GEOGRAPHY 



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GEOGRAPHY 



nection with political. It is natural, for in- 

 stance, that Great Britain, separated from the 

 mainland of Europe, should have developed as 

 a distinct country, or that Italy or Spain, jut- 

 ting peninsulas with high mountains between 

 them and the continental mass, should have 

 an equally distinct existence. But in Central 

 Europe, the various states of Germany had in 

 many cases purely arbitrary boundaries, and it 

 is not strange that there should have been con- 

 stant friction, each state trying to widen its 

 borders at the expense of others. 



Economic, or Commercial, Geography. This 

 is, in a sense, a part of political geography, 

 since it is man-made, but it has been given 

 special study and is usually considered as a 

 distinct branch. It treats of the industries of 

 the world; of agriculture, and the reasons for 

 its variations in different parts of the world; 

 of raw materials and the principles which gov- 

 ern their manufacture into finished products; 



of mineral resources and why they are made 

 the most of in some regions but neglected in 

 others; of trade routes and transportation fa- 

 cilities, and the great part which commerce 

 plays in the modern world. 



The industrial and commercial phases have 

 had a particularly close connection with politi- 

 cal geography, in that they have determined 

 so largely the location of cities. There was a 

 time when the site for a city was chosen be- 

 cause it was easily defended, but to-day that 

 question is seldom considered. The cities of 

 Massachusetts are where they are chiefly be- 

 cause of the falls in the rivers, which furnish 

 water power; London is the world's metropolis 

 because it commands one of the most im- 

 portant trade-routes in the world; and Duluth 

 owes its growth to the fact that the iron 

 which is mined not far from it is easily shipped 

 from there by way of the Great Lakes. Such 

 instances might be multiplied indefinitely. J.R. 



Interesting Ways of Studying Geography 



"Home" Geography. There was a time, not 

 so very many years ago, when a child begin- 

 ning the study of geography took up one conti- 

 nent and then another, devoting about the 

 same amount of time to each. He studied 

 about the surface features, about the rivers, 

 the people and the industries, spending com- 

 paratively little time on industrial subjects. 

 More time was devoted to his own country, 

 perhaps, than to any other, but his own state 

 received no special attention and as for his 

 home city or town and the activities that went 

 on there, there was little or nothing said of 

 them. 'In this day all that is changed. Teach- 

 ers realize that in geography as in other sub- 

 jects the pupil learns best if he proceeds from 

 familiar things to those unknown, studying 

 contrasts and similarities. Every little hill, 

 every stream, every group of plants which the 

 child sees on his way to school may be made 

 to do its part in helping him to picture the 

 mountains, the rivers, the forests or the prairies 

 which he will find described in his textbooks. 

 If he has ever watched the little sand flats 

 deposited by a sluggishly flowing brook or 

 ditch, he will have no difficulty in understand- 

 ing the formation of the deltas of the largest 

 river. 



When one considers industrial phases, the 

 value of home study is even more marked. 

 If the town has some one dominant industry, 

 it may be made clear to pupils why that in- 



stead of some other industry has grown up 

 there. Perhaps it is a flour-manufacturing 

 town, because the wheat fields are not far 

 away; perhaps the irrigated land about the 

 town grows excellent beets, and beet sugar fac- 

 tories are numerous; perhaps there are no 

 manufactures but the trade is large because 

 the region round about is productive, and a 

 lake, a river or a great railroad makes transpor- 

 tation easy. It is far more worth while for a 

 child to realize that geography has a deter- 

 mining influence on industries, and to under- 

 stand in detail such industries as are available 

 for study than for him to be able to recite 

 glibly the "principal products" of a list of 

 foreign cities. 



Study by Comparison. Having become fa- 

 miliar with his own town and his own state or 

 province and in some localities an entire year 

 is devoted to the study of just that much of 

 geography the student, whether he be a pupil 

 in school or someone who has taken up the 

 study outside of school, is ready to proceed 

 to gain an idea of wider areas; and to a 

 dweller in Canada or the United States the 

 "wider area" represented by his own country 

 is very wide indeed. Yet too few actually 

 realize the vast size of their home country. 

 They may be able to recite mechanically sta- 

 tistics as to its area and population, but these 

 make little appeal to their imagination. There 

 is the inhabitant of British Columbia, for in- 



