鸦片战争后，中国一批有识之士主张学习西方科学技术以期富国强兵，近代地质学知识在此背景下开始传入。甲午战后，兴学储才成为潮流，京师大学堂乘势设立。回顾京师大学堂的创办章程，其地质学教育服务于富国强兵的目标，自拟立之始即有十分明显的实践倾向。京师大学堂1898年12月31日开学后，地质学教育在实践中不断发展、充实。1910年3月分科大学格致科地质学门的开办更为我国高等地质学教育迈出探索性一步，也为中国高等地质学教育及地质事业的发展提供了一定的硬件和人才支撑。

After the Opium War，a group of people of insight in China advocated learn-ing western science and technology in order to enrich the country and strengthen thearmed forces.Under this background，modern geological knowledge began to be intro-duced.After the first Sino-Japanese War，the establishment of modern schools and re-serving talents became a trend，and the Imperial University of Peking took advantage ofthe opportunity to set up.Reviewing the founding charters of Imperial University of Pe-king，its geological education had a very obvious practical tendency since it was pro-posed to serve the goal of enriching the country and strengthening the armed forces.Since the opening of Imperial University of Peking on December 31，1898，geology ed-ucation has been continuously developed and enriched in practice.The establishment ofGeology Department of Faculty of Science in March 1910 not only took an exploratorystep towards higher geological education in China，but also provided some matter andtalent support for the development of higher geological education and geological under-takings in China.