822 N. S. SHALER — RELATIONS OP GEOLOGIC SCIENCE TO EDUCATION. 



ill the pupils the habit of seeking for themselves. The teacher may trust 

 in this task to the existence of an observant motive in men which is at 

 its best when they are in the open air. All of us, however dull we may be 

 in the housed state, have when afield a discerning humor which prompts 

 us to learn the reasons for the unexplained occurrences of nature. This 

 precious relic of the savage life, of the original motive of curiosity, which 

 has been the source of man's advance on the most of his intellectual up- 

 goings, is in average youths strong; it requires the deadening effects of 

 a long and misspent life to eradicate it in any normal human being. It 

 is to this element of curiosity, informed by the preliminary instruction 

 of the lecture-room, that the teacher of field geology should mainly trust 

 for his success. 



In practice it will l)e found imi)ossible completely to exclude didactic 

 teaching in the field — such arbitrary divisions of methods are generally 

 impracticable — but when in face of an exhibition of any geological phe- 

 nomena, with the briefest possible preliminary, designed to fix the atten- 

 tion of the class upon the facts, the teacher should at once become a 

 mere questioner, a goad to arouse the men to a like interrogation of the 

 things they see. It is important that the first problems of interpretation 

 which are essayed should be of the simplest order, for immediately suc- 

 cessful work in the unaccustomed harness is much to be desired. Thus 

 the determination of strikes and dips, the identification of visible faults, 

 and above all, the careful recording of such facts, should come first 

 and the work be carried to distinct success before any effort is made to 

 use the results in tlie larger interpretations as to the attitudes of strata. 

 In my experience it is most desirable in the early part of the field train- 

 ing to give all that can be obtained in the way of work which relates to 

 causes of action, and thus, for the reason that men, however great their 

 training may otherwise be, are unlikely to conceive the earth about them 

 as a realm of continuous processes, their geology is thus not brought 

 down to the present period. The beds and banks of the streams, the 

 retreating escarpments, the shores of lakes and of the ocean — above all 

 the, when rightly discerned, majestic phenomena of the soil — all may 

 serve to impress the pupil with the activity of the earth, and thus clear 

 his mind of the natural but l^linding conception that after its creation 

 time the sphere entered on an enduring rest. 



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FIELD TEACHING. 



In my experience the difficulties which have to be met in field teach- 

 ing, apart from the hard labor involved in the simultaneous exercise of 

 mind and body, consists in the struggle which the instructor has to make 

 with the incapacities which arise from the supercivilization of his pupils. 



