86 
way should be invented of doing away with 
this additional danger of ocean travel. 
Ir is not uncommon to hear complaints of 
the methods of teaching geography in our lower 
schools. The faults most frequently mentioned 
are, that the beginning is not made properly ; 
that there are too many lists of places com- 
mitted to memory; and that the teaching is 
too lifeless, and is not made real enough by 
illustration and description apart from the text- 
book. The first error can be easily corrected 
by adopting the German method of instruction, 
where, instead of beginning with the definitions 
of meridians and parallels, that are so often 
found misplaced on the opening pages of our 
text-books, the pupils first study the arrange- 
ment of the schoolroom, then of the play- 
ground, next the geography of the town and 
of the surrounding country, and thus learn the 
meaning of the maps from which they after- 
wards study about the more distant parts of 
the world. 
But this does not go very far. After laying 
the proper foundation, is there any way of 
learning geography, except by committing to 
memory the names and relative positions of 
the many mountains, rivers, capes, bays, lakes, 
cities, and towns, that give features to the 
earth? Detail may, of course, be carried too 
far, if a precise knowledge of distant, and to us 
unimportant, countries be required ; but for the 
average scholar of this country, who should 
become well acquainted with the geography of 
North America and Europe, there is no easy 
path, no royal road, over the broad, rough field 
of fact that he must cross. We fancy, there- 
fore, that the second criticism touches, not a 
fault, but a difficulty inherent in the study. 
Names and positions of places must be learned ; 
but, as books of moderate cost can give very 
little more than the barest mention of them, 
the study is apt to become lifeless, and to de- 
generate into the learning of dull words from a 
dead map, unless the teacher averts this unfor- 
tunately common result, and enlivens the work | 
hy instruction beyond the text-book. This, 
SCIENCE. 
[Vou. ILI., No, 51. 
_ however, is more than we have a right to 
expect from the overworked and underpaid — 
teachers in the lower schools, for it is no | 
easy task. It demands much reading in many 
books; it requires illustration by numerous — 
maps, photographs, and diagrams, far beyond 
the reach not only of the teacher, but of the — 
school board as well. In short, the desirable, 1 
the ideal teaching of even so commonplace a 
subject as elementary geography is an expen- 
sive art, requiring much study, high skill, and 
an extensive outfit. 
It is now recognized that the successful 
teaching of chemistry, physics, and natural sci- 
ence, needs that the teachers of these branches — 
shall know them by practical, experimental, 
observational work. A fair application of the 
same principle would require that the teacher 
of geography should have travelled; but how 
far are we now from so desirable an end! It 
is safe to say, that, of all the teachers of our ? 
common schools, not one-quarter have seen an } 
ocean, a harbor, or a high mountain, and not . 
one-twentieth of them have had any personal 
acquaintance with the foreign countries that — 
they have to describe. Under these conditions, : 
it is certainly no wonder that the study of ge- — 
ography becomes so often a tiresome exercise j 
of unintelligent memory; and it cannot be 
otherwise, without a cost that few school i 
boards can allow. | , 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
*,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The 
writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. bi 
Naval officers and the coast-survey. 
In your issue of the 11th you refer editorially to 
the proposition contained in the report of the secre- 
tary of the navy for 1883, to transfer all national — 
work connected with the ocean, and conducted by | 
other departments, to the control of the navy depart- | 
ment; and in asubsequent paragraph you make some ~ 
criticisms upon the character of the work performed 
by navy officers in the coast-survey. The question 
as to whether the navy or the treasury department 
shall control the work, I do not propose to discuss ; 
but I must enter my protest against the assertion in 
a journal like Science, which goes forth to the world 
as authority, that the ‘‘ work which these [navy] offi- 
cers perform is routine, the plans and methods for 
which have been devised and developed by civilian 
experts,’ and to the assertion contained in the 
phrase, ‘‘ the present method of employing our super- 
fluous navy, under the intelligent supervision of 
