284 Fifth Conference 



The student, in a few moments of imaginative 

 effort, is thus led to place himself in living contact 

 with a series of Chalk ridges extending from York- 

 shire in the north to the Isle of Wight in the south. 

 He has previously learnt these ridges in his lessons 

 on the geography of the east and south-east of Eng- 

 land as a series of detached hill ranges. They have 

 been names hitherto associated with etched lines on 

 an atlas, and little more than names. Now, resting 

 on one of these hill slopes, he realizes that the others 

 are part and parcel of the Chalk range beneath his 

 feet. Not only are the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire 

 Wolds, the Chiltern and East Anglian heights on the 

 north, and the South Downs and Isle of Wight ridges 

 on the south, one and the same with the Chalk Downs 

 on which he stands, but Flamborough Head, Hun- 

 stanton Cliff, North and South Foreland, Beachy 

 Head, Culver Cliff, and the Needles — all these be- 

 come associated together as seaward terminations of 

 different parts of the same Chalk mass. 



It will need no effort on my part to enforce the 

 value of thus associating, in the closest manner pos- 

 sible, viz. by the association of common origin, 

 geographical features which have hitherto been fre- 

 quently taught as detached and isolated facts. 



It may be objected by some that the aim of the 

 school journey is being somewhat obscured by this 

 effort to connect distant features of the country with 

 the North Downs. Surely, says the objector, you 

 have come out to observe the facts of Nature around 

 you, and not to construct by an imaginative exercise 

 synclinal and anticlinal connections with hill ranges 

 far out of view. My answer to such objections as these 



