ON THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY IN SCOTTISH SCHOOLS. 645 



research and the maintenance and improvement of geographical teaching it is essential 

 that there should be an adequate stream of students into the honours schools from 

 ■tt-hich the very best may be selected for research and higher posts. If the Scottish 

 schools do nothing to hinder such a stream it is to their discredit that they do less 

 than nothing to foster it. 



' Mr. McFarlane has already referred to the handicap imposed on university teaching 

 of Geography by ignorance of the subject among first-year students. The students 

 labour under the disability right to the end of the honours courses. Since it cannot 

 be permitted to lower the honours standard of attainment it makes the work of the 

 student unduly arduous. Co-operation between school and university along this 

 line is surely axiomatically desirable within the group of subjects suitable for the 

 school curriculum, whether on account of the contribution they make to the mental 

 equipment of future citizens whose formal education ends with the school, or because 

 of their aptness to provide mental discipline for the youthful intelligence. It is not, 

 and need not be, argued that the schools should teach Geography throughout the 

 secondary course because the departments of Geography at the universities wish it. 

 A grasp of the content and method of modem geography alone is requisite to realisa- 

 tion of the unique and necessary contribution it can make to the training of the citizen 

 and the valuable (and orthodox) gymnastic it provides for the mind. And it is the 

 fact that, whether they say yea or nay to the claims of Geography, the bodies, including 

 the Scottish Education Department, responsible for the curricula in the secondary 

 departments of Scottish schools do not show in any way that they command the 

 necessary and sufficient knowledge and insight to judge of the proper place of 

 Geography in these curricula.' 



Dr. R. R. Rusk, Principal Lecturer in Education to the Glasgow Provincial 

 Committee for the Training of Teachers.—' While I hold no brief for the Scottish 

 Education Department, I am prepared to vmdertake the defence of the Department's 

 reply. What the Section requires, I maintain, is a sense of perspective. Other 

 Sections might likewise adopt the same attitude regarding the position of the teaching 

 of their subjects in the schools. I contend that Geography in Scotland is not in the 

 parlous condition the report suggests. Secondary teachers of Geography in Scotland 

 require an honours degree in the subject ; teachers in Advanced Divisions — equivalent 

 to central schools in England or the modern schools of the Report on the Education 

 of the Adolescent — must have taken at least one degree class in Geography ; and 

 it is possible that in the future the Department will only accept for training 

 degrees comprising certain specified subjects of which Geography will probably 

 be one. So far as I can make out, the number of students entering training centres 

 with Geography in their degree is increasing, and that is a favourable sign, as they 

 would return to the schools to teach the subject. 



'The kej' to the position of Geographj' in Scotland is in the Advanced Division. 

 The section should provide schemes of work in Geography for this stage of school 

 life — the teachers would welcome them and the Department doubtless approve of 

 them, and members of the Section should prepare appropriate text-books written from 

 the Scottish standpoint and emphasising the economic geography of Scotland. 

 Lecturers in Geography should avail themselves of opportunities for addressing 

 Educational Institute of Scotland meetings of teachers and should regularly contribute 

 to the Scottish Educational Journal articles on Scottish geographical topics. Every 

 means should be adopted to enlist the sympathy and interest of the teachers. 

 Complaints against the Department tend to become defence mechanisms set up by 

 teachers who do not desire to adopt modern methods and do progressive work ; the 

 Section should rather devote itself to constnictive proposals.' 



Mr. James Hunter, of Hyndland Secondary School, Glasgow.—' I am in 

 substantial agreement with much of the criticism Dr. Rusk has expressed. The 

 statement has been made that students enter the Geography classes at the 

 university in an ill-prepared condition. It should not be forgotten, however, 

 that university authorities might remedy this for themselves by demanding as an 

 entrance qualification the possession of the Lower of Higher Leaving Certificate in 

 Science (including Geography). I think that the speakers are exaggerating the 

 difficulties and discouragements of the situation. In my own school there has been 

 a marked development in the teaching of Geography. Twenty-eight pupils in the 

 fourth year are this session studying Natural Science with a view to the Higher Science 

 Leaving Certificate, and of these sixteen had chosen Geography as one of the two 



