910 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 103. 



a college place in the public annals of the 

 ISTation. It is indispensable, it seems to me, 

 if it is to do its right service, that the air of 

 affairs should be admitted to all its class- 

 rooms. I do not mean the air of party 

 politics, but the air of the world's trans- 

 actions, the consciousness of the solidarity 

 of the race, the sense of the duty of man 

 toward man, of the presence of men in 

 every problem, of the significance of truth 

 for guidance as well as for knowledge, of 

 the potency of ideas, of the promise and the 

 hope that shine in the face of all knowledge. 

 There is laid upon us the compulsion of the 

 National life. We dare not keep aloof and 

 closet ourselves while a nation comes to its 

 maturity. The days of glad expansion are 

 gone; our life grows tense and difficult; our 

 resource for the future lies in careful 

 thought, providence and wise economy; and 

 and the school must be of the Nation. 



I have had sight of the perfect place of 

 learning in my thought, a free place and a 

 various, where no man could be and not 

 know with how great a destiny knowledge 

 had come into the world — itself a little 

 world; but not perplexed, living with a 

 singleness of aim not known without; the 

 home of sagacious men, hard-headed and 

 with a will to know, debaters of the world's 

 questions every day and used to the rough 

 ways of democracy; and yet a place re- 

 moved — calm Science seated there, recluse, 

 ascetic, like a nun, not knowing that the 

 world passes, not caring, if the truth but 

 come in answer to her prayer; and Litera- 

 ture, walking within her open doors, in 

 quiet chambers, with men of olden time, 

 storied walls about her, and calm voices 

 infinitely sweet; here 'magic casements, 

 opening on the foam of perilous seas, in 

 fairy lands forlorn,' to which you may with- 

 draw and use your youth for pleasure ; 

 there windows open straight upon the street, 

 where many stand and talk, intent upon 

 the world of men and business. A place 



where ideals are kept in heart in an air 

 they can breathe; but no fool's paradise. 

 A place where to hear the truth about the 

 past and hold debate about the affairs of 

 the present, with knowledge and without 

 passion ; like the world in having all men's 

 life at heart, a place for men and all that 

 concerns them ; but unlike the world in its 

 self-possession, its thorough way of talk, its 

 care to know more than the moment brings 

 to light; slow to take excitement, its air 

 pure and wholesome with a breath of faith ; 

 every eye within it bright in the clear day 

 and quick to look toward heaven for the 

 confirmation of its hope. Who shall show 

 us the way to this place? 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

 RECENT UNITED STATES GEOLOGIC FOLIOS. 



Kecent folios of the Geologic Atlas of 

 the United States contain more examples 

 of physiographic features, well illustrated, 

 described and explained, than can be here 

 noted. The McMinnville, Tenn., folio re- 

 veals details of form and structure in a dis- 

 trict that has been heretofore practically 

 untouched since Safford's excellent descrip- 

 tion in the State Survey report many years 

 ago. The Highland, at an elevation of 

 about 1,000 feet, is surmounted on the east 

 by the Cumberland plateau, 2,000 feet eleva- 

 tion, with outliers and deep marginal val- 

 leys, and broken on the northwest by the 

 ragged rim that descends to the central 

 basin. The Three Forks, Montana, folio 

 includes the Madison Valley, a typical ex- 

 ample of an extinct lake basin, forty miles 

 long by ten wide, formed by warping a pre- 

 existent mountain region, and drained by a 

 thousand-foot gorge cut through the en- 

 closing ridge. The lake sediments thus laid 

 bare are about 1,000 feet thick and include 

 thin layers of gray volcanic dust that fell 

 into the lake, covered by thicker layers of 

 reddish weathered dust that washed in from 



