234 MATHEWS AND LITTLE GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY IN THE U. S. 



dissertations while thus employed, while geologists were assigned to 

 special tasks only indirectly related to their specialties. 



Oppoetunities for Training 

 a'^ourges op information 



The opportunities offered in the undergraduate courses of colleges and 

 universities for the study of geology and geography determine largely the 

 stimuli which cause men to choose these subjects as fields of research and 

 the places where they may receive their technical training. The courses 

 offered in geology and geography are quite distinct, except in the case of 

 physiography, and the conditions for the two subjects are here treated 

 separately. 



Schedules from catalogues of 571 universities and colleges were exam- 

 ined and the actual number of hours of instruction listed, two hours of 

 laboratory being rated as the equivalent of one hour of lecture or recita- 

 tion. The results are no better than the catalogue statements, which 

 sometimes suggest a stock-jobbing prospectus in their overemphasis of 

 opportunities as compared with the facts. Inferences drawn probably 

 represent the conditions more favorably than the actual facts warrant. 



EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN GEOLOGY 



Of the 571 institutions, 144, or 25 per cent, offer no instruction in 

 geology, and 268, or nearly 50 per cent, nothing worthy of the name. 

 These same institutions offer courses in chemistry, physics, or biology, 

 but nothing to direct a student's interests toward geology, with the result 

 that few graduates from them are now recognized geologists. Of the re- 

 maining institutions, 148 offer the equivalent of from one to two full 

 year courses, 33 from two to three, and 25 from three to four; 97 give 

 four or more 3rears and 101 have actually had graduate students in geol- 

 ogy. The last two groups include all the great privately endowed institu- 

 tions, a large number of the State universities, and a few small colleges 

 where geological traditions are strong. 



Diagrams emphasize the numerical predominance of institutions giv- 

 ing little or no geology and those with strong departments. They show 

 that the South Atlantic States, with 123 institutions, have only 16 giving 

 enough instruction in the subject to suggest geology as a profession, and 

 this inference is borne out by the fact that almost none of their graduates 

 have taken advanced work. In the North Atlantic States the reverse is 

 true. Here is more than the average opportunity to receive adequate 

 undergraduate as well as graduate instruction, and the colleges of this 



