ON GEOGRAPHY TEACHING. 331 
be related directly to their work in geography, and that the stage immediately 
after the age of twelve might begin with a course in the simpler parts of that 
branch of knowledge which Huxley called physiography—a plan suggested by 
Sir Joseph Thomson’s Committee on the Position of Natural Science in the 
Educational System of Great Britain. One of the advantages of this is that 
it gives opportunities for out-of-door observation, to which we attach great 
importance not only at this stage but throughout the school course. The 
course in physiography should include the simpler astronomical phenomena, 
which in the hands of a good teacher may be made an excellent training in 
reasoning and observation. Geology is not oft2n taught as a special subject 
in classes before the School Certificate stage, but it might well be the care of 
the geographer to introduce his pupils to some important principles of that 
subject, which is so closely related to his. An introduction of this kind 
will be planned so as to utilise the pupils’ neighbourhood and its data as far as 
possible, but the excursions‘of the School Journeys Association and of the 
_ branches and the Touring Committee of the Geographical Association offer 
additional opportunities which should be utilised. In South-Eastern England 
the study of chalk and flint in relation to their origins as well as to their 
chemico-physical characters offers opportunities, as also does the study of 
soils in their relation to water. The study of land-forms of glaciated regions 
in geography may be used as a means of introducing pupils to the idea of an 
Ice Age in Britain and the days of early man. Senior pupils may well be intro- 
duced to the idea of fold mountains and fractured blocks, and, with some 
knowledge of the main periods of geological history and of contrasts between 
volcanic, plutonic, and sedimentary rocks, they may be prepared on the one 
hand to take up geology, and on the other to appreciate something of the 
relative ages and the phases of history of various parts of the earth’s surface. 
While the pupil will usually be introduced to geology through geography, 
the beginnings of teaching in nature study and geography will be taken at 
about the same time, and each may make notable contributions to help the 
other. The geography teacher will naturaily help his classes to appreciate 
the different associations of plants found under different climatic influences, 
and he should try to use such descriptive references as those of the Old Testa- 
ment, Homer, Herodotus, and so on, as well as of Marco Polo, Huc, Darwin, 
Wallace, Doughty, and others, in this connection. 
In the Report on Science in Secondary Schools (Brit. Assoc., 1917, 2s. 6d.), 
the late Mr. F. W. Sanderson, Headmaster of Oundle School, made the im- 
portant forecast that ‘every branch of knowledge in the years to come will 
be influenced by the study of biology and the humane studies in history, 
economics, sociology will be rewritten under the same.’ Since school geography, 
as the study of men in their various environments, is developing so fast, the 
geography teacher not only has a great part to play in this process of develop- 
ment of knowledge and thought, but also has the duty thrust upon him of 
trying to gain an understanding of science, including biological science, on the 
pee hand, and of the humane studies, especially history and languages, on 
the other. 
History. 
The relationship of geography to history may be viewed from several 
angles. Presuming agreement with the general definition of Geography as con- 
cerned with the comparative study of distributions in space (simultaneous dis- 
tributions in pure geography; sequences of such distributions in applied geo- 
graphy), and with the general definition of history as concerned with the 
interpretation of sequences of events within a given geographical region, it is 
obvious that economy of effort and efficiency of result must depend upon rea’son- 
able co-ordination of geographical and historical teaching. On the part of 
the geography teacher it is essential for his interpretation of the present that he 
look back into the past to find some explanation of the facts which he presents. 
Geology, archeology, anthropology, and history may all be drawn upon for the 
elucidation of the region which forms the subject of his study. It is thus 
obvious that the geography teacher must often rely upon himself for the historical 
_ data which he requires, and that the greater his knowledge of historical events 
