The Training of a Geologist. — Branner. 157 
says anything she'll say just the opposite." We cannot deny 
the justice of the criticism, but this bad repute is to be at- 
tributed entirely to premature utterances, We have some sad 
examples in this country of poor geologists whose premature 
conclusions, drawn from too hasty or incomplete work, have 
kept half a dozen good geologists busy for years in correcting 
their mistakes and in putting the truth before the world. 
Their excursions into geologic fields are like the inroads of 
lawless and unclean animals that require a score of persons to 
clean up and put things straight after them. These busy- 
bodies have, almost without exception, an itching for noto- 
riety that leads them to seek some scientific short-cut b3Mvhich 
to arrive at distinction, but if there is a balancing of accounts 
either here or hereafter, these men are destined to have a dis- 
tinction in the scientific world of quite another sort from that 
for which they are pining. They are usually men of good 
enough intentions,but, as one of my preceptors once reminded 
me : " we have a right to expect something more than good 
intentions of men." All people mean well ; it is our busi- 
ness to do well. 
Sensationalism has done and is doing great injury not only 
to geology but to other branches of science. There are cer- 
tain features about every science that impress the ignorant 
with their novelty, and there are certain persons who are al- 
ways ready to make capital out of them. This gives rise to a 
sort of " my !" class of men and to an " my ! " kind of 
science. They delight in the startling. None of the more 
radical theories of science, theories put forward by the right 
thinking with great caution, stagger them. Man's descending 
from a monkey never troubled them ; they always thought so, 
and can point out cases of descent that would make Mr. Dar- 
win or Mr. Wallace catch his breath. This skimming the sur- 
face, this dilettanteism is strong in our times. In the geolo- 
gist's training the less we have of the sensational the better it 
will be for the science and for the man. 
It is not a pleasant thing to be obliged to destroy the delu- 
sions which people hold so lovingly close to their hearts, but 
the conscientious geologist has a good deal of this disenchant, 
ing to do. And nobody even thanks him for it. The very 
persons he may hope to serve in telling them the truth, will, 
in all probability, never believe him and never forgive him. 
