METHODS OF TEACHING 385 



guage in which the story he is to read is recorded; yet it would be as 

 absurd to confine the work of a chiss to this sort of thing as it would to 

 use the Century Dictionary as a text-book in a course in English. Just 

 the names of fossils are discouraging, with their Greek and Latin roots, 

 witli wliich most students nowadays are not familiar. In general, T tell 

 my students to make no attempt at memorizing names, but to give their 

 attention to becoming intimately acquainted with the forms themselves ; 

 then the names will take care of themselves, just as the names of our 

 intimate friends attach themselves to the persons without special effort 

 oil our part. Yet this learning of the names of fossils along with the 

 forms must not be neglected; it is the vocabulary work in the course, 

 and. as in learning the vocabulary of a spoken or written language, every 

 addition to our working word list make'^ it easier to read the record and 

 to add other units in the vocabulary. 



The actual study of the principles of organic evolution does not prop- 

 erly come into the immediate field of work of the applied paleontologist, 

 but every bit of new data concerning evolutionary laws, especially in so 

 far as some application of them can be made in connection with the 

 fossil forms, is of utmost interest and practicability. The student of 

 fossils is actually working with the results of evolutionary processes, and 

 these results, exliibited in the progressively changing characteristics of 

 various groups of fossil organisms and correlated with the passage of 

 geologic time, are not only of the greatest value for chronological pur- 

 poses, but always serve to give life to the subject, in a class of students. 

 The progressive changes exhibited in the sutural modifications among 

 the cephalopods or the progressive changes shown by the changing plica- 

 tions of the shell in the genus spirifer always arouse interest among stu- 

 dents and serve to help fix various fossil forms and names in the memory 

 of the individual student. Progressive changes of various sorts, some 

 conspicuous and others more or less obscure, and all possible of correla- 

 tion with the passage of geologic time, may be pointed out in practically 

 all groups of fossils. Such facts always appeal to the student, for he 

 feels that they may be of practical service to him in his geological work, 

 even though he should not retain the names of all the genera and species 

 involved. As a fact, however, the appreciation of all such characteristics 

 serve to impress the names of the fossil forms on his mind unconsciously. 



One of the most essential qualifications for a student of applied paleon- 

 tology is the ability to discriminate between various fossil forms, and 

 especially between forms that are closely allied, and the training neces- 

 sary to develop this faculty is highly important. This means the develop- 

 ment of the power of observjition in connection with small, verv com- 



