PAPERS ON GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY 361 



THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY IX THE HIGH 



SCHOOL 



V. I. Be(:>wx, Pbixcipal, Watseka Community High 



School 



When I first received from your chairman an invita- 

 tion to present before this meeting a ten-minute paper, 

 I felt that there had been some mistake. I have had that 

 feeling several times since and find no small amomit of 

 the same existing at this moment. Perhaps w hen I shall 

 have finished you will have a similar feeling. If you do I 

 shall not question your judgment. With this attitude of 

 mind I wrote to a friend who is interested in the teaching 

 of Geography and received the following suggestion. 

 "You may know the character of the meetings to have 

 changed, but at the meetings of the Academy of Science 

 which I have attended all the pajDcrs have been on orig- 

 inal investigations along scientific lines." I then wrote 

 your chainnan and suggested that there might have been 

 an error and that any paper which I might present would, 

 of necessity, be pedagogical rather than scientific. Hav- 

 ing his assurance that such a paper would be acceptable 

 and in place, I have made bold to discuss before this meet- 

 ing "The Teaching of Geography in the High School." 

 I am not a scientist. I have made no original investiga- 

 tion along scientific lines. However, if this Academy is 

 interested in the decline of a subject which should retain 

 a place in our high school Course of Study, a subject 

 which should be a science, but is not as now taught, then 

 this paper may have some slight claim to a place on your 

 program. 



An examination of the "Report of the High School 

 Visitor of the University of Illinois for the year 1920-21" 

 shows that of the 530 accredited high schools in the 

 state of Hlinois, 413 offer courses in Physiography, and 

 367 offer courses in Commercial Geography. This means 

 that approximately 70-80^ of our accredited high 

 schools offer courses in geography. At the first glance 

 this seems not such a bad showing for the subject; but 

 when we consider that the courses are almost entirelv 



