450 Trof. Watts — Geology in Education and Practical Life. 



be limited to areas that happen, to be of known economic value just 

 at the present moment. It is almost a truism that the scientific 

 principle of to-day is the economic instrument of to-morrow, and 

 it will be a good investment to enlarge the bounds of geological 

 theory, trusting to the inevitable result that every new principle 

 and fact discovered will soon find its economic application. Further, 

 it is necessary that we should obtain as soon as possible a better 

 knowledge of the mineral resources of the smaller and thinly 

 inhabited colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence. This 

 is one of the things which would conduce to the more rapid and 

 effective occupation of these areas. 



With regard to areas not at present British colonies, it seems to 

 me that no great harm would be done by obtaining, not in any 

 obtrusive way, some general knowledge of the mineral resources 

 of likely areas. This at least seems to be what other nations find 

 it worth their while to do, and then, when the opportunity of 

 selection arises, they are able to choose such regions as will most 

 rapidly fill up and soonest yield a return for the private or public 

 capital invested in them. 



To sum up, I consider that the time has come when geologists 

 should make a firm and consistent stand for the teaching of their 

 science in schools, technical colleges, and universities. Such an 

 extension of teaching will of course need the expenditure of time 

 and money ; but England is at last beginning to wake up to the 

 belief, now an axiom in Germany and America, that one of the best 

 investments of money that can be made by the pious benefactor 

 or by the State is that laid up at compound interest, " where neither 

 ruast nor moth doth corrupt," in the brains of its young men. 



This knowledge has been an asset of monetary value to hosts of 

 individuals who have made their great wealth by the utilisation 

 of our mineral resources, and to our country, which owes its high 

 position among the nations to the power and importance given to 

 it by its coal and iron. It is surely good advice to individuals and 

 to the State to ask them to reinvest some of their savings in the 

 business which has already given such excellent returns, so that 

 they and we may not be losers through our lack of knowledge of 

 those sources of energy which have made us what we are, and are 

 capable of keeping for many years the position they have won for us. 



And in our present revival of education it would be well that 

 its rightful position should be given to a science which is useful 

 in training and exercising the faculty of observation and the power 

 of reasoning, which conduces to the open-air life and to the 

 appreciation of the beautiful in nature, which places its services 

 at the disposal of the allied sciences of topography and geography, 

 which is the handmaid of many of the useful arts, and which brings 

 about a better knowledge and appreciation of the life and growth 

 of that planet which we inhabit for a while, and wish to hand on 

 to our descendants as little imjDaired in vitality and energy as is 

 consistent with the economic use of our own life-interest in it. 



