PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY. 99 



style of those geological synopses by which many of our state 

 reports are opened. The accounts of a certain group of geo- 

 graphical features should always involve the comparison of local 

 examples with those from other regions, much as the paleontolo- 

 gist or the petrographer makes his comparisons of home and 

 foreign examples of fossils or rocks. The chapters must be 

 written in simple style, for many teachers must use them as ref- 

 erence books. They must be well illustrated, for most teachers 

 will have no other pictures of their home district, however well 

 they may be supplied with views of foreign countries. They 

 must, above all, be prepared in accordance with a well considered 

 geographical system. The chapters should not be so long as to 

 fatigue or repel, but rather so short as to awaken an appetite for 

 more reading of the same kind. They should be published not 

 only in the usual annual reports, but also as separate pamphlets 

 for distribution to all schools through the state superintendent 

 of public instruction. Studies of this kind promise to offer 

 most attractive subjects for geographical investigation for many 

 years to come. 



There is another and quite different direction in which good 

 work should be done by the trained geographer. That is in the 

 preparation of maps and illustrations for school books. It is 

 manifest enough in examining the maps now in use that they 

 have been drawn by draftsmen, not by geographers. Their lines 

 show no sufficient knowledge of the facts that should be repre- 

 sented. They are simply copies of other maps, with no sufficient 

 expression of meaning. The relief of the land is generally so 

 poorly represented on school maps that no criticism of its execu- 

 tion will make it right ; it must be done over again. The out- 

 lines of coasts and the courses of rivers are often merely carica- 

 tures of the facts. The meaningless irregular curves of Cape 

 Cod and of the Carolina coast offer amusing illustrations of this 

 in many a school geography. The student of geography, who 

 prepares for his work by a good foundation in geology, who car- 

 ries his geographical studies to the point of original investiga- 

 tion in different parts of the country, and who has a happy 



