with the subject matter and with the age and aims of the learner. It may be rudimentary , preparatory, collegiate or popular, and in each case a different proportion of the concrete and reflective constituents of science must be presented to the mind. INDEX A Abstraction, in culture, 28 ; in geology, 44. Adrian, response of, 15, 20. Advancement, alleged insuffi- cient, 14. Agassiz, L. , and geology teaching, 171. Agassiz Association, significance of, 11, 169. Ann Arbor and artesian wells, 111 . Ann Arbor schools and geology, 124. Arnold, Matthew, on culture, 66; admissions by, 67, 96; com- plaints of, 67, 96; views of, discussed, 68. Artesian wells and geology, 110. Attention, how best controlled, 123. Audiences, public, instruction of, 208. B Bain, on order of studies, 119. Balance of education desired, 133. Ballard, H. H., service of, to science, 169. Battle Creek, response of, 20. Bay City, response of, 15, 20; reply to, 172, 173. Bay View as place for study, 188. Beaches and what they teach, 189. Bonneval on order of studies, 118. Bowlders and their suggestions, 191. Brachiopods studied, 182, Branner, J. C., exposing frauds, 112 . Buchanan, response of, 20. c Cadillac, response of, 15, 20. Caro, response of, 16, 20. Chamberlain, D. H., on linguistic culture, 69 ; completion of ar- gument of, 72, 73. Chamberlin, T. C., on scientific habit, 91, 94, 95. Charlatanism exposed, 112. Chase, response of, 16, 20. Chautauqua Circle, significance of, 11, 170. Chelsea, response of. 16. Chesaning, response of, 20. Chicago and artesian wells, 111. Chronicle quoted, 142, 165. Cincinnati as place of study, 181. Civil engineer, motives of, to study, 2. Civilization and geology, 96. Classical department thronged, 5. Classics and culture, 55. Classification not provided for in trivium of culture, 148. Coal and geology, 109. Coal search misdirected, 113. Coldwater, response of, 16, 20. Comenius on order of studies, 117; on attention, 123; on gen- eral range of studies, 134. Comparative geology, 49. Comparison in culture, 27: in geology, 44; not provided for in trivium of culture, 148. Compayre, on culture, 59; dis- cussed, 60. Comstock lode, 107. Condillac and order of studies, 116. Conservatism at Ypsilanti, 19, 166. 211 212 IHDEX. Control by literary interests, 10. Cooling globe, 35, 37, 84. Courses in the university, 160. Crosby, W. 0., and geology teach- ing, 170, 171. Culture and knowledge the true aim, 24, 142 ; opinion on, from Chronicle, 142. Culture attributed to the tradi- tional studies, 4. Culture in education, 24 ; out- come of controversy about, 78. Culture, universal, afforded by geology, 52. ' Culture, what is it? 25, 33; based on Greek, 69 ; defined by Payne, 138, 139, 140; Payne on, con- troverted, 141. D Decatur, response of, 16, 20. Deduction in inductive sciences, 201 . Deductive faculty in culture, 28 ; in geology, 48, 206. Deductive reasoning applied, 36, 201 . Delight in out-door study, 124, 126. Delineation, art of, in geology, 47. Denton, W., and geological teach- ing, 171. Departments to be fostered, 11. Descriptive method, 202. Diploma relation, influence of, 162. Diploma schools, 162. Disciplinary education value, 137, 138. Discipline in education, 23, 25; see also “Culture.” Discovery in geological study, 125. Dissatisfaction of the public, 11. Diversified aspects of geological study, 34. Doctrines of geology, 45. Dogmatic method, 203. Drift-covered surface, as place for study, 195; a favorable place to begin, 197, 199. E Earlv study of geology, 119, 123, 124, 130, 131, 132. East Saginaw, response of, 16, 20. East Tawas, response of, 16, 20. Eaton Kapids, response of, 16, 20: Economic geology, 108. Education, object of, 23, 24, 71. Education values, 136 ; discus- sion on, 141; of geology, 154; quantitative estimates of, 155. Emotion