44 GEOLOGY. 



inhabitants, few subjects better deserve the immediate 

 attention of every town. 



9. No science is more practical. It acquaints far- 

 mers with the nature of their soils, and the best methods 

 of improving them: civil engineers with the materials 

 for constructing roads, canals, railways, wharves, dams, 

 &.c, and the proper method of combining them: artists 

 with the origin and nature of paints, and other sub- 

 stances in common use; and the miner when and how 

 to extend his researches, pointing him to a reward for 

 his labors, and guarding him against abortive attempts. 



Agriculture, internal improvements, manufactures, 

 and the various useful arts, occupy, at present, so large 

 a place in public attention, as to render every method 

 which can be adopted to advance them worthy of public 

 and private patronage. 



1 0. The introduction of geology into schools, would 

 tend to promote moral improvement among the young. 

 Perhaps there are not two more unfortunate circum- 

 stances attending our system of popular education, than 

 that the exercises of children in the school room are 

 irksome, and those for recreation are dissipating to the 

 mind. If schoolhouses could be rendered places of 

 pleasant resort, and amusements sources of useful in- 

 struction, the great work of reform in cultivating 

 intellectual and moral taste would be fairly begun. 

 The more innocent and useful amusements are scattered 

 around the young, the less time and disposition they 

 will have to pursue those which are pernicious or use- 

 less. No subject, perhaps, is better fitted to answer 

 the double purpose of amusement and instruction, than 

 geology. And few are better fitted to show the power 

 and wisdom of Him, who weighed the mountains in 

 scales, and the hills in a balance.' 



11. It is easily acquired. The features of this sci- 

 ence are not only striking and grand, but they are few 

 and simple, and exactly fitted to entertain and expand 

 the juvenile mind. By the aid of specimens, with 

 appropriate descriptions, its general principles are mor 

 easily and readily understood, than those of any other 

 science which is taught. Nothing is more easy than to 



