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, zoology, 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 naturali