166 REPORT—1874. 
brought it to its present state of perfection, that from the very first they recognized 
the necessity of extreme scientific accuracy in their work, and that they have never 
had to withdraw from the position they have taken up with regard to the many 
questions of detail that have arisen from time to time. 
Before concluding this portion of my address, I would draw your attention to the 
appliances used in the minor schools of this country for teaching geography, as they 
would seem to need some improvement. The subject is perhaps hardly one that 
comes within the province of the Royal Geographical Society, which has done so 
much to encourage the study of geography in our public schools; but it might well 
be taken up by one of the numerous Committees of the School Boards of our large 
towns. The appliances to which I allude are models or relief maps, wall-maps, 
atlases, and globes. 
The use of models as a means of conveying geographical instruction has been 
too much neglected in our schools; if any one considers the difficulty a pupil has 
in understanding the drawing of a steam-engine, and the ease with which he grasps 
the meaning of the working model, and how from studying the model and com- 
paring it with the drawing, he gradually learns to comprehend the latter, he will 
see that a model of ground may be used in a similar manner to teach the reading 
of a map of the same area. A teacher would probably find the same difficulty in 
enabling a pupil who had lived all his life in a level country, such as the great 
plains of Russia, to form from a map a mental picture of a great mountain-range, 
asin teaching one who had never seen a steam-engine to realize what it was and 
its mode of action from a simple drawing ; the model in each case would form a 
connecting link. 
Relief maps of large areas on a small scale have their uses, but they are unsuit- 
able for educational purposes on account of the manner in which heights must be 
exaggerated to make them appear at all; this objection, however, does not apply 
to models of limited areas on a sufficient scale, which always give a truthful and 
effective representation of the ground. The difficulties attending the construction 
of accurate models, and their consequent cost, have proved serious obstacles to 
their-common use in our schools; but models are readily built up from contoured 
maps, and the means of forming in this manner an instructive series of models 
of our own country, with ease, rapidity, and at slight expense, are quickly accu- 
mulating as the six-inch contoured sheets of the Ordnance Survey are published. 
Instruction in Geography should begin at home; and I would suggest that as 
the six-inch survey progresses every good school throughout the country should 
be provided with a model and map of the district in which it is situated. If 
this were done the pupils would soon learn to read the model; and having once 
succeeded in doing this, it would not be long before they were able to under- 
stand the conventional manner in which topographical features are represented 
on a plane surface, and acquire the power of reading, not only the map of 
their own neighbourhood, but any map which was placed before them. With 
these models topographical studies, which might be the same for all schools, 
should be supplied, such as a representation of a coast region, a mountain-lake 
with surrounding hills, a volcano, or an alpine district with glaciers; and it 
would add much to their value if they were accompanied by bird’s-eye views 
and landscape sketches. In Switzerland nearly every school has a model of the 
country; in Austria, France, and Germany models are largely employed for 
instructional purposes; they have long been in use in our military schools and 
colleges; and models of the environs of Plymouth with corresponding portions of 
the six-inch map are used somewhat in the manner I have suggested. The demand 
for models on the Continent has naturally resulted in their extensive manufacture ; 
and some good specimens have been produced by Delagrave of Paris, Wagner of 
Berlin, and others; but they do not give all that is required, and are capable of 
much improvement. 
In our Wall-Maps I think we haye been too much inclined to pay attention to 
the boundaries of countries, and to neglect the general features of the ground. It 
is difficult to say whether the maps have followed the teachers or the teachers the 
maps ; but I fear instruction in physical geography too often comes after that in 
political geography, instead of a knowledge of the latter being based on a know- 
