a little river. It may be experimentally illustrated by blowing with the breath upon a hand basin of water.

In further setting forth the solar action on this planet, the history of the movements of the air may be explained. In practice I take up this matter before treating of the rain, but with younger people than I have to deal with it may not be easy to make the phenomena of the winds clear enough to be interesting. Yet with a little address, and by the use of familiar illustrations, I believe the normal child of fifteen can be led to a clear understanding of the important facts. If this is undertaken, the geologic effects of the winds in erosion and definition should be carefully set forth. Such phenomena as those of sand dunes, wind-carried pebbles, and the dust deposits of western China make this action plain.

As a part of the history of solar energy on the planet the organic processes should be set forth. Here is a field of much difficulty, for the reason that the pupils can know but little of animals and plants, and the succession of species to the amount of a hundred million or more is to them, as to us, inconceivable. The adult has to learn in many ways to fence with inconceivables, but it is not well to hurl them at young people. I cannot tell you how to do this task so as to give the student valuable concepts, but there is one caution I may give, which is, not to afflict them with the categoric names of fossils. The series of animals such as those which led from the five-toed mammalia to the single-toed horse will interest beginners, but the technical names will put them out of sympathy with the story. If but a limited amount of geology be taught, say that which can be compassed in three months with three periods a week, it seems to me best to devote the greater part of it to the above-noted effects of solar energy.

Passing from the field of surface actions to the phenomena of the earth's crust, we enter on a realm where the subject-matter is more recondite and affords less enlarging concepts. The whole group of stress actions, such as those exhibited in faults and foldings of the rocks, should be shortly dealt with and with the intent of showing the simpler aspects of the earth's contraction, and combined with it the effects of loading and unloading of various parts of the surface, and also the generally slow growth of mountains and the coincident erosion by streams and glaciers. All these subjects should be treated in a general manner; the details are for professional geologists. The phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes are particularly interesting because they are vivid and picturesque. The conception of the interior of the earth as a seat of power may be had from this field as from none other; so, too, from earthquakes the notion that the crust is not a dead mass, but exceedingly elastic.

The nature of ore deposits—in fact, the conditions of occurrence of all earth materials contributive to the arts-is a matter of curious interest

to young people, especially when taught in relation to the wealth of various nations. In general, it may be said that so long as the teacher can relate the matter to the interests of man he is sure to have the attention of his pupils. I have found that, when I could show how the shape of the earth affected the history of a great battle or other human action, I had the basis for teaching that would stay.

As for the method of teaching, each teacher has to fit it to his capacities, with the limitation that the text-book, if used at all, should be no more than the basis for the instruction, and the absolute requirement that there must be some kind of field study to give life and body to the subject.. One of the advantages of beginning with the action of water is that everywhere, even in the greater cities, some illustration of this, if it be only in a gutter, can be had. A teacher who knows the subject can in a few Saturdays afield give his pupils some sense of the actual earth and of the effects of solar energy on its surface. Almost everywhere he can show them something of the characteristics of rocks. If there be fossiliferous deposits, he has yet another and excellent means of awakening interest, for there is nothing else that so quickens the interest of the pupil.

As for the apparatus needed in teaching the elements of geology, it may be what the conditions permit. If there is a good field for outdoor study, none whatever is absolutely required. It is well, very well indeed, to have a lantern and a few score slides showing features that are not to be seen near the school. A collection of models illustrating geological structures is useful-much better than diagrams, for the reason that they have the solid quality. A collection of rocks and minerals has its value, tho they give but little to the beginners. Geological maps are not to be recommended, for the reason that the interpretation of such delineations is exceeding difficult, and they tend to give the pupil the idea that the matter is beyond his comprehension.

Altho I have been teaching geology for nearly forty years, I find myself unable to set down any rules for such instruction which are likely to be of much help to another person. What success I have had has been due, so far as I can see, to the fact that the subject has been in my mind for all my active life, and that I have shaped my work to suit my own nature, not modeling it on that of any master. It may, furthermore, be said that I have awakened interest by keeping my elementary instruction as far as possible in fields that concerned man. So far as I have been able to observe, the failures of instructors in this and other sciences are generally due to the mistaken supposition that beginners in the subject come to it with the interest which the expert alone has. To attain the end here, as elsewhere, it is well to humanize the matter as far as is consistent with sound work.

THE PROPER SCOPE OF GEOLOGICAL TEACHING in the
HIGH SCHOOL AND ACADEMY

WILLIAM NORTH RICE, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY,
MIDDLETOWN, CONN.

[AN ABSTRACT]

The Committee of Ten placed in all four of its secondary-school programs a course in physical geography in the first year, and in all except the classical program a course in geology or physiography in the fourth year. The report of the Committee on Physical Geography, included in the report of the Committee on College Entrance Requirements presented at the meeting of the National Educational Association in 1899, recommends a course in physical geography in the first or second year, the majority of the committee preferring the first year; and a course in geology late in the curriculum, preferably in the fourth year. A committee of the Connecticut Association of Classical and High School Teachers, in formulating a model high-school curriculum, put a required course in physical geography in the first year, and an elective course in geology in the fourth year. These recent reports seem to indicate something like a consensus of educational opinion.

