20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AXX ARBOR :SJEETING 



tended by Yale College in 1903 to develop the field of structural geology 

 involved almost a right-about-face in purpose and personal contacts. It 

 involved the substitution of a career in engineering and connection with 

 an engineering school for graduate teaching and research in an institu- 

 tion devoted to non-professional training. I well remember the ensuing- 

 conversations and correspondence, which were so characteristic of his 

 mental processes. On the one hand, devotion to his Alma Mater and to 

 his friend, Professor Williams, counted for something, and the practical 

 assurance of financial competence for one who had recently married, and 

 who all his life had gone without luxuries, counted for more. On the 

 other hand, he realized that the mining engineer necessarily emphasizes 

 commercial utilization rather than the solution of geological problems, 

 and that uninterrupted time for study and intimate association with 

 minds devoted solely to advancing knowledge ofl'ered favorable conditions 

 for finding answers -to the many questions which crowded his fertile brain. 

 Fortunately, Barrell chose Yale, and found there the leisure, stimulus, 

 and appreciation which constitute the favorable environment for the play 

 of a powerful intellect. 



In the scheme of instruction at Yale, Barrell had charge of two classes : 

 a half-year undergraduate class in historical geology and a full-year 

 course, primarily for graduates in dynamical and structural geology. 

 From time to time as emergencies arose, he took part in teaching classes 

 in field geology, and nearly every year students studying for the degree 

 of doctor of philosophy were grouped by liim in a special course in which 

 study of the literature and solution of pro1)lems constituted the subject- 

 -matter. The decision to relieve Barrell of the multitudinous routine 

 tasks which consume the time of the average professor was amply 

 justified. 



Barren's undergraduate teaching was characterized by systematic plan- 

 ning and orderliness, by logical development of the subject-matter, and 

 by careful choice of essentials. But before the class he was the geologist 

 rather than the teacher of untrained minds. He devoted his attention to 

 the arrangement and presentation of valuable information rather than 

 to perfecting of devices for leading the student to think in geological 

 terms. The informal give-and-take method of elementary instruction 

 was unsuited to his mode of thought. The recognition of the a\erage 

 undergraduate viewpoint played little part in his teaching, and sympa- 

 thetic personal relations with students were rarely maintained; but a 

 ''square deal*' was always forthcoming, and evidence is abundant that the 

 method used by Barrell was emiiK-ntly successful for the better minds in 

 his classes. 



