1889.] Methods and Models in Geographic Teaching. 573 
and greatly to the enlivenment of the study. It is often the 
reproach of geography that it does not deal with things having 
life ; but this is true only if we do not take heed of the kind of life 
that it may consider. One may say that the changes here 
discussed are so slow that we need not take account of them ; but 
this is predetermining what we shall and what we shall not study; 
let us rather see if the consideration of slow geographic life does 
not impart new meaning to an old study; let us question if this 
new meaning is not nearer the truth that we are striving for; then 
we shall be better in a position to judge if slowness of change is 
a reason for its neglect. No one makes objection to teaching a 
young scholar about the growth of an oak tree from an acorn, 
though it is safe to say that no scholar comes to the belief of the 
growth of an oak from witnessing it ; he is convinced of a change 
that he cannot wait to see, partly by comparison with trees of a 
faster growth, and partly by seeing oaks of different sizes, and 
being led to make reasonable generalizations on his observations. 
It is the same with our understanding of geographic growth; we 
cannot see much of it, not even the oldest of us, and yet, after 
the conception is once gained, it becomes so vivid that one can 
hardly help expecting to find that a change is perceptible on 
returning after a time to some familiar locality. One may see a 
sand-bank washed away by a heavy rain, and from this to the 
washing down of the largest mountain there is only a difference 
of degree, not of kind. A scholar may easily comprehend the 
change of form indicated by the differences between the two 
plains already described, and unless his natural intelligence is 
obstructed, he can then grasp the idea of geographic growth. 
Let us next look at West Virginia, typified in the second 
model of the series ; here the inter-stream hills are so high that 
they almost merit the name of mountains; the stream branches 
have become so numerous that no part of the original level 
upland surface remains ; every part has an immediate slope to a 
stream, and the drainage system is advanced to its highest devel- 
opment. Indeed, we need some aid here from geology to be 
sure that we are dealing with an individual of the same kind as 
those already considered, so little likeness is there between this 
