Now, I simply say, if there are those who wish to pursue the study of geology, I will be very glad while I stay here to be of any assistance I can to you. I know the difficulty of starting without some help. The geology published here by Prof. Packard is an admirable little treatise, but with the reading of that you need observation and the knowledge to be gained by handling the specimens. If there are those who would like to learn, I am at liberty after 5 o’clock in the morning for a few days. I get up at 5 and keep very still. If you could keep those bells still that keep me awake until about 11:30: I like babies, but if you could put the babies in some babies’ retreat for a little while——.
The geological charts are excellent for teaching in a circle or a school. These are the charts that are published with Prof. Packard’s Geology. With the book they will enable one to get a very good idea of geology. If you will take up geology now, and start here, we will start from the quarry. These specimens will decay; one-half of them will go down into the lake very soon. I went out here and saw these splendid books being wasted, so I made use of a few of them. These will be a starting point in your museum, and then every C. L. S. C. on this continent will send from his locality a box of specimens, two or three of them, express paid, to your museum, and I will send my quota from West Virginia. And I will come over here some time and help label them. [Applause.]
[Pointing to the charts behind him.] Here is a section of rocks from below, and here are the different phenomena of volcanic action. Here is a picture of the ancient seas. There is one of these valleys. There are vast species of chambered shells. We have now only one species living, the chambered nautilus. The animal had the power of increasing or diminishing his density by absorbing or casting out water. Here is another representative of the animals that have been restored by the laws of comparative anatomy. Cuvier, or Agassiz, by a bone, or scale, even, could restore an animal. Here are some of your ancestors. Here is a specimen of the plesiosaurus and the iguanodon. These are marine animals. These are more modern. This is the period of bone caves. This was a great clawed animal, that was for a long time supposed to be a lion. Here is a representation of the ice period, of which you hear so much, the period when the huge boulders were brought down. The entire collection will be one of value.
I thank you for your attention. [Applause.]
After some conversation on preparation for Commencement day, the Round-Table adjourned.
[EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.]
Our National Education.
From the time that Washington boasted of a system that proposes to furnish the means of education to “every child of the republic,” the educational spirit has been a prominent characteristic of our people. Amid all our national vicissitudes and struggles, defending the flag from foes without and within, cutting down the forests to make farms for cultivation, and clearing up the waste places to make them habitable, we have never lost our educational enterprise. In the far West, as well as in Maine and Massachusetts, you meet it. Not to be wondered at, either, is this in a people who had the courage and faith to launch such a governmental scheme as is ours. Indeed, it required little discernment to see that popular institutions could be served by no other handmaid than popular education.