336 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
students. Thus there is general agreement that students of geography should 
study geology, history, and political economy at least to intermediate standard ; 
that the general principles of geography should be studied with reference to 
the world as a whole and to certain major regions; that map-reading and 
interpretation should be an integral part of the geographical course, and tha* 
some area should be studied in detail as an introduction to the methods of 
geographical research. In addition to these purely geographical studies, there 
are others of an applied character determined generally by the interests ot 
special circumstances of the department. Such are the geography of man, 
including the distribution of the principal human varieties and the simpler 
types of human societies; the geography of trade and transport; historical 
geography ; the history of geographical discovery; the geographical distribution 
of plants and animals; geodesy, surveying, and cartography. 
There is among the geographers of this and other countries a consensus of 
opinion that the first and principal aim of advanced geographical study is an 
interpretation of the modern world, and to this extent the study has a regional 
basis. But there are upon the borders, as it were, of this study many fields of 
research for which a geographical knowledge is such an admirable training 
that some courses of honours post-graduate work have become specialised in 
this direction. 
For those who intend to be teachers of geography, however, the Universities 
specified above give adequate tuition in geography and make provision for 
their training as teachers. 
The number of graduates specifically trained in the education departments 
of the Universities with a view to teaching geography in secondary schools 
has hitherto been emall—partly because, until quite recently, the heads and 
the governing bodies of secondary schools have, as a body, laid little stress 
upon professional training as a qualification for their appointments, partly 
because the provision of academic instruction in geography has been inadequate. 
In both these respects the situation is now rapidly changing. On the one 
hand, the Teachers’ Registration Council, acting as the organ of the profession, 
insists upon the importance of post-graduate training for secondary school 
teachers, the rules of the Burnham Committee encourage it financially, and 
the Board of Education by permitting four-year students who graduate in 
honours to be transferred to the secondary training departments have done a 
great deal to facilitate it; on the other hand, the growth of honours schools of 
geography, already referred to, should before long remedy the present deficiency 
of graduates with the academic qualifications presupposed by any effective 
system of training teachers for teaching the subject in secondary schools. 
Institutions which offer post-graduate training in the teaching of geography 
to students qualified to receive it will probably find it advisable to follow in 
principle, though with healthy variation in detail, the methods fairly generally 
pursued in regard to the better established subjects of the curriculum. The 
prospective teacher of geography must study side by side with the teachers of 
other subjects the general theory of education and the general principles which 
determine efficiency in all kinds of teaching; but in addition should receive 
definite instruction in the special craftsmanship appropriate to his subject. 
Under the guidance of the University expert (who may in some instances be an 
experienced school teacher associated for this purpose with the University 
department) he should be led to review and re-examine the subject-matter of 
geography from the point of view of its value and use as an educational instru- 
ment; should consider the natural stages in the presentation of the subject 
to growing minds, the character, range, and proper sequence of the topics 
appropriate to each stage, and the most fruitful methods of teaching them; 
and should inquire how boys and girls may best be taught to use the arts 
of map-reading and simple cartography, how observational work and practical 
geographical measurements may best be conducted, and, in general, how the 
study of the home region may most effectively be pursued under the conditions 
of school life and work. In addition, he should learn how instruction in 
geography may most usefully be correlated with the teaching in other subjects, 
and may for that purpose attend classes in which the methods of teaching 
those subjects are discussed. be 
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