I believe that there should be a required course in physical geography in the first year of the high-school curriculum. This course would accordingly precede the bifurcation of the curriculum necessitated by the fact that in most cases the classical students must begin Greek in the second year. The importance of an intelligent general view of the world in which we live, to all pupils, whatever may be their subsequent educational advantages or their business in life, amply justifies making this a required That it should become a part of the requirement for admission to all college courses is a consummation devoutly to be wished. A course in geology in the fourth year of the curriculum is a most desirable elective.

course.

The required course in physical geography should include sections on the earth as a planet, the atmosphere, the ocean, the land, and life. I deem it unnecessary to discuss that course, as I am in substantial agreement with the views of the report on physical geography presented to the National Educational Association in 1899. The only important point in which I would wish to express dissent from that report is that, in my opinion, the amount of time allotted to the geography of the land is proportionally too great.

A course in geology will be in an important sense an amplification of the part of the course in physical geography relating to the land. While, to a considerable extent, the subjects treated in physical geography and geology are identical, there is always a difference in the point of view. Geography

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has been said to be the study of the earth's present in the light of its past; geology, the study of its past in the light of its present. The recognition of the earth as having had a history is incidental in geography, essential in geology. Geography looks primarily at the present condition of the earth as man's dwelling-place; tho there can be no intelligent contemplation of existing forms without reference to their cause, or of current processes without reference to the history which they imply. But in geology the idea of the earth as having had a history-as being a product of evolution is all-important. Dynamical and structural geology gives the key to the alphabet in which the earth's monumental inscriptions are written. Historical geology reads those inscriptions themselves. Something of dynamical geology must, of course, be implied in any other than a purely phenomenal description of geographical facts. But the dynamics of the globe, which can be treated only superficially with the knowledge at command of high-school pupils in the first year, can be treated much more thoroly after they have acquired in the second and third years some knowledge of physics and chemistry, and perhaps of other sciences. In the first year's course in physical geography, the action of the atmosphere and rain in reducing rocks from a condition of comparatively firm consolidation to a more or less advanced state of disintegration can be recognized in a general way. In a fourth year's course in dynamical geology, the student will be prepared to recognize specifically the chemical actions of oxygen and water and carbon dioxide upon the various elements and compounds of which the earth's crust consists. In the first year's course there can be a general recognition of the action of rivers, in erosion, transportation, and deposition, and of the effect of varying velocity upon these processes; but the fourth-year student, who has learned something of physics, can understand that the energy of a river is the energy of a falling body, is measured by the product of mass into height of fall, and is used up chiefly in overcoming friction and in uplifting transported sediment in opposition to gravitation. He can thus gain a far more complete and comprehensive knowledge of the dynamics of river action.

If an elective in geology is provided in the fourth year, it should be chiefly a course in dynamical and structural geology. It must, indeed, be recognized that no one course in geology is best in all schools. Something must depend upon local conditions, something upon the qualifications and idiosyncrasies of the teacher, something upon the extent to which other sciences have been previously introduced in the curriculum of particular schools. In a school whose teachers and pupils have easy access to a series of fossiliferous formations, obviously much more attention should be given to the study of fossils and their teaching than would be wise in a school located in the middle of an expanse of crystalline rocks of uncertain origin and of unknown age. Schools situated within the

glaciated region should obviously give special attention to glacial geology. Historical geology and paleontology can be dealt with somewhat fully in schools where the curriculum is such that the members of the class have already had a somewhat extended course in zoölogy. But, in general, those who will take a course in geology in the fourth year of the high school will not have had enough of zoölogy and botany to appreciate a thoro or detailed presentation of the succession of life in geological time. Mineralogy and lithology cannot be studied with any degree of thoroness without crystallography or without more of chemistry than high-school pupils can be expected to know. In general, a non-technical description of a mineral is an incorrect description. Practically all that can be done with minerals and rocks is to show the student specimens of a few of the most important, and give him some vague idea of their ordinary macroscopic characters.

In general, then, and apart from exceptional conditions, the main part of the work in geology must be the study of structural and dynamical geology. The peculiar and characteristic educational value of such a course is as a training in scientific reasoning. The question which should always be emphasized is: How do we know that the earth has had a history? What are the signs by which past changes are inferred, and what is the ground of validity of the inference? This point of view requires, of course, considerable reflective capacity on the part of the student. Hence this course should not come before the fourth year of the curriculum. There has been difference of usage among lecturers and authors of textbooks; some making the dynamical geology precede the structural, others vice versa. Of these two arrangements, the former seems better adapted to initiate the student into the mental habitude of interpreting the phenomena of the earth's crust as evidences of former changes. In my own lectures, I have followed what seems to me a still better plan in taking dynamical and structural geology together, so that each particular class of rocks or of rock structures is studied in immediate connection with the discussion of the particular agencies to which it is due. I believe that a text-book constructed on that plan would make it easier for the teacher to develop in the student's mind some just conception of the logic of geology.

In closing, a word may properly be said in regard to means of illustration. Besides maps, models, and pictures, every school should have at least a small collection of geological specimens ; and a small collection well selected is far more useful than a great mass of miscellaneous curios. There should be, of course, typical specimens of the principal rockforming minerals and of the principal rocks. A small collection of fossils typical of the different eras will be useful. Most important for the teaching of geology, but usually entirely overlooked in fitting up a highschool museum, is material illustrative of dynamical geology; such as