OCTOBKR !), 1003.] 



SCIENCE. 



451 



V'ive tht'iu pjirt of the informatiim they seek. 

 Of eonrse the teaching ea" not sro very far 

 without simple laboratory and imiseum ac- 

 coimiiodatioii, and without a small expendi- 

 ture on maps and seetious; but the former 

 of these re<iuirements can soon be supplied 

 from the ehemieal laboratory and by the 

 eolleetion of the students themselves, while 

 the latter are every day becoming; cheaper 

 and more accessible and useful. The 

 bicycle and the camera, too. are providing 

 new teaching material and methods, while 

 at tlu' sauii' time they are giving new in- 

 terests. The bicycle has already begun to 

 create a generation to whom relief ma|>s 

 are not an altogether sealed book, and for 

 whom the laws which govern the relief of 

 a country are rapidly finding pi-actical 

 utility; and the camera, at the same time 

 that it quickens the appreciation of natural 

 beauty, must give new interest to each 

 scrap of knowledge as to the cau.ses, 

 whether botanical or geological, to which 

 that beauty is due. And it is this new 

 knowledge which in turn develops the 

 aesthetic sense. Mente. manu ct malho 

 sums up most of what is required in the 

 early stages of learning; but to round off 

 the motto we still require words to express 

 the camera and bicycle. 



Another i-eason is the open-airness of the 

 practice of the science. The delight of the 

 open coinitry comes with intense relief 

 after the class-room, the laboratory or the 

 workshop. In education generally, and 

 especially in geological education, we have 

 reached the end of the period when 



' all roads leail to Rome 

 Or books — the refu'ie of the destitute. ' 



Of course I realize fully the vital necessity 

 of laboratory and museum work in the 

 stages of both learning and investigation. 

 and quite freely admit that there is an im- 

 mense amount of useful work being done 

 and to be done in these institutions alone. 



But what I think I do right to insist upon 

 is that all work in the laboratory and mu- 

 seinn must be mainly preparatory to the 

 Held-work which is to follow, everj- type 

 of geological student must be sfut into the 

 field sooner or later, and in most cases the 

 sooner the better. I have generally found 

 that students in the early stages have a 

 great repugnance to the grind of working 

 through countless varieties of minerals, 

 rocks and fossils ; but once they have gone 

 into the field, collected with their own 

 hands, and seen the imi»ortance of these 

 things, and the iufereni-es to be drawn 

 from them, for themselves— once indeed 

 they have got keen — they come back will- 

 ingly, even eagerly, to any amount of hard 

 indoor work. 



But it is when they leave ordinary ex- 

 cursion work and start upon regular field 

 training that one really feels them spurt 

 forward. As soon as they begin to realize 

 that surface-features are only the reflex of 

 rock-structure and can be utilized for map- 

 ping, that to check their lines and initiate 

 new ones they must search for and find 

 new exposures, and that each observation 

 while settling perhaps one disputed point 

 may originate a host of new ones, when 

 above all they can be trusted with a cer- 

 tain amount of individual res|)onsibilitj' 

 and given a definite point to settle for them- 

 selves, it is then that their progress is most 

 rapid, and is bounded only by their powers 

 of endurance. 



I have often watched my students 

 through the various stages of their field 

 training with the deepest interest as a study 

 of the development of character. At first 

 they look upon it merely as a relief from 

 the tedium of the cla.ss-room and labora- 

 tory, and as a pleasiint country excursion. 

 But gradually the fascination of research 

 comes over them, and as they feel their 

 capacity increasing and their grip and in- 



