PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AS AN EDUCA- 

 TIONAL SUBJECT 



By J. E. MARR, Sc.D., F.R.S. 



University Lecturer in Geology, Cambridge 



Geology has long been regarded by those who are concerned 

 with education as the Issachar of the sciences, "couching down 

 between two burdens " — to wit, the weight of the mineralogical 

 knowledge on the one side and the biological knowledge on the 

 other necessary for its right comprehension. It is many years 

 since Ruskin wailed that the energies of the Geological Society 

 were diverted to palaeontology, and since then they have been 

 largely devoted to the mineralogical branch of the study. 

 Little wonder, then, that school-teachers have looked askance 

 at the subject, especially since it is customary for the writers of 

 even the most elementary text-books to attempt to cover the 

 whole range of the science, forgetting that a study of rocks 

 and fossils by boys who have not mastered the elements of 

 mineralogy and biology is conducive to slipshod methods. It 

 is true that a number of facts may be readily learned, but the 

 significance of these is not fully grasped — ay, and worse than 

 this, the students are often led to suppose that they have been 

 grasped, when the contrary is the case. 



An attempt on the part of youth to study all branches of the 

 science is positively harmful, and those who wish to see geology 

 take its proper place in the educational curriculum should dis- 

 countenance any such endeavour. But though this detailed 

 study is not to be commended, there is an ever-increasing 

 number of those who are interested in education who believe 

 that the principles of the science can be taught in a manner 

 which is, from the educational point of view, thoroughly 

 beneficial. 



The alternative title of Sir Charles Lyell's great work The 

 Principles of Geology is " The Modern Changes of the Earth and 

 its Inhabitants considered as illustrative of Geology." In that 

 work petrology and palaeontology find no place, and } T et to it 



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