224 GEOGRAPHY FOR TEACHERS 



second phase is represented in a class of popular works such as 

 Stanford's Compendium of Geograptry, each volume of which, 

 though intended for laymen, is written by an authority on the 

 region covered; the work on the United States published by 

 Appleton and Company five years ago, the editor a Harvard pro- 

 fessor, and each chapter contributed by a specialist of note; the 

 National Geographic Monographs, published three years ago by 

 the American Book Compan} r for distribution among teachers, 

 each a contribution from a geologist of note on some special 

 region of our county. 



The National Geographic Society represents a third phase, in- 

 cluding, as it does, in its membership geographers and discoverers 

 of world-wide fame and private citizens with no claims on any 

 science but that of interest. In order properly to index this 

 feature of the Society and to further cement the relations between 

 the upper and lower orders of the educational structure, the 

 Society purposes to publish in The National Geographic Mag- 

 azine such information as may best aid the progressive teachers 

 among its membership to procure both knowledge of geographic 

 facts and skill in their presentation. 



During the summer months most teachers strengthen their 

 minds, exhausted by too much giving, by a little getting ; hence 

 the summer schools are crowded. In some of these good work 

 is done along several geographic lines. Those teachers who re- 

 main at home need to study in this direction not the produc- 

 tions of the middleman, but the best authorities, for none can tell 

 a fact either so tersely or so graphical^ as its discoverer. 



The two lines of work most emphasized of late in geographic 

 teaching are phj'siography and economic geography — the pro- 

 cesses of the earth's preparation for man and of man's exploita- 

 tion of the earth. Two, at least, of the lately published school 

 geographies treat well, though briefly, of the first. Shaler's First 

 Steps in Geolog} 7 , followed by the reading of Le Conte's Geology, 

 which, though not of highest scientific value, is very easy read- 

 ing, will prepare for the comprehension and enjoj'ment of 

 Geikie's large book. Directly following such a course may be 

 studied the economic side of the subject as represented b} 7 King's 

 The Soil, one of the Rural Science series, edited b_y L. H. 

 Bailey, of Cornell ; The Fertility of the Land, by Roberts; The 

 First Principles of Agriculture, by Voorhees, or Vegetable Mould, 

 by Darwin. All these involve processes related to agriculture. 

 The Report on Iron and Steel in the Census of 1880; Economic 



