December i, T923J 



NA TURE 



8oq 



School Geography.^ 



AMONG the valuable reports presented by com- 

 mittees of the British Association at the recent 

 meeting at Liverpool was one on the teaching of 

 geography. The committee included representatives 

 of the two Sections of Geography and Educational 

 Science, and was appointed to formulate suggestions 

 for a syllabus for the teaching of geography both to 

 1 matriculation standard and in advanced courses, to 

 report upon the present position of the geographical 

 training of teachers and to make recommendations 

 thereon, and to report upon the practical working of 

 Regulations issued by the Board of Education affect- 

 ing the position of geography in training colleges and 

 secondary schools. 



That such a task was pressing, all who have the 

 interests of secondary education at heart will readily 

 admit, and it was well that such an independent body 

 as a committee of the British Association should have 

 undertaken it, for the report shows that the matter 

 demanded urgent consideration and considered 

 judgment. The committee consulted with heads of 

 schools, teachers of geography, examination boards, 

 and universities, and the report is full of suggestions 

 •expressed with marked clarity and cogency. 



There can be no doubt that a reconstruction of the 

 method and content of geography teaching along the 

 lines of this report is a matter of urgency. The world 

 of to-da}'^ is fundamentally different from the world 

 of twenty years ago — or indeed of ten years ago. 

 Life is much more complicated : not only is man 

 more dependent for his social well-being on the 

 activities of a vastly wider world, but his immediate 

 social environment is a complex that requires for its 

 comprehension a degree of reasoning power and 

 scientific knowledge that the school curriculum of a 

 few decades back failed to give. The study of 

 classical literature may give one a deep insight into 

 the life and thought of intellectual giants of the past, 

 but the most pressing need of modern education is a 

 curriculum that will bring before the pupil vividly, 

 and in logical order, the controlling factors that are 

 shaping and giving colour to the social world in 

 which he has to live, and enable him to understand 

 his environment, adjust himself to it, and adjust it 

 to himself. " Geography as ordinarily understood," 

 says the Report, " deals with the world of to-day : 

 it occupies a special position in the study of human 

 conditions at present obtaining in the various parts 

 of the earth and the tendency of the changes taking 

 place therein." Geography, therefore, must take a 

 prominent position in any modern scheme of humane 

 studies. Huxley spoke and wrote strenuously for a 

 curriculum more fitted to help a citizen through the 

 increasingly complicated life that he had to lead 

 (it was the age of scientific discoveries), and his 

 arguments hold with increased force to-day. 



One charge that has been laid at the door of modem 

 education is that the teaching of science, history, etc., 

 is formal rather than human, that the course.i main- 

 tain steady paths parallel to each other without 

 converging at any point. What is wanted is a 

 " core " subject which draws on the others for its 

 facts, co-ordinates them, and thus, by correlation, 

 gives each a fuller and richer meaning. This report 

 shows how geography can be made to function as 

 this core subject. Mackinder and Herbertson at 



• OroKraphy Te.nrhinR. Report of Committee (Prof. T. P. Nunn, 

 Ch.uriii.m : Mr. W. H. H.irkcr, Serret.nry ; Prof. H. J. Hlciire, Mr. C. J. R 

 How.irth. Sir H. F. Mackiiuier, Prof. J. I.. Mvrei, and Prof. J. H. Unslcad, 



' ^ ■ VIr. (i. H. f. Adiam. Mr. I). Herridgc, Mr. C. K. Hrownc, Sir 



Mr. K. Sharwood Smith, Mr. E. R. Thom.is, and Miss P. 

 tiori L) (Driti>h Aswrialion, Burlington House, London, 

 . 1 >. . IDS. per doz. ; 4/. per 100. 



Oxford, Lyde and Chisholm in London, demonstrated 

 this new conception of geography twenty years ago, 

 and the rapid strides made in recent years in the 

 methods of geography teaching in secondary schools 

 are due to the efforts of the young teachers whom 

 they primarily inspired. 



At the present time geography takes a place in the 

 school curriculum on a level with history, and below 

 that of classics, French, mathematics, and science. 

 That more sympathy with the subject is not forth- 

 coming is due, first, to the lack of trained geography 

 teachers, whose enthusiasm and knowledge would 

 compel greater recognition, and, secondly, to the fact 

 that the inspectors of the Board of Education, being 

 mainly interested in other subjects, have hitherto 

 attached small importance to it. 



For the lack of trained geography teachers one has 

 to blame the Board of Education and the universities 

 jointly. If the former had recognised the importance 

 of the subject earlier and pressed for skilled geography 

 teachers, it is reasonable to assume that the Universities 

 would have established honours schools in geography, 

 as they did, in like circumstances, in science and 

 history ; conversely, if the universities had taken the 

 lead, the Board of Education would have been forced 

 to give greater recognition to the subject, just as it 

 has recently been induced to institute a geography 

 group in advanced courses for secondary schools, 

 through pressure from the council of the British 

 Association. 



That the geography group will justify its inclusion 

 in the advanced course there can be no doubt, and 

 when one considers the comparative merits of other 

 subjects as a training for life and citizenship one 

 wonders why its inclusion has been so long delayed. 

 At the moment, however, the total lack of geo- 

 graphical scholarships at the universities is a factor 

 that will operate ver}'^ strongly against a pupil's choice 

 of geography in the advanced course. A boy destined 

 for a professional career to whom the other subject 

 groups are perhaps more useful as a preliminary 

 training for his university course, will naturally 

 make his selection from them, the quantity of scholar- 

 ships being a strong determining factor. The 

 British Association might usefully direct its attention 

 to this aspect of the problem. 



On the other hand, the geography group presents 

 attractions that should more than counterbalance 

 this drawback. To begin with, parents whose boys 

 are destined for city careers — clerical, secretarial, or 

 commercial — have hitherto failed to see, and very 

 naturally, how a two-years post-matriculation course 

 in one of the existing subject-groups can help their 

 sons in a degree at all commensurate with the 

 expenditure of time and money involved. Added to 

 that, many firms prefer to engage youths at the 

 earher age, and parents with sons of eiglitecn years 

 have a difficulty in placing them. There is, how- 

 ever, a growing demand for young men who can 

 produce evidence of specialised training for business 

 life — a training, by the way, which so far only 

 private institutions have endeavoured to provide, 

 albeit fairly adequately and remuneratively. In the 

 syllabuses for these examinations — Institute of 

 Secretaries, etc. — geography occupies an important 

 position, and it is also an important subject-group in 

 the course for the B.Com. and B.Sc. (Econ.) degrees 

 which represent the hall-mark, as it were, of vocational 

 training for business life. For these examinations, 

 the geography group is clearly the most useful, and 

 cannot fail to prove attractive. 



On turning to the Report itself one has to admit that 



so. 2822 VOL. I 12] 



