CHAPTER XXI
THE TRAINING, OPPORTUNITIES, AND ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC GEOLOGIST
Economic geology is now an established and well-recognized profession, but there is yet nothing approaching a standardized course of study leading to a degree in economic geology. There are as many different kinds of training as there are institutions in which geology is taught. Within an institution, also, it is seldom that any two persons take exactly the same groups of geologic studies. This situation allows wide latitude of training to meet ever changing requirements, but in other respects it is not so desirable.
PURE VERSUS APPLIED SCIENCE
In no institution are all the applied branches of geology taught. There is constant pressure for the introduction of more applied courses; this seems to be the tendency of the times. The economic geologist, fresh from vivid experiences in his special field, is often insistent that a new course be introduced to cover his particular specialty. Any attempt, however, to put into a college course a considerable fraction of the applied phases of geology would mean the crowding out of more essential basic studies. To yield wholly to such pressure would in fact soon develop an impossible situation; for, on the basis of time alone, it would be quite impossible to give courses on all of the applied subjects in a training period of reasonable length.
On the other hand, the failure to introduce a fair proportion of applied geology, on the ground that the function of the college is to teach pure science and that in some way economic applications are non-scientific, seems to the writer an equally objectionable procedure,—because it does not take into account the unavoidable human relations of the science, which vivify and give point and direction to scientific work. The development of science in economic directions does not necessarily mean incursion into less scientific or non-scientific fields. It is true that many of the economic applications of geology are so new and so constantly changing that they are not yet fully organized on a scientific basis; but this fact is merely an indication of the lag of science, and not of the absence of possibilities of developing science in such directions. There is today a considerable tendency among geologists of an academic type, whose lives have been spent in purely scientific investigation and teaching, to assume that anything different from the field of their activities is in some manner non-scientific, and therefore less worthy. Many economic geologists have been made to feel this criticism, even though seldom expressed openly. For the good of geologic science, this tendency seems to the writer extremely unfortunate. The young man entering the field of economic geology should be made to understand that his is the highest scientific opportunity; and that if parts of his field are not yet fully organized, the greater is his own opportunity to participate in the constructive work to be done.
Under war requirements many geologists were called upon to extend their efforts to bordering fields of endeavor. In some quarters these activities were regarded as non-scientific, and as subtracting from efficiency in purely geological work,—and yet out of this combined effort came a wider comprehension of new scientific fields, between the established sciences and between sciences and human needs. It is inevitable that in the future these fields, now imperfectly charted, will be occupied and developed, perhaps not by the men who are already well established in their particular fields of endeavor, but by coming scientists. In this light, it was a privilege for geologists to participate in the discovery and charting activities of the war.