GEOLOGY AS A PART OF A COLLEGE 

 CURRICULUM. 



The demand for scientific studies as a part of the college 

 curriculum is felt by all those who have to do with the provision 

 of higher instruction for American youth. The reasons for this 

 may be various, but a fundamental reason is found in the ten- 

 dency among the American people in particular, and in this age 

 in general, toward practicality in all things. Applied to educa- 

 tion this practicality asks for a training which shall have a direct 

 bearing upon the business of life to be followed immediately 

 after the training period is ended. It means a differentiation of 

 subjects and specialization in methods to adjust the education 

 to the different functions which the students taking it are prepar- 

 ing for. It calls for a professional education for those who 

 expect to become lawyers, doctors, ministers, or teachers, — a 

 technical education for those who are to engage in the arts of 

 the mechanical or civil engineer, or of the architect. It results 

 not only in the establishment of colleges and universities 

 devoted to this kind of education, but it affects the methods 

 of the high schools and academies, and is felt down to primary 

 schools, and on the other hand the older institutions founded 

 on a different plan are adapted to the popular demand by the 

 addition to the regular studies of " electives," chosen not always 

 for their value or disciplinary studies, but because of the 

 practical applicability of the information to be derived from 

 them, to the business of the student. 



Without discussing the relative merits of the two ideas of 

 education, the chief contrast between them may be found in the 

 character of the results sought. The knowledge of things and 

 their uses is of chief importance in the practical education ; the 

 knowlege of ideas and skill in their use is the aim of the liberal 

 education. Geology is one of the sciences which most men will at 



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