SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GEOLOGY IN TEACHING 349 



comes possible to obtain the widest meaning and largest value of each 

 fact. The mind that sees these interrelationships — perhaps through the 

 occasion of having brought a new element into the scheme — is the one 

 that makes the greatest and most useful contributions. This idea of 

 continuity is one which needs large cultivation in science. We may ap- 

 proach it from various directions. One of the most important and most 

 effective means of coming to recognize it is by the historical view. His- 

 tory, interpreted in the truest sense, gives a feeling of broad connections 

 in time and space and origin not excelled in any other field and equaled 

 in few. I am convinced that the wider outlook given by this kind of 

 contemplation is one of the most desirable fundamental elements in the 

 education of a becoming investigator in any subject. We find historical 

 geology giving the grandest of all strictly historical or continuity views. 

 I am confident that the proper expression of this subject in the education 

 program would exert an influence of wide extent contributing to develop- 

 ment of a better understanding of the idea of continuity in science and 

 greatly advancing the interests of research in all fields. I believe that a 

 certain responsibility rests upon the geologist to see that this wider view 

 is sought with increasing interest, and I feel assured that we have large 

 opportunity to exert an infiuence upon the development of connected 

 constructive thought in the whole education scheme of the great institu- 

 tions of learning. 



