A Text-Book of Geology

Abstract

THE title and success of this handy little book lead one to inquire how far and where geology is taught in schools. There is no doubt that the subject has for scholars, particularly in the country, the strongest fascination; and the fine museum of Marlborough is an example of how “natural history” studies may be kept alive in seats of youthful learning. But it would be interesting to know how many schools, excluding special evening-classes, can give such a work as this a place in their curriculum, and thus carry back the history of England, Rome, and Greece to the earliest dawn of life upon the globe. The preliminary training for the appreciation of geological features such as every lad can see around him need not be excessively severe; the mere appreciation is at first the great thing—the knowledge that there is something to be learnt in road-side quarries, in familiar hollows of the hills, beside which the “Dictionary of Antiquities” seems like a fashion-book of yesterday; while at the same time, perhaps, the kinship of the boy with his favourite classic hero becomes something more real and inspiriting in face of the enormous past beyond them both.

The School Manual of Geology.

J. Beete Jukes Fifth Edition. Edited by A. J. Jukes-Browne, B.A., F.G.S. (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1890.)