April 5, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



329 



the earth. ITow far would such knowledge 

 go toward solving the many problems which 

 face every mining camp, and every mining 

 mill and smelter? How far would it go 

 in removing labor troubles, in averting ac- 

 cidents, in bringing about a just distribu- 

 tion of profits in mining camps? To such 

 questions specific answers are not forth- 

 coming, but they are worthy of the most 

 serious study, and their study may lead to 

 a better understanding between capital and 

 labor, and a better adjustment and an ad- 

 justment by better means, of their respec- 

 tive claims. Incidentally, if some of these 

 things were better understood by those 

 professional reformers who always take the 

 the side of the dissatisfied, better results 

 might be hoped for. The ignorance and 

 therefore the incompetence of the sincerely 

 well-disposed is one of the great obstacles 

 to real progress. 



The oil industry and all that goes with 

 it furnishes another illustration of the im- 

 portance of geologic knowledge, an im- 

 portance which daily is assuming larger 

 proportions. The rise of the cement in- 

 dustry is another of the great achievements 

 of modern times in which geology has been 

 an effective partner. 



All these things concern themselves with 

 industrial and commercial life, and what 

 has been said may seem to place undue 

 emphasis on material things; but I hold 

 that these are first considerations. Men 

 must have enough to be decent and to live 

 decentl.y, before their attention can be suc- 

 cessfully directed to those things which we 

 are pleased to call "the higher things of 

 life." Ethics, esthetics and scientific re- 

 search can hardly hope to find many effect- 

 ive exponents among the underfed and 

 underclothed. In spite of what the rare 

 individual may do, or of what the average 

 indi\adual may do under temporary ex- 

 ceptional conditions, few men, in the long 



run, will do much that is noble, much that 

 contributes to progress, in the absence of 

 something more than the mere necessities 

 of life. 



But there is quite another aspect to 

 geology, which does not concern itself im- 

 mediately with income or with industry. 

 The study of geology involves the contem- 

 plation of things which are enlarging and 

 ennobling, in a spiritual sense. No edu- 

 cation which leaves out training of the 

 imagination is properly enlarging or en- 

 nobling; and where, outside of science, is 

 there such opportunity for developing and 

 training the imagination, and where in sci- 

 ence, a better field than geology? The 

 time-conceptions involved, the force-con- 

 ceptions involved, the results involved in 

 the operation of time and force, are among 

 the greatest with which the student has to 

 deal. They strengthen the mind by exer- 

 cise of a sort which few other subjects 

 afford. In space conceptions, astronomy 

 surpasses it; in their appropriate spheres, 

 physics and chemistry are equally effective 

 for the educational ends here emphasized; 

 but on the whole, no science surpasses it. 



No subject affords a better field for the 

 development of that sort of attitude of 

 mind which seems especially to fit men for 

 life. While there are phases of the sub- 

 ject which deal with facts and principles 

 which lead to inevitable conclusions as 

 certainly as mathematical reasoning does, 

 there are other phases in which reasoning 

 of another sort is called for. In most of 

 the affairs of life, decisions are based on a 

 preponderance of evidence. In few mo- 

 mentous decisions is the evidence so clear 

 that there is but one side to the question. 

 Rarely is the evidence 100 : ; it is 75 : 25. 

 or 60 : 40, or 51 : 49. And training in 

 weighing evidence which is not overwhelm- 

 ingly one-sided is one of the most impor- 

 tant functions of education, for most of the 



