ELEPHANT AT TEA 



Learning Geography at the Menagerie 



Ethel Hausman 

 New Haven Conn. 



What a direct connection is the zoo or the circus menagerie be- 

 tween the child and the far corners of the earth where the animals 

 and birds which he gazes at with so much interest live naturally ! 

 And yet how little has it been thought of or utilized by teachers 

 or parents. It is another instance of ignoring on the part of the 

 adult the open pathways which the child mind would follow so 

 easily, leading from its own restricted environment out into the 

 great wonderful world. 



What should we try to teach in Geography, anyway? Merely 

 the maps of countries? No, the maps may change any year but 

 the hills, plains, mountains, and forests which they cover remain 

 much the same, and it is not to teach the child where these countries 

 are so much as what they are like that we should try to do. The 

 tiger should bring to the child's mind the tangle of the jungle; the 

 hippopotomus, the vision of great shallow rivers, the lion, the scrub 

 covered hillocks, the brown rocks where it makes its lair; the camel, 

 the desert with its waste of sand and palm covered oases ; the llama 

 the snow covered peaks of the Andes; the elephant, the forests of 

 Africa and India, the pomp of native monarchs or the wide 

 Irrawaddy covered with rafts of teak. In fact every animal and 



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