excited by geology, 39. Emotion, when compatible with study, 127 ; erroneously pro- nounced incompatible, 128, 129. Engineer, motives of, to study, 2. Enthusiasm, 126. Essexville, response of, 16, 20. Ethical culture in geology, 52; considered, 83. Ethical influence of preoccupation of mind, 89. Ethical influence as a reflex re- sult, 90. Evart, response of, 16. F Facilities alleged lacking, 14, 172. Faculties concerned in culture, 26. Facts in geology, 44, 45. Faith, enlightenment of, 88, 114. Familiar things the starting point in geology, 130. Feeling and thought not mutually exclusive, 128. Fenton, response of, 16, 19. Firemist, 37. Flint, response of, 16, 20. Fools’ gold, 113. Fossiliferous region for study, 181. Foster and Whitney, survey un- der, 102. Froebel on Pestalozzi, 117. Future career of the earth, 36, 42, 84. G Gas and geology, 109. ] Gaseous state of matter, 37. INDEX. 213 Gas search misdirected, 112. Generalization in geology, 44. See also “ Induction.” Geography as culture study, 144, 149, 150. Geologic conceptions, ethical in- fluence of, 83. Geologic surveys. See “ Surveys.” Geologists in the United States, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104. Geology and culture, 44, 142. Geology an inductive science, and more, 35. Geology and modern civilization, 96, 108. Geology crowded out, 163, 167. Geology, disadvantages of, 7 ; a rival with professional studies, 8; grounds of rivalry, 8. Geology estimated by Payne, 139. Geology in the order of studies, 115. Geology, in its diversified aspects, 34 ; logical divisions of, 154 ; begins out of doors, 131; edu- cation values of, 154. Geology, in the schools, 13, 14; in high schools, 13, 163 ; in re- lation to stage of development, 53, 171 ; not requiring costly preparations, 172. Geology taught, by object lessons, 13, 168 ; by supplementary reading, 14 ; by general exer- cises, 168; as physical geogra- phy, 14, 168. Gill, Theodore, on culture, 77. God implied in geology, 85. Grammar not suited to childhood, 74, 205. Grammar schools and geology, 19. Grand Haven, response of, 16. Grand Rapids, response of, 20 ; and salt, 110. Greenville, response of, 21. Greek as means of culture, 69, 70, 71; why not efficient, 74: use- fulness of, limited, 76; em- ployed in science, 76. Greek literature for culture, 75. H Habit scientific, ethical influence of, 92 ; evils of absence of, 93. Hall, James, geologist, 99. Hastings, response of, 16, 21. Hayden’s survey, 103. Heated interior of earth, 35. Hemipronites, 186. Hillsdale, response of, 17. History as a culture study, 143, 151, 152. Hitchcock, E., quoted, 85. Houghton, D., surveys under, 102 . Howard City, response of, 17, 21 . Howell, response of, 17, 21. Humanities, 58. Huxley at Mason College, 68. Hyatt, Alpheus, and science- teaching, 170, 171. I Illinois and geological teaching, 170. Imagination, in culture, 29 ; in geology, 47, 51, 202; not pro- vided for in culture trivium, 148. Imlay City, response of, 17, 21. Incentives in professional study, 2 ; in academic study, 4. Induction, importance of, 3; in geology, 44, 206 : not pro- vided for in trivium of cul- ture, 148. Inductive geology, 37. 46. Inductive powers in culture, 30; in geology, 46. Inductive sciences, 200; divisions of, 202. Inhabitants of other worlds, 41. Intellectual delight, 126. Intelligence, identity of, 41. Interest in geology, with Michi- gan teachers, 13. Iron and geology, 109. Iron Mountain, response of, 17, 21 . Ishpeming, response of, 21. 