Source of the Influence of Greece. 131 



of the so-called geography now taught in the schools is a con- 

 glomerated mass (and mess) of disconnected and doubtful facts, 

 with little or no psychologic unity and very little practical use. 

 Witness the failure of the best geography ever written, the Com- 

 mon School Geography by Guyot. It is doubtful wdiether that 

 splendid book ever paid for its maps. Real geography is not 

 taught because teachers do not understand it and because they 

 have very little or no means of studying it. 



But, to return to the main point in question, how easy it 

 is to develop by the imagination a clear concept of the penin- 

 sula of Greece, the main range of the Pindus, the spurs and 

 the plateau of Peloponnesus. On this basis, how easy and how 

 delightful it is to follow the development of Greece from the 

 ages of the gods and heroes through its struggles to its highest 

 reach of art and intellect ! We can see Thermopylae and study 

 with interest the memorable events connected with it; we can 

 study the Marathon plain ; we can travel with the athletes to 

 Elis ; we can picture the unwalled city of Sparta ! This is only 

 one example of the countless instances in which the memorizing 

 of history would be made permanent, effective and delightful. 

 The causes are studied, the effects known and the ^^ictures be- 

 come more and more distinct. Geography is the study of the 

 earth's surface as the home of man, the influence of that home 

 on man's growth ; and it is organically united, psychologically 

 related to memory. 



Geography, the picturing of the divinely modeled earth, is 

 beautiful and inspiring in itself. No art man ever produced 

 equals in beauty and grandeur the sculptured earth ; but add 

 to this intrinsic glory the function of the earth as the home of 

 man, a home that throughout the ages has been his home and 

 school alike ; trace human history in all its stages by the light 

 that the study of geography throws over it, and we have a 

 subject of extreme fascination in itself and of the highest use in 

 education. 



