Chapter IV: =Geography=

263. As to geography, at least two courses may be distinguished. One of these is analytic and begins with the pupil’s immediate neighborhood, the topography of the place, while the other starts with the globe. Here only the former will be discussed, as the latter can be had directly from good text-books.

=Note.=--The usual method of taking the globe as the point of
departure would be less open to criticism, if, in order to render
the conception of the earth’s sphericity more intelligible,
attention were directed to the shape of the moon, the observation
being carried on occasionally with the aid of a telescope. But
even if this is done, it still remains a blunder to substitute the
faint and vague idea of a huge ball for direct perception. Equally
injudicious is the plan of beginning with Portugal and Spain.
That spot where pupils and teacher are at the moment is the point
from which the pupils must take their bearings, and in thought
extend their horizon. It will never do to pass over the natural
starting-points provided by sense-perception.

Had the note to this section been properly heeded, we should not have
had to wait for fifty years after Herbart’s death before witnessing
the present rational methods of applying geographical science to
elementary education. It is the proud boast of the modern elementary
geography that it begins with a study of the pupil’s actual
environment. The term _home geography_ has now become a familiar one.
It signifies that the pupil is taught to observe the geographical
elements as they exist in his own neighborhood. He studies hills,
watercourses, soil, woods, lakes, together with the industrial
phenomena that come within the reach of his investigation. Upon
this primary sense-basis he rears the structure of his geographical
knowledge.

264. Geography is an associating science, and use must be made of the opportunities it offers for binding together a variety of facts, none of which should be allowed to remain isolated in the mind of the learner. It is not the mathematical portion, supplemented and made interesting by popular astronomy, that serves as the first connecting link between mathematics and history (second course); even the rudiments of geography may, on the basis of observation exercises, furnish practice in the determination of triangles which occur on the first maps used, although this step is not always necessary when once some skill has been acquired in singling out features worthy of note. (The determination of position by latitude and longitude is, for the first course, as irrational as the action of a traveller in Germany or France would be if he set about to put together the picture of the places where he expects to remain, with the aid of their relation to the equator and the first meridian.)

Physical geography presupposes some knowledge of nature, and furnishes the occasion for enriching that knowledge. Political geography designates the manner in which man inhabits and uses the earth’s surface. It is the pedagogical aim of instruction in geography to associate all this.

265. The teacher must cultivate the art of narration; his accounts must resemble those of a traveller. But the narrative should conflict with the determination of the relative position of places (by grouping them about one principal place, and in the case of more than one by the use of triangles) as little as, in teaching history, the story of events should conflict with the scheme of chronology. The two go together. The narrative is to present a clear picture, and to this end requires the support of a few fixed points in space. On the other hand, these points should not remain isolated; they are to be connected by the lines of the picture.

266. It is not a matter of indifference how many unfamiliar names are mentioned in one minute or hour. Nor is it immaterial whether they are uttered before or after perception of the picture which the map presents. The first requisite is that every map placed before the pupils be conceived of as a country; three, at most four, names of rivers, and the names of a few mountains are sufficient; completeness is out of place here. The few names given provide ample opportunity for fixing the position of notable points, both with reference to one another and to the boundary lines of the country.

Due prominence having been given to these geographical features, they should then be connected, say with the aid of a blackboard, on which they are roughly sketched one by one, and properly joined together afterward. In the case of the sources and outlets of rivers, this may be done by a line to indicate the course. If now the pupils have made good previous use of their eyes, especially if they have noticed the fall of brooks and rivers, and have observed the slope of the ground in a particular region,--if they have not, the deficiency must be made good first of all,--it will not be too early to pass on to a general description of the appearance which the country under consideration would present to a traveller. And now the time has come for a somewhat fuller mention of the names of rivers and mountains, but these names must at once be gone over several times by the pupils. Doing so will reveal whether the list of new names has been made too long; it is often largely due to carelessness in this respect, if the study of geography proves barren or onerous. Next in order follow detailed descriptions of particular wonders of nature, where there are such. Attention is then given to some of the principal cities, mention being made of the number of inhabitants. Here the determination of relative location comes in again, and for this the self-activity of the pupils is indispensable. Finally, human industry and art, so far as they relate to the products of the country, together with the little of political organization that pupils can grasp. The names of the provinces should ordinarily be omitted from the first course.

This section is suggestive of the old geography of the last half
century,--location, names, maps, the barren details of the science.
Geography is something richer than all this. The old geography was
political in the foregoing sense. The first break was in making it
physiographical, the last in making it social. Names as such are
nothing, and physical facts little more, but both become of value
as soon as they are brought into relation to man,--his life, his
work, his recreation. Geography is not essentially the location of
places, nor is it physiography, but it is a study of the essential
facts concerning the surface of the earth as they are related to man
himself; it is, in short, _human_ in the fullest sense. It gives a
concrete explanation of civilization; it explains the production,
the exchange, and, to some extent, the consumption of goods. It
contrasts countries, not so much by square miles, as by the number
of miles of railroads they possess. (The most momentous fact of
modern civilization is the railroad. Twelve billions of dollars are
invested in it in the United States alone. In view of these facts,
what shall be said of those recent geographies that keep the children
poring over primitive maps for years--maps without a suggestion of a
railroad in them? This is an illustration of how prone education is
to lag behind the progress of society.)

267. The reviews, which should be frequent, must steadily work toward a growing firmness of association between names and places. Each name is to be referred to the place it designates; hence the sequence of names must often be reversed, and the map looked over in all directions and from all points of view. How far to go is determined in accordance with individual capacity. From some, only what is absolutely essential can be demanded; from others, much more, in order that they may exert themselves properly.

268. In the midst of other studies on which greater stress is laid, geography is as a rule slighted by pupils and sometimes even by teachers. This attitude merits severe criticism. Instruction in geography may be reduced to a minimum, the first course even requires this, but it should not be disparaged. With many pupils, geography is the first study which gives them the consciousness that they can learn as they are expected to learn. With all pupils, geography must connect the remaining studies and must keep them connected. Without it everything remains unstable. Historical events lack places and distances; products of nature are without the regions where they are found; popular astronomy, which is called upon so often to prevent and dispel erroneous notions, is deprived of its very basis, and the geometrical imagination of one of its most important incentives. If the facts of knowledge are allowed to fall asunder in this way, instruction endangers the whole of education.