214 INDEX. J M Jackson, response of, 17, 21. Jesuitism surviving in modern education, 82. Judgment in culture, etc., 27; in geology, 44. K Kalamazoo, response of, 17. King’s survey, 103; exposure of fraud, 112. Knowledge an end in education, 24, 25, 53, 142. L La Chalotais on order of studies, 118. Lakanal on culture, 64 ; dis- cussed, 65 ; on order of stud- ies, 118. Lake Linden, response of, 21. Languages in culture, 71 ; in ge- ology, 44. Lansing, response of, 21. Law student, motives of to study, 2 . LeConte, Joseph, cited, 39. Lecture method of instruction, 207. Lept*na, 186. Liberal, in education, 33. Literary pleasures, 56. Literary studies favored, 5; why favored, 6. Literary taste in culture, 32; in geology, 46. Literature and linguistics to be sustained, 12. Literature as a culture study, 145, 147, 150, 151. Literature a term of uncertain meaning, 145 ; how used by Payne, 146-7. Livelihood, influence of in edu- cation, 8. Lowell on linguistic culture, 69, 70. Low esteem of geology, 1. Malebranehe on order of studies, 116. Manchester, response of, 17, 21. Man in relation to the universe, 43, 84. Manistee, response of, 17, 21. Marine City, response of, 17, 21. Marmontel on culture, 61; dis- cussed, 62. Marshall, response of, 17. Mason College, 68. Massachusetts and geological teaching, 170. Mathematics in geology, 49. Melania, 193. Memory in culture, 26, 28. Mental arithmetic and culture. 116. Method at a quarry, 178. Methods and principles of geo- logic teaching, 200, 209. Michigamme, response of, 17. Michigan, geologv in schools of, 13, 170. Milford, response of, 17, 21. Mining professorships, 106. Mining schools, 106. Moral reforms immorally pro- moted, 94. Morenci, response of, 17, 21. Motives to study, 2. Mount Clemens, response of, 17. Mount Pleasant, response of, 18, 21 . Museums of geology, 106. Muskegon, response of, 18. N Nashville, response of, 18, 21. Nashville, Tenn., as place for study, 187. National geological survey, 104; appropriations for, 105. Newaygo, response of, 18, 21. New Baltimore, response of, 22. New England idea on order of studies, 116. New York and geological teach- ing, 170. INDEX. 215 Nicole on order of studies, 117. Northville, response of, 22. o Observational method, 53, 202. Observational method applied, 176; in a quarry region, 177 ; in a fossiliferous region, 181 ; in a lake shore region. 188 ; on the prairie, 192; on a Drift- covered surface, 195, 197. Observation, in culture, 30; the beginning of geology. 35, 44, 53 ; appropriate for childhood, 115, 119, 205; accompanied by reflection, 120; deals with fam- iliar things, 130; not provided for in trivium of culture, 148. Ocean, primeval, 38. Ohio and geological teaching, 170. Order of studies in relation to geology, 115. Orthis, 185, 187. Oscoda, response of, 22, Otsego, response of, 18. Out-of-door study an advantage, 131. Ovid, response of, 22. Owen, D. D., surveys under, 102 P Paludina, 193. Past history of the earth, 35. Paw Paw, response of, 22. Payne, W. H., on culture, 58, 138 ; on doctrine of prior order of sensible things, 116, 119, 121, 128 ; controverted, 121, 122; on painful stimulation, 124; on exclusion of emotion, 128; on sense activity, 128; on culture value of studies, 139; controverted on education values, 141 ; on trivium of cul- ture studies, 140, 143; views of, discussed, 149-58. Pedagogic heresies, 132. Percipient powers in geology, 44. Pestalozzi on order of studies, 116, 117; on diversifying edu- cation, 134. Petoskey and its geology, 191. Petroleum and geology, 109. Philosophic memory in culture, 28. Photography in geology, 48. Physical activity of childhood. 123. Physical geography a medium of geology, 14. Physiology in education, 142. Pictorial aids, 202. Platform instruction, 202. Plato on culture, 57: discussed, 57. Pontiac, response of. 22. Popular reading, 169. Port Huron, response of, 22. Portland, response of, 18, 22. Potsdam, N. T., as place of studv, 177. Powell’s survey. 