Both field and laboratory work should be well correlated with one another and with the systematic work on the text that guides the study, so that each shall whet the edge of the other and all together accomplish what neither could alone.
(3) The text selected should be such as lends itself, in some notable degree at least, to the general purposes set forth above. It should be supplemented, so far as may be, by judicious assignments for reading and for special study. Lectures may be made a valuable aid to the discussions of the classroom, but with college classes they can rarely be made an advantageous substitute for the discussions. Lecturing, so far as used, is best woven informally into the classroom discussions. Supplementary lecturettes may be advised if they are of such an informal sort that they may almost unconsciously take their start from any vital point encountered in the course of discussion, may run on as far as the occasion invites, and may then give way again to the discussion with the utmost informality. Such little participations in the work of the classroom, on the part of the teacher, are likely to be cordially welcomed. At the same time, if well done, they will set an excellent example in the presentative art as also in an apt organization of thought.
Organization of courses
If the stated course in earth-science is limited to the junior and senior year by the existing requirements of the curriculum of the institution or by the rulings of its officers—as is not uncommonly the case at present—it is relatively immaterial whether the sections of the course are marshaled under the single name "geology" or whether they are given separate titles as sub-sciences, provided the special subjects are arranged in logical sequence and in consecutive order. If, on the other hand, the teacher's choice of time and relations is freer, the more accessible phases of earth study, now well organized under the name of "physiography," form an excellent course for either freshmen or sophomores. It opens their minds to a world of interesting activities about them which have probably been largely overlooked in previous years. It gives them substance of thought that will be of much service in the pursuit of other sciences. It has been found that it is not without rather notable service to young students as the basis of efforts in the art of literary presentation, a felicity to which teachers of this important art frequently give emphatic testimony. The secret seems to lie in the fact that physiography gives varied and vivid material susceptible of literary presentation, while the fixed qualities of the subject matter control the choice of terms and the mode of expression.
If geography and physiography are given in the earlier years, the course in historical geology, as well as the study of the more difficult phases of geological processes, of the principles of dynamic geology, together with mineralogy, petrology, and paleontology, may best fall into the later years, even if some interval separates them from the geography and physiography.
One hundred and twenty classroom hours, or their equivalent in laboratory and field work, are perhaps to be regarded as the irreducible minimum in a well-balanced undergraduate course, while twice that time or more is required to give a notably strong college course in earth-science.
A consideration of the sequences among the geological sub-subjects, as also among the subjects that are held to be preliminary to the earth-sciences, is important, but it would lead us too far into details which depend more or less on local conditions. In the experience of American teachers it appears to have been found advisable to put geological processes and typical phenomena to the front and to take up geological history afterwards. The earlier method of taking up the history first, beginning with recent stages and working backward down the ages,—once in vogue abroad,—has been abandoned in this country. It was the order in which the science was developed and it had the advantage of starting with the living present and with the most accessible formations, but this latter advantage is secured by studying the living processes, as such, first, and turning to the history later. This permits the study of the history in its natural order, which seems better to call forth the relations of cause and effect and to give emphasis to the influence of inherited conditions.
Respecting antecedents to the study, the more knowledge of physics, chemistry, zoölogy, and botany, the better, but it is easy to over-stress the necessity for such preparation, however logical it may seem, for in reality all the natural sciences are so interwoven that, in strict logic, a complete knowledge of all the others should be had before any one is begun, a reductio ad absurdum. The sciences have been developed more or less contemporaneously and progressively, each helping on the others. They may be pursued much in the same way, or by alternations in which each prior study favors the sequent one. They may even be taken in a seemingly illogical order without serious disadvantage, for the alternative advantages and other considerations may outweigh the force of the logical order, which is at best only partially logical. It is of prime importance to stimulate in students a habit of observing natural phenomena at an early age. It may be wise for a student to take up physiography, or its equivalent, early in the college course, irrespective of an ideal preparation in the related sciences. It is unfortunate to defer such study to a stage when the student's natural aptitude for observation and inference has become dulled by neglect or by confinement to subjects devoid of naturalistic stimulus. To permit students to take up earth-science in the freshman and sophomore years, even without the ideal preparation, is therefore probably wiser than to defer the study beyond the age of responsiveness to the touch of the natural environment. The geographic and geologic environment conditioned the mental evolution of the race. It left an inherited impress on the perceptive and emotional nature, only to be awakened most felicitously, it would seem, at about the age at which the naturalistic phases of the youth's mentality were originally called into their most intense exercise.
T. C. Chamberlin
The University of Chicago