Til e Study of Home Geof/rapJnj. 75 



]ju1>lic schools of the higher grades; much in the same wa.y as 

 the energetic commissioners of the topographic survey of Rhode 

 Island have secured the distribution of their state map free to 

 all their puhlic schools and libraries. The legislature would 

 soon see, from the employment of these geographical chapters 

 year after year by thousands of teachers, the appreciation that 

 tliis hitherto undeveloped economic field might receive from 

 those occupied with the advance of public education, and as- 

 sured support would then be given to the work, even on enlarged 

 scale. By some such practical steps we may secure a material 

 advance in the quality of geographical instruction. 



During the past year, I have had many illustrations of the 

 need of material of geographical of the kind here referred to. 

 Teachers in our pul-ilic schools are well aware that they have 

 not now the fuller account of the facts that they Avould enjo}^; 

 and yet they know not where to turn to find what they need. 

 Many teachers, principals, and superintendents with whom I 

 have spoken adndt at once that the books to which they now 

 have access are quite insufficient to satisfy their wants, and they 

 listen gladly to any feasible plan that will provide a more ex- 

 tended and more scientific description and explanation of tlie 

 facts of geography near at home, with which the}^ have to deal 

 from their earliest to their latest teaching. Geologists or geog- 

 i-aphers who are already acquainted with our local geograj)hy 

 from personal experience can perform a grateful service to the 

 schools by Y^reparing elementary accounts of the regions with 

 which they are familiar, and such books as these should be greatly 

 multijilied ; but, so far as I have been able to learn, it is only 

 the smaller part of our country that is now known well enough 

 to those who can be j)revailed on to write elementary l)Ooks, 

 and hence the importance of actual geographical exploration in 

 order to supply our teachers with what they need. If some 

 such plan as the one proposed above were pmt in operation, it 

 might come to pass in a decade or two that the graduates of our 

 common schools would not be so blinded as they now are to the 

 facts of their home geography. 



Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 



11— Nat. Gkou. BIag., voi,. V, 1893. 