104. Practical education appreciated, 3, 5. Practical education value, 137. Prairie as place for study, 192. Preoccupation of mind, 89. Preparation, much depending on, 81. Primary schools and geology, 19. Primordial condition of solar system, 40. Principles and methods of geolog- ical teaching, 200. Professional motive in academic studies, 6. Professional schools, incentives in, 3. Public opinion on utility of geol- ogy, 107, 169 ; grounds of. 108. Pupil at a quarry, 177; in a fos- siliferous region, 181 ; on a lake shore, 188; on the prairie, 192; in a Drift region, 195. Q Quadrivium and its claims, 4. Quantitative estimates of educa- tion values, 155. Quarry region and geologic study, 179. 216 INDEX. Quincy, response of, 18, 22. Quintilian on order of studies, 116. R Rabelais on order of studies, 116, 117. Railroad to Pacific, 101. Rains, aeonic, 38. Rank, educational, in studies, 136. Ratiocinative method, 203. Reason in geology, 50. Reflection accompanies observa- tion, 120, 125. Renan on culture, 63. Reports, geological, of States, 99, 100 . Responses to circular, 15, 159; general tenor of, 159; replies to, 171. Revenue not the proper basis of fostering care, 11. Rbynchonella, 187. Rice, W. N., cited, 165. Rock specimens supplied by Drift, 196. Romeo, response of, 18, 22. Rousseau on order of studies, 117. Ryerson, response of, 18. s Sacred books and geology, 86. Saint Ignace, response of, 19, 22. Saint Louis, response of, 19, 22. Saginaw, response of, 22. Salt and geology, 109, 173. Satisfaction and geology, 15, 173. Schools, duty of, beyond prepa- ration for college, 7, 164. Scientific course in college, 79. Scientific spirit, 31, 91, 157. Scientific students disparaged, 79; literary pressure on, 82. Sense education, 121. Sense memory in culture, 26. Sense perceptions in culture, 30 ; in geology, 46. Sherzer, W. A., and geology, 173. Sill, J. M. B., on thought and emotion, 129. Spalding, V. M., cited, 165. Specific disciplinary value, 136, 143. Spencer on order of studies, 119. Spiritual influence of geology, 39, 42, 86, 114. Stanton, response of, 22. Stars, nature of, 41. Starting point in geological his- tory, 38. Strophomena, 185. Struggle for existence, 6. | Studies estimated by Pavne, 139, 140. Style improved by geology, 52. j Sully on prior order of percep- tions, 122. Sun a residuum, 41. Sunderland, J. T., on geological study, 125. Surveys, geological, as exponents of opinion, 97 ; in foreign coun- tries, 97 ; in the states of Amer- ica, 98 ; under the American government, 100, 102, 103; na- tional, 104; private, 106. Sutro tunnel, 107, 112. Symmetry of mental development, *131, 133. T Taste in culture, 32. Teachers, direction of preparation of, 7 ; favorable views of, 160, 166. 169. Teaching, a motive in prepara- tion, 7. Tecumseh. response of, 19, 22. Tenney, S., and science teaching, 170.' Text-book question in geology. 14, 174, 198, 206. Thought-memory not provided for in trivium of culture, 148. Thought, vehicles for conveyance of, 72. Time lacking for geology, 14. Three Rivers, response of, 22. Tonic disciplinary values, 138, 143. INDEX. an Training, 25, 71. See also “Cul- ture.” Translation, discipline by, 62. Trenton, response of, 23. Trivium and its claims, 4, 5. Trivium of culture-studies, 143, 148; values of, 156, 158. u Unity of the universe, 43, 84; ethical influence of, 83. Universal culture in geology, 52. University influencing studies in schools, 7, 14; nature of antag- onism of, to geology, 160; re- quirements in, 161. Useful end in education, 23, 25, 53. V Values, educational, 136; of geol- ogy, 154; quantitatively esti- timated, 155. Value of education pecuniarily. 3, 96. Vassar, response of, 23. Verbal memory in culture, 26; in geology, 44 ; in geography, 145. w Wheeler’s survey, 103. Whewell on order of studies, 116. White Pigeon, response of, 23. Wisconsin and artesian wells, 112. Y Young learner, 204. See also, “ Early Study.” j Ypsilanti, response of, 19.