Montana labor news., 1939-01-26
STORY or THE SCHOOL
MINES And NEED
FOR MORE MONEY


MORE MONEY
"The story of geology" resumed
DR.. Perry, lis that it is the founda-
ton of the mineral industry. 1t
makes no difference whether a stu
dent is going to take his degree in
metallurgical engineering, mining
engineering, mineral dressing, or
any branch of the mineral industry;
all of them require basic training
in geology. It might be broadly and
simply stated that the geologist finds
the ore, the mining engineer gets it
out of the ground, and the mineral
dresser and the metallurgist extract
the metal from the ore and prepare
it for use in industry. OF course, in
practice all of these processes over
lap to some degree and are inextric-
ably i~nterrelated. The specialist in
each of these technical branches
must have a working knowledge OF
all the others, and at the bottom OF
them all is geology"
"What courses do you offer in
geology" we asked.
''The first and second-year stu
dents study photography, physical
and historical geology, and miner
alogy. The juniors study ~petrology.
economic geology, and optical min
eralogy. The seniors study strait
graphy, paleontology, and various
special research problems. In addi-
ton, the department always has five
or six graduate students studying
for Master of Science degrees III
geological engineering"
"How many instructors do you
have in your Department. we
further inquired.
1.-TWO, besides myself" said Perry
CDR. George F. Seager teaches eco
nomic geology, p%etrology, and Opt.
cal %mineralogy. DR.. Laurence Slos'
teaches the beginning geology
classes, and also paleontology and
stratigraphy. 1 take care of the
mineralogy classes and all of us
supervise the thesis problems of the
graduate students and the seniors
In addition, we undertake geological
investigations for Montana Bureau
of Mines and Geology during the
summer months and often through
out the year. So you see we are all
very busy, to put it mildly"
"Have you enough instructors in
your Department." we asked, won
dering how three men could cope
with so much work.
mo, we haven't. Our department
is overcrowded with students anc
we need at least one full-time
assistant. For instance, the min
eralogy class, composed of about 81
men, is divided into three sections
for laboratory work and it is neces-
sary for one section to work Satur-
day morning. All of us are teaching
more classes than we should and il
means long hours of evening work
grading papers, reports and exam
nations. 1t is universal practice II
all colleges for the professors tc
have a certain amount of free time
to devote to research work; anc
such work in the past has resulted
in much of the progress science ha:
made in the last quarter century
The geological sciences are adj
vancing SO rapidly, the literature is
expanding at such a great rate, that
it takes many hours of reading fol
even a specialist to keep abreast Of
the progress that is being made. Il
is indispensable for a competent
teacher to do so, but it is difficult
when all of his time is occupied in
the mechanics of teaching. He falls
behind and his teaching ability suf-
fers. To relieve this condition we
need, as I said before, a full-time
assistant"
"How about your equipment"
1--WE prepared a list in anticipa-
ton of that question. Geological
courses ~necessitate a great stock Of
diversified equipment, embracing
as they do, nearly all the sciences
And much of the equipment consists
of delicate scientific instruments
expensive, difficult to repair wher
out of order, and quickly %obsolescen
when undergoing hard student use.'
For instance, we need at leasf
ten new microscopes. These instru.
ments are necessary in the study Of
petrology, optical mineralogy, min.
eragraphy, and p%aleontology. Mos
of the ones we have r from 20 tc
30 years old and we have never hac
enough of them"
eve need alidades, plane tables
Brunton compasses, altimeters, ano