Oeologij in Education and Practical Life. 441 



and of the best strategists, a good ' eye for a country.' It bas been 

 said tbat tbe Boer war was a geographical war ; but it was even 

 more, and, especially in its later stages, a topographic war. Again 

 and again the Boers aroused our astonishment and admiration by 

 the way in which their topogi'aphic knowledge and instinct enabled 

 them to fight, to defend themselves, and to secure their retreat by 

 the most consummate ability in utilising the natural features of 

 their country. This was due to two things. In the first place they 

 took care to have with them in each part of the country the men 

 who knew that particular district best in every detail and in every 

 aspect. But in the second place thei'e can be no doubt that they 

 made the utmost use of that hunter-craft by which the majority 

 of them could take in at a glance the character of a country, even 

 a new one, as a whole, guided by certain unconscious principles 

 which each man absorbed as part of his country life and hunter's 

 training. They possessed, and had of necessity cultivated to a very 

 high degree, an ' eye for a country.' 



Now the study of the geology of any district, and especially the 

 geological mapping of it, goes a long way towards giving and 

 educating the very kind of eye for a country which is required, 

 partly by reason of the practice in observation and interpretation 

 which it is continuously giving, and partly because it deliberately 

 supplies the very kinds of classification and the principles of form 

 which a hunter-people have unconsciously built up from their 

 outdoor experience. 



Any geologist who thinks of the Weald, the wolds and downs 

 of Eastern England, the scarps and terraces of the Pennine, the 

 buried mountain structure of the Midlands, even the complicated 

 mountain-types of Lakeland and Wales, will remember how often 

 his general knowledge of the rock-structure of the region has helped 

 him as a guide to the topography ; and as his geological knowledge 

 of the area has increased he will recall how easy it has become to 

 carry the most complicated topography in his mind, or to revive 

 his recollection of it from a glance at the map, because the geological 

 structure, the anatomy, is present in his mind throughout, and the 

 outside form is the inevitable consequence of that structure. Indeed, 

 the reading of a good geological map to the geologist is like the 

 reading of score by a musician. 



Surely it would be most unwise if the Committee on Militaiy 

 Education were to cut out of their curriculum the one subject which 

 has exercised and educated this faculty, and one which is at the 

 same time doing a great deal to counteract that degeneration of 

 observing faculties inseparable from a town life. Some cadets at 

 least ought to be chosen from amongst those men who have been 

 trained by this method to see quickly and accurately into the 

 topographic character and possibilities of a country, and provision 

 should be made for educating their faculties further until they 

 become of genuine strategic value. 



Then I believe it would be correct to say that no class of men 

 get to know their own country with anything like the minuteness 



