506 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 117. 



then, is also a reason for urging the im- 

 portance of the earth sciences as a proper 

 high school study. 



Professor I. P. Bishop, of the Buffalo 

 Normal, spoke of the importance of geology 

 in the teaching of geography. Whether it 

 be included in the school course or not, 

 there is no doubt that it should form an 

 essential part of the geography teacher's 

 outfit. For it is manifestly impossible to 

 teach the detached facts of physical geog- 

 raphy so as to give them much educational 

 value without knowing the causal relations 

 upon which the significance of these facts 

 depends. 



It is not so difficult to obtain material for 

 this kind of nature work as is often imag- 

 ined ; the true way is to study the material 

 nearest at hand. Every gravel bank is a 

 museum. Every stream, even to the tiny 

 rivulet formed by a shower, illustrates the 

 carving of a river valley or a Niagara 

 gorge. In almost any village we can show 

 how a hard layer of rock in the bed of a 

 stream has made a waterfall, cascade, or 

 rapid ; how by the aid of a dam this has 

 been utilized to run a saw or grist mill ; 

 how this has then naturally become a favor" 

 able spot in time for the location of a store, 

 blacksmith shop, hotel, churches, schools, 

 and the other interests of such a com- 

 munity. Thus the material available al- 

 most anywhere serves to illustrate the 

 mutual relation between a country and its 

 people. 



Professor B. G. Wilder, of Cornell, re- 

 called with dissatisfaction the time and 

 energy expended by him during his earlier 

 school days in the memorizing of many 

 geographic names of comparatively insig- 

 nificant localities, and held that in a natural 

 order physical geography should precede 

 rather than follow the ordinary political 

 geography. He also believed that if, be- 

 tween 1860 and 1870, the study of physical 

 geography had been carried even as far as 



at present, so that the public, and especially 

 the clergy, could have realized that the ap- 

 parently stable earth is really a sort of cos- 

 mic organism still in process of develop- 

 ment, the acceptance of evolution might 

 have required only a decade instead of the 

 quarter of a century. 



The discussion turned upon the best 

 means of conducting excursions for the 

 study of the earth sciences. It was ad- 

 mitted that in most schools too little at- 

 tention is paid to this phase of the work. 

 Teachers are too apt to strive for an interest 

 in far-away matters, glaciers, trade winds 

 and ocean currents, while they neglect the 

 means that are nearest at hand for arousing 

 and developing an interest in the earth. 

 At the same time there were many expres- 

 sions of warm appreciation of the work in, 

 some of our secondary schools, and in the 

 grades as well. Eeference was also made 

 to the great assistance rendered by the 

 American Museum of Natural History in 

 its distribution of lantern slides to the 

 schools of the State. 



Mr. William F. Langworthy, of Colgate 

 Academy, speaking of the teachers of 

 geography in our grammar schools, said 

 that their failure to accomplish better re- 

 sults in the direction of modern methods is 

 not so much their own fault as the fault of 

 those who have trained them, of those who 

 have charge of our courses of study. Much 

 time is lost in the lower grades upon some 

 parts of arithmetic. If some of the more 

 advanced portions of arithmetic were taken, 

 up in the later years of the high school 

 course, or in college, it would leave more 

 time for geography in the grades ; but it is 

 not advisable to crowd any more work into 

 the grammar school course. It is better to 

 enrich the grammar school course than to 

 enlarge it. 



The other speakers were Dr. D. L. Bard- 

 well, of the Cortland Normal ; Professor H. 

 J. Schmitz, of the Geneseo Normal; Dr. T. B.. 



