PAPERS ON GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 1G5 



THE AIM IX TEACHING FOREIGN GEOGRAPHY 



Herman T. Ltjkens, Fbancis W. Parker School, 



Chicago 



Traveling is likely in the future to beeome increas- 

 ingly frequent, as governments will cease to hinder and 

 will begin to recognize that it is to the public interest 

 for more people to meet and mingle with those of other 

 nations. Seeing this, the authorities will begin to aid 

 travelers to remove natural obstacles, instead of putting 

 artificial ones in our way. 



The greatest need for all travelers is knowledge of 

 every kind. He who knows the most before he starts 

 will learn the most on the way. Over the door of the 

 Union Station in Washington is this inscription: "He 

 who would obtain the wealth of the Indies must carry 

 it with him to the Indies." 



2. The study of foreign peoples should develop the 

 appreciation of the real brotherhood of mankind, our 

 mutual interests, and our true interdependence. 



3. The course should make plain and rather dwell 

 upon points in which other peoples excel our own. There 

 should be much comparison of natural resources, cli- 

 mate, and manufactures. Our geographies make the 

 United States too much the center of the world and mini- 

 mize the relative importance of other countries. It does 

 us good, therefore, to get hold of a British atlas, or to 

 refer to a Japanese chart, or a German guide book, or a 

 French or Dutch colonial publication with a different 

 world view. It is something to stir us out of narrowness 

 to realize that every njew day starts in Japan, while 

 Europe and, later still, America are finishing up the pre- 

 ceding day. 



4. Differences of religion, custom, and faith should 

 be presented without bias or prejudice, as likewise differ- 

 ences in climate, dress, resources, and manufactures. 

 Somehow or other, most of our pupils get the idea that 

 foreigners are ignorant and stupid, inferior to ourselves 

 in ability and inheritance. Perhaps ninety percent of 

 what we teach about other races involves the assump- 

 tion that the)* are inferior to our own, and is more cal- 



