WHY WE SHOULD TEACH GEOLOGY. 73 



WHY WE SHOULD TEACH GEOLOGY. 



By Pbof. ALPHEUS S. PACKARD. 



APROPOS of a recent article in The Popular Science Monthly, 

 entitled " Do we teach Geology ? " it may be said that, 

 while the science may be taught in some high schools and smaller 

 colleges in the one-sided and perfunctory manner stated, the state- 

 ments under this head seem somewhat sweeping, as is also the 

 writer's condemnation of all of our text-books ; those of Dana, of 

 Le Conte, or Geikie, being comprehensive and excellent. The sub- 

 ject should be taught in our universities and larger colleges, so 

 as to train good teachers in the best field and laboratory methods, 

 who should follow such methods when called to teach in the high 

 schools and smaller colleges. Undoubtedly the best way to teach 

 geology is by lectures, supplemented by text-book study, and the 

 collateral reading of monographs, but especially by required field 

 work, and, when mineralogy and lithology are included, by labo- 

 ratory work. The teacher should have traveled widely, and seen 

 for himself volcanoes and geysers ; should have climbed mount- 

 ain-peaks, visited canons, and examined the effects of erosion, 

 and the every-day work of streams, of waves, tides, and ocean 

 currents. He should show his class by what agencies the scenery 

 at home has been produced, how certain mountains have been 

 carved out of blocks of sedimentary rocks, and, if he lives in a 

 region of fossiliferous rocks, the student should be taught to 

 collect and identify fossils. 



All this is done with more or less thoroughness in our better 

 equipped colleges, and where it is possible there are chairs of 

 mineralogy and lithology, apart from geology proper, with well- 

 appointed laboratories and collections, as well as special instruc- 

 tion in paleontology, given by experts ; while trained assistants 

 in dynamical geology take classes out for field observation. 



But, however the work of instruction be performed, the grand 

 outlines of the study should be impressed on the mind of the 

 student, and the teacher should have a philosophic grasp of the 

 subject ; and it is on account of the philosophic and general bear- 

 ings of geology that it should form a conspicuous element in any 

 liberal curriculum. 



Geology, then, in its broadest scope should be taught in our 

 schools and colleges, and for at least twelve good reasons. 



At the outset we would claim that it holds equal rank with 

 astronomy or biology. The former science tells us of the exist- 

 ence of other worlds than ours, and gives us some conception of 

 the immensity of space. The study of plants and animals car- 



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