146 W. B. Powell — Geograpliic Instruction. 



concepts of valleys, of slopes, of water-divides, of drainage areas, 

 of denuding of land surfaces, of filling of lake basins, and of 

 changes in courses of streams. They are the geographic alpha- 

 bet for further reading and investigation. 



Some of these lessons must be given many times because the 

 real meaning of some of the phenomena is difficult of percep- 

 tion. During the progress of this series of lessons the children 

 handle many specimens and talk about them ; make many river 

 basins in sand and talk about them; make many miniature 

 ranges of hills and talk about them ; compound small- valleys 

 into larger ones and talk about them ; gather the. waters of 

 many little streams and carry them down in one large flow to 

 lake or-ocean; define, that is bound, the smaller basins and in 

 turn the large basins including the smaller ones, thus building 

 in the mind concepts by means, of which in later study they 

 may be made to understand the great basins or drainage areas 

 of which a continent is made. During all this activity with the 

 mind and hand they read about the subjects upon which their 

 minds and hands are engaged and thus learn the real meanings 

 of words and the correct uses of geographic terms, thus learn to 

 get geographic information from the printed text. 



Our next group of work, for which the children are now pre- 

 pared, is the close study of a section of country having various 

 characteristics, first noting the different characteristics and 

 recording them, then representing the section on the sand- 

 board in plastic materials from the study of the field-notes. To 

 do this in some cases it is found necessary to make the sand- 

 map in the field from observation and afterwards make field- 

 notes, that the children may learn how to make field-notes, and 

 then how to use them in the workshop or laboratory. This 

 power comes slowly, but like all other acquisitions of power, it 

 comes easily if the steps are short, sequential and taken often 

 enough. 



The next step is the representation of the section studied with 

 pencil. This representation is made from the sand-map rather 

 than directly from the section studied. The next step is that of 

 studying a wall map representing a section of country, and then 

 translating it, in representation, on the sand-board. This whole 

 unit of work is given chiefly for the purpose of training children 

 to see contour and other geographic facts in symbols — that is, for 

 teaching children to interpret a map. AV^e have thus far, if we 



