1887] a Methods of Instruction in General Geology. 619 
the more common text-books on geology, where the student may 
-study more explicitly the subject lectured upon. I expect, too, 
that the student, who will acquire any exact knowledge of the 
science, must give some time both to this. kind of book study 
and to the examination of specimens arranged and labelled 
specially to illustrate the facts discussed. 
Again, it is important to so accentuate the lectures that the 
grand and important lessons shall not be smothered and quite 
lost to sight by the innumerable names and definitions and topics 
with which the lecture is necessarily filléd. For I hold that, in 
teaching a class of ordinary college students general geology, it 
is far more important to teach them how to treat geological 
problems, what the grand questions are which the geologist 
meets, and the right methods of attacking, of thinking about, 
of interpreting them, than to teach definitions, technical formulas, 
or lists of associated facts. 
The latter are all essential for the real geologist to master, but 
-not in the lecture-room. They must be acquired by patient 
-study of the more exhaustive manuals and original reports, and 
by actual laboratory and field practice. 
The work for the lecturer upon general geology is to clearly 
present the principles of geology, to illustrate and explain the 
grand features of the science. He must teach what the science 
treats about, what and where the problems are exhibited, how 
they are explained, and what laws underlie the phenomena. 
While the student gathers enough to excite his interest and 
~ enthusiasm, if possible, the method of stating the facts and 
_ theories should be such as to enable him to appreciate what 
there is to learn, rather than to convey any notion that he is 
a anne from the lectures a knowledge of all the essential facts 
ogy. 
i ors be able in our lectures to teach the student the al- — 
phabet, so to speak, of the science, or even to teach him how to 
spe]l or frame sentences in terms of the geological language. 
‘We may succeed in showing him how to investigate and inter- - 
‘pret geological problems. But I take it to be of essential im- 
portance to impress upon the student that the lectures are but an — 
‘introduction, that the true place to learn geology is in the field ae 
- and laboratory, and the true method, that of maying over in 
S Jera individual —, and parts. 
y Fae i 
