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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 791 
deducing tentative results from imperfectly ascertained facts. The living, day by 
day, face to face with approximation and conjecture must tend to breed an indif- 
ference to accuracy and certainty, and to abate that caution and that wholesome 
suspicion which make the wary reasoner look well to his foundations, and reso- 
lutely refuse to sanction any superstructures, however pleasing to the eye, unless 
they are firmly and securely based. 
If I am right in thinking that the mental health of the geologist of matured 
experience and full-grown powers is liable to a disorder of the kind I have indi- 
cated, how much greater must the risk be in the case of a youth, in whom the 
reasoning faculty is only beginning to be developed, when he approaches the study 
of geology! And does it not seem at first sight that that study could scarcely be 
used with safety as a tool to shape his mind, and so train his bent that he shall 
never even have a wish to turn aside either to the right hand or to the left from 
the strait path that leads through the domain of sound logic ? 
That it is hazardous, and that evil may result from an incautious use of 
geology as an educational tool, I entertain no doubt. The same may indeed be 
said of many other subjects, but I feel that it is specially true in the case of geology. 
But I should be guilty of that very haste in drawing conclusions against which I 
am raising a warning word, if I therefore inferred that geology can find no place 
in the educational curriculum. 
To be forewarned is a proverbial safeguard, and those who are alive to a danger 
will cast about for a means of guarding against it. And there are many ways of 
neutralising whatever there may be potentially hurtful in the use of geology for 
educational ends. It has been said that the right way to make a geologist is not 
to teach him any geology at all to begin with. To send him first into a laboratory, 
give him a good long spell at observations and measurements requiring the 
minutest accuracy, and so saturate his mind with the conception of exactness that 
nothing shall ever afterwards drive it out. Ifa plan like this be adopted, it is 
easy to pick out such kinds of practical work as will not only breed the mental 
habits aimed at, but will also stand him in good stead when he goes on to his 
special subject. Goniometrical measurements and quantitative analysis will serve 
the double purpose of inspiring him with accurate habit of thought, and helping 
him to deal with some of the minor problems of geology. And I cannot hold that 
this practice of paying close attention to minute details will necessarily unfit a man 
for taking wider sweeps and more comprehensive views later on. That habit 
comes naturally to every man who has the making of a geologist in him directly 
he gets into the field. Put such a man where a broad and varied landscape lies 
before him, teach him how each physical feature is the counterpart of geological 
structure, and breadth of view springs up a native growth. Ido not mean to say 
that the plan just suggested is the only way of guarding against the risk I have 
been dwelling upon. There are many others. This will serve as a sample to show 
what I think ought to be aimed at in designing the geological go-cart. And any 
such mind-moulding leads, be assured, not to hesitancy and doubt, but to con- 
clusions, reached slowly it may be, but so securely based that they will seldom 
need reconstruction. 
There is another aspect of the question. The uncertainties with which the 
road of the geologist are so thickly strewn have an immense educational value, if 
only we are on our guard against taking them for anything better than they really 
are. Of those stirring questions which are facing us day by day and hour by hour, 
none perhaps is of greater moment than the discussion of the value of the evidence 
on which we base the beliefs that rule our daily life, A man who is ever dealing 
with geological evidence and geological conclusions, and has learned to estimate 
these at their real value, will carry with him, when he comes to handle the com- 
plex problems of morals, politics, and religion, the wariness with which his geo- 
logical experience has imbued him. 
Now I trust the prospect is brightening. Means have been indicated of guard- 
ing against the danger which may attend the use of geology as an educational instrue 
ment. Need I say much to an audience of geologists about the immense advan~ 
tages which our science may claim in this respect? In its power of cultivating 
