88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



geography by the natural method, Professor Geikie has written a 

 little manual, which broadly sketches the plan to be adopted. The 

 following paragraphs embody the principal features of this plan : 



To begin the teaching of geography with formal lessons on the 

 shape of the earth, parallels, meridians, equator, poles, and the rest, 

 is to start at the wrong end. To the average boy or girl of six or 

 seven years these details have no meaning and no interest. Their 

 introduction on the very threshold of geographical instruction is a 

 characteristic feature of our system, or rather want of system, in this 

 department of education. They are very generally placed at the 

 beginning of our class-books, and being there, they form, as a matter 

 of course, the subjects of the first lessons usually given in geography. 

 An altogether inordinate value is set by us upon class-books. Instead 

 of serving, as they ought, merely to furnish the text for the fuller and 

 more interesting exposition of the teacher, these books are for the 

 most part slavishly followed. 



The lesson of the day too often consists in the repetition by rote 

 of so many sentences or paragraphs from the class-book, which are 

 seldom expanded or made more attractive and intelligible by elucida- 

 tion on the part of the teacher. Such instruction, if it may be so 

 called, is bad for the teacher and worse for the taught. It is espe- 

 cially pernicious to the children in the earlier stages of their geograph- 

 ical studies, for it tortures their memories and brings no compensating 

 advantage. It fosters idleness and listlessness on the part of the 

 teacher, who, instead of exerting his faculties to invest the subject 

 with a living interest, becomes for the time a mere machine, mechani- 

 cally acting within the limits prescribed in the class-book. 



In dealing with the young we should try to feel ourselves young 

 again, to see things as they are seen by young eyes, to realize the 

 difficulties that lie in the way of children's appreciation of the world 

 around them, to be filled with an abounding sympathy which subdues 

 all impatience on our side, and calls out on the side of the children 

 their confidence and affection. Mutual sympathy and esteem are a 

 pledge of enduring success. To cement this bond of union between 

 teacher and taught there should be no set tasks for some considerable 

 time. The lessons ought rather to be pleasant conversations about 

 familiar things. The pupils should be asked questions such as they 

 can readily answer, and the answering of which causes them to reflect, 

 and gives them confidence in themselves and freedom with the teacher. 

 The objects in the school-room, in the play-ground, on the road to 

 school, should be made use of as subjects for such questionings, with 

 the aim of drawing out the knowledge acquired by the pupils from 

 their own observation. Every question should be one which requires 

 for its answer that the children have actually seen something with 

 their own eyes and have taken mental note of it. The putting of 

 such questions stimulates the observing faculty, and not unfrequently 



