

Nov.,i8 9 3. GEOLOGY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 333 



thing awe-inspiring, at the least ; yet he comes up to a University in 

 ignorance of what has made the features of the landscape which he has 

 seen all his life from the door of his country home, and of what 

 agents have brought together the pebbles of his summer bathing 

 place. 



If the utility of such knowledge be questioned, we open up an 

 attack upon the vast body of information crammed into unsuspecting 

 childhood. The only answer is to admit the utility of all knowledge 

 whatsoever, and then to assert the special desirability of that branch 

 under consideration. 



At the present moment much attention is given to technical 

 education, which has two main objects — the improvement of the 

 workman and the improvement of the object produced ; but there 

 are many who look to such education primarily as a means of 

 acquiring wealth — and also of competing with the Germans. In this 

 paper I regard education as a means of acquiring happiness and of 

 living peaceably with one's neighbours ; so that the financial return 

 may be disregarded until special cases are considered in the discus- 

 sion. National secondary education, I take it, should insist on the 

 dependence of the individual on his fellows rather than on the 

 dependence of the masses on an individual ; in other words, it should 

 enable a man to realise his position as a member of a community, to 

 live without grasping, and happily upon a moderate income. 



Now Geology becomes indispensable for a correct appreciation 

 of our relations to our surroundings and to the past. In a general 

 course of instruction during, say, the last year of secondary education, 

 when the pupils are of the age of 16 or 17, I would treat of the 

 different minerals of which rocks are made, always bearing in mind 

 the materials to be found in the locality in which the teaching is 

 being given. I would deal as little as possible with the more refined 

 aspects of these minerals — such as their crystalline systems — beyond 

 an indication of the facts of symmetry and of how minerals, apparently 

 similar, may be ultimately distinguished by their crystalline forms. 

 I would lay much stress on the character of hardness, using the 

 thumb-nail and the pocket-knife, and on simple chemical means of 

 determination. It may be worth noting that I have always found 

 girls most apt in matters requiring the elements of crystallography, 

 while boys, as a rule, are indifferent to symmetrical beauty. 



In dealing with rocks, I should exclude the use of microscopic 

 sections. For our broad untechnical purposes, it would seem better 

 to grind down a surface when structure has to be exhibited, and to 

 pick a rock to pieces, with the aid of a hand-lens or a dissecting 

 microscope, when its constituents have to be determined. The 

 methods used in more elaborate work might, however, be hinted at ; 

 but in every week's lesson the teacher will have to remember that he 

 is training men and women, and not miners or geologists. 



The mineral analysis of some ten common rocks may thus be 



