The demand for scientific studies as a part of the college curriculum is felt by all those who have to do with the provision of higher instruction for American youth. The reasons for this may be various, but a fundamental reason is found in the tendency among the American people in particular, and in this age in general, toward practicality in all things. Applied to education this practicality asks for a training which shall have a direct bearing upon the business of life to be followed immediately after the training period is ended. It means a differentiation of subjects and specialization in methods to adjust the education to the different functions which the students taking it are preparing for. It calls for a professional education for those who expect to become lawyers, doctors, ministers, or teachers,--a technical education for those who are to engage in the arts of the mechanical or civil engineer, or of the architect. It results not only in the establishment of colleges and universities devoted to this kind of education, but it affects the methods of the high schools and academies, and is felt down to primary schools, and on the other hand the older institutions founded on a different plan are adapted to the popular demand by the addition to the regular studies of "electives," chosen not always for their value or disciplinary studies, but because of the practical applicability of the information to be derived from them, to the business of the student. Without discussing the relative merits of the two ideas of education, the chief contrast between them may be found in the character of the results sought. The knowledge of things and their uses is of chief importance in the practical education; the knowledge of ideas and skill in their use is the aim of the liberal education. Geology is one of the sciences which most men will at once classify as among the practical sciences. It deals with matters of practical importance to everybody. Coal, iron, the metals, silver, gold, tin, lead, building stone, sand, clay, petroleum, and natural gas, and all geological products are essential materials of modern civilization, and a knowledge of them and of their modes and places of occurrence is one of the requisites of an education, either from the practical or the liberal point of view. So too the dynamics of atmospheric and hydraulic erosion, the agency of rivers and oceans in destruction, removal and reconstruction of geological formations have their eminently practical bearings upon the various arts of engineering. While the practical value of geology is thus evident and undisputed, it is not on this account that its importance as a part of a college course of education is urged. As a practical study geology becomes the centre of a group of studies requiring years for mastery. Chemistry and physics are primarily essential to a full understanding of the most common of geological problems. And to use geological facts and phenomena, an acquaintance