NOVEMBEB 13, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



683 



A NEW LOCALITY FOE MIOCENK MAMMALS 



Some time ago Mr. William Stein, one of 

 my students, brought me a fragment of tlie 

 lower jaw of some equine, containing two 

 teeth, excellently preserved. The specimen 

 was found at his father's ranch at Trouble- 

 some, in Middle Park Colorado, in the course 

 of making a well. It was about thirty feet 

 from the surface, in red soil. As no Miocene 

 beds have ever been reported from this region, 

 the discovery is a remarkable one. Photo- 

 graphs of the specimen (three aspects) were 

 made and sent to Dr. J. W. Gidley, of the 

 National Museum. He very kindly replied 

 that it was difficult to determine the species, 

 but the characters shown seemed to place it 

 rather definitely in the genus Parahippus. 

 The horizon was Middle or Upper Miocene. 

 Dr. W. D. Matthew also kindly examined the 

 photographs, and thought the animal was cor- 

 rectly referred to Parahippus, and of Miocene 

 age. 



Mr. S. A. Eohwer made a trip to Trouble- 

 some, in order to search for further materials, 

 but although he carefully examined all the 

 surrounding region, he could not find any 

 fossils. It seems probable that the deposit is 

 quite local, and it may be that only extensive 

 excavations at the Stein ranch will uncover 

 the fossiliferous beds. 



t. d. a. cockerell 



Universitt of Coloeado 



education and the trades 

 I READ with much interest " The High 

 School Course," by President David Starr 

 Jordan in The Popular Science Monthly for 

 July. While the tenor and purpose of the 

 article as a whole are commendable, as 

 progressive and liberal, one sentence contained 

 therein shows that President Jordan is not un- 

 like the orthodox ministers and church mem- 

 bers, who pride themselves upon their broad- 

 mindedness in having renounced the fire and 

 brimstone hell, although they still hold fast to 

 the devil — or who would look after the bad 

 people, pray? 



The sentence to which I refer is the follow- 

 ing: 



But tlie purpose of this training must be intel- 



lectual, not to teach a trade, and only secondarily 

 to fit for engineering courses of the universities. 



Not to teach a trade! Why not lift the 

 trades out of the gutter? and acknowledge 

 them to be suitable, yea, fertile fields for intel- 

 lectual activity? 



President Jordan says : 



The development of manual training of some 

 sort for all boys and girls will represent the 

 greatest immediate forward step in secondary 

 education. 



Why? Simply because it is an approach 

 toward the proper recognition and apprecia- 

 tion of that which is practical and useful. 



In noting the great hue and cry which has 

 gone over the country against child labor, I 

 have often thought that these children who 

 labor are not much more sinned against than 

 the school children who are shut up in school 

 rooms day after day and forced to study things 

 which seem wholly foreign to their lives. 

 They are obliged to sacrifice their most re- 

 ceptive years to the old traditional idea of 

 education which consisted in the acquisition 

 of so-called intellectual Tcnowledge; of knowl- 

 edge which was out of the reach of the work- 

 ing people, held aloft and kept free from con- 

 tamination with the vulgar trades ; knowledge 

 which could never be degraded by use, in earn- 

 ing a living. Is it not high time that we 

 break away from these shackles of tradition, 

 and no longer wrong the trades by ostracizing 

 them and considering the mastery of a trade 

 something separate and apart from an intel- 

 lectual pursuit? 



A trade is defined as : 

 An occupation, especially mechanical employment, 

 as distinguished from the " liberal arts " — the 

 learned professions, and agriculture. As, we 

 speak of the trade of a smith, of a carpenter, or 

 a mason, but, not now of the trade of a farmer, 

 or a lawyer, or a physician. 



This now, in the definition, shows that the 

 farmer, lawyer and physician used to belong 

 among the " tradespeople." 



The intellectual boundaries will not suffer if 

 the trades enter in. The old " no-trespassing " 

 signs must come down, and the trade-idea 

 must be elevated and placed upon a par with 

 the so-called liberal arts. 



