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GEOLOGY AS PART OF A COLLEGE CURRICULUM.
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the very largeness and indefiniteness of the facts are in the way of the use of physical geography for the exercise of the finer and more exact functions of observation. The disciplinary value of classics and mathematics is to a considerable extent derived from this quality, the precision with which the words or figures kindle like ideas. So long as the objects of the training is to teach the knowledge of ideas and how to use them, classics and mathematics are the simplest and purest means of developing a liberal education. The addition of sciences to the college course is not because of the usefulness of the knowledge of things thus to be gained, but because the language of the sciences is essential to call forth the observation and the exercise of the accompanying mental operations.

When it comes to dealing with the ideas associated with particular sense-observation, where form or motion can not be expressed in simple mathematical terms, language can not communicate a new idea or kindle it in another mind with precision. It is necessary by some means to recall or to present the object itself to the student. In the teaching of science this point is of great importance, and much of the unsatisfactoriness of science-teaching is doubtless due to failure to note it. No circumlocution of words can arouse in another or communicate to him the idea appropriate to a sensation he has never felt. The blind man whose eyes are opened sees men as trees walking.

In the use of science for elementary training (and the training is elementary until the student is capable of investigating and interpreting the facts and phenomena of a science directly) that science is the better which deals with objects which are simple, common and easily observed. Such is geology in some of its aspects. Every time the student walks in the country he sees the facts discussed in the text-book or by his teacher; and from attention to those with which he is already familiar he can be readily led to observe and give attention to others and to analyze those already in his mind by properly directed questions.

In the field of geology are found the ready means for the exercise and development of observation and thought. The

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