XV, 112) noted that even in the most distant regions young men were ambitious of becoming orators. Even so early as the time of Julius Cæsar the state began to encourage and support the work of the schools. All teachers of the liberal arts were made free of the city "in order to fix them in it and induce others to settle there." (Suetonius, Jul. Cæs., 42). When Augustus on account of the threatened famine ordered out of the city large classes of the population, including foreigners, he made an exception in the case of physicians and teachers of the liberal sciences. (Sueton. Aug., 42). "Vespasian . . . . granted to the Latin and Greek professors of rhetoric the yearly stipend of 100,000 sesterces each out of the exchequer (Sueton. Vesp., 18). 'Antoninus Pius' bestowed salaries and honors upon rhetoricians and philosophers throughout all the provinces" (Jul. Capit. c., II). Alexander Severus gave fixed salaries to the rhetoricians, built lecture halls and ordered that scholarships should be given to students endowed with talent who were the sons of poor par (Lampridius, c., 44.) In 321, 326, and 333 A. D., Constantine issued edicts conferring privileges and exemptions upon public teachers "by which they might the more easily instruct many in the liberal arts." The cities under the burden of oppressive taxation having become dilatory and parsimonious in the payment of teachers Gratian, in 376 A. D., fixed the salaries of the rhetoricians in Gaul at 28 and of the Grammarians at 12 annones. (Ozanam, Hist. of Civ., 192.) During the first four or five centuries of the Christian era the school work in grammar and rhetoric remained practically unchanged except that it tended to become still more formal and conventional and still less adapted to the needs of practical life. (Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme, I, 192.) Tacitus had occasion to criticise this tendency as early as the 1st century. Referring to the rhetorical schools he wrote "As for their exercises they are ridiculous in their very nature. . . . . But, good gods! with what incredible absurdity are they composed. Being taught to harangue in the most pompous diction on the rewards due to tyrannicides and other topics which are daily debated in the schools, and scarce ever in the forum; when they come before the real judges. . . . . (Dial. on Orat., 35) The highly stereotyped character of the work of these schools was a cause as well as an effect of the sterility of thought and emotion and the exaggerated regard for mere form which characterize the literary activities of the 4th and 5th centuries. ... In none of the Roman provinces did Roman culture flourish so vigorously as in Gaul. The schools at Treves, Autun, Clermont, Bordeaux, Poitiers, Toulouse and Narbonne were famous and attracted students from even Rome itself. It was here that Roman culture longest survived in the disintegration of the empire, and it is here that the transition of instruction from the rhetorical and grammar schools to the theological school, of the church can be most clearly traced. RÉSUMÉ ON ROMAN SCHOOLS. For centuries after the Greeks had developed a system of liberal education, non-professional school work among the Romans was limited to instruction in reading, writing and calculation. The higher culture of the later Romans was chiefly literary in character and was adopted from the Greeks. Among the special causes leading to this were: 1, The introduction to the Romans of Greek literature through representations of translations of Greek plays through translation of Odyssey. 2, The study by the Romans of Greek as the international language of the time. 3, Growth of interest in the study of oratory, a system of training in which had been developed by the Greeks. Though Greek culture was adopted by the Romans, it was strongly modified to adapt it to Roman ideals. Only those features were adopted which they could utilize in the attainment of the practical ends of life. Among the Romans, as among the Greeks, interest centered more and more in the study of rhetoric. With the loss of political freedom it was studied in part as a professional preparation for the practice of law and in part as a fine art, as an end in itself. Methods of school procedure among the Romans had become highly elaborated and conventionalized. The course of study was almost exclusively literary and rhetorical. Their The teaching profession did not stand socially upon a high plane. The elementary teachers were frequently slaves or freedmen. Under the Republic and the Early Empire the social rank of even the secondary teachers was inferior. condition improved during the four or five centuries preceding the downfall of the Empire. Never, perhaps, has the teaching profession stood so high in the social scale as in certain Roman provinces, Gaul, Africa and the East, during the fourth and fifth centuries A. D. BIBLIOGRAPHY. GREEK SCHOOLS. BECKER, W. A. Charicles. London, 1866, pp. 512. BLÜMNER, H. Home Life of the Greeks. London, 1895, pp. 548. CAPES, W. W. University Life in Ancient Athens. New York, 1877, pp. 171. DUMONT, ALBERT. L'éphébie Attique. Paris, 1875-1876, 2 vols. GIRARD, PAUL. L'éducation Athénienne. Paris, 1889, pp. 340. Greek Literature, especially Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Stobaeus. HATCH, EDWIN. tian church. GUHL AND KONER. Life of the Greeks and the Romans. London, SANDYS, J. E. pp. 672. SCHMID, K. A. pp. 333. WILKINS, A. S. 167. History of Classical Scholarship. Cambridge, 1903, Geschichte der Erziehung. Vol. I, Stuttgart, 1884, National Education in Greece. London, 1873, pp. Zeller, EdwARD. Pre-Socratic Philosophy. London, 1881, 2 vols. ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOLS. MAHAFFY, J. P. Empire of the Ptolemies. London, 1895, pp. 533. Greek Life and Thought. London, 1896, pp. 669. Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur in der SUSEMIHL, F. F. K. E. Alexandrischen Zeit. Leipzig, 1891, 2 vols. ROMAN SCHOOLS. BOISSIER, GASTON. La Fin du Paganisme. Paris, 1903, 2 vols. DENK, V. M. OTTO. Gallo-fränkisches Unterrichtswesen. Mainz, GRAHAM, ALEXANDER. Roman Africa. New York, 1902, pp. 325. Influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian church. Hibbert Lectures, 1888. London, 1892, pp. 359. JULLIEN, EMILE. Professeurs de la Littérature dans L'ancienne Rome. Paris, 1885, p. 372. MARQUARDT, K. J. Privatleben der Römer. Leipzig, 1886, 2 vols. MOMMSEN, THEODOR. History of Rome. New York, 1900, 5 vols. MONROE, PAUL. Source Book of the History of Education. New York, 1902, pp. 515. PLUTARCH. Miscellanies and Essays. Boston, 1898, 5 vols. Roman Literature, especially Suetonius, Cicero, Pliny, Juvenal, Horace, Quintilian, Seneca, Martial, Tacitus, Aulus Gellius. ROSSIGNOL, J. P. De l'éducation et de l'instruction chez les Anciens. Paris, 1888, pp. 332. ST. AUGUSTINE. Confessions. London, 1739. SANDYS, J. E. History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 672. WILKINS, A. S. Roman Education. Cambridge, 1905, pp. 100. THE PEDAGOGY OF GEOGRAPHY. By DAVID GIBBS. INTRODUCTION. For more than a century geography has been an important subject of instruction in American schools. During this time it has been making larger and larger demands upon the time of the child in school. The older text-books were mainly lists of facts conventionally arranged. The facts were isolated and no attempt was made to secure unity. Association by contiguity and the verbal memory were the mental powers most exercised. Text-books on this plan and methods based on them still continue in use. The spirit of evolution has more recently come into geography. To description explanation is added. The subject is now a natural science. The geographer now looks backward for causes and forward to results. This method requires a good store of facts from many sources. Recently, because pupils did not know these extra facts apart from geography, they have been included in the instruction. The result often is a greater confusion of the pupils and less accurate usable knowledge than when older methods were used. Undue emphasis has been given to physical geography and scientific method in the first grades, without much regard for the mental capacities of the children. While teaching geography as a science is now most emphasized, few teachers understand scientific methods, and after some attempts fall back upon easier methods. Most courses of study and most teachers follow the text-books. The text-book writers have been mainly mere compilers, without geographical or pedagogical training. They have little heeded the principles of education well known for centuries. They have attempted to shape the child to the material. For these and other reasons geography is to-day, perhaps, the most poorly taught subject in the curriculum of public instruction. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a general dissatisfaction with the present condition of the subject and a demand for its simplification and establishment on a more pedagogical basis. It is the purpose of this paper to aid in this improve ment. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSIT OF CALIFOR The general history of geographical text-books is first outlined, and followed by a historical review of the methods of teaching the subject. The methods in use in Europe and in the United States in the elementary and higher schools are reviewed. With facts so gathered and those derived from a number of special studies, a course of study for the elementary schools, together with the methods and text-books to be used, is developed and outlined according to the interests and mental development of the child. A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF GEOGRAPHICAL TEXT-Books. If man is largely a product of his natural environment, including its geographical features, it is not surprising that geographical facts were among the first to receive attention in his writings. Geography is as old or older than history. From the time of Homer to the present, books written to express man's views of the universe, to relate his travels, and to describe the various countries and peoples of the earth, are almost innumerable. We shall consider here only those written mainly for school use and some of those early general geographies which formed the basis of later school text-books. Three general periods of development, corresponding to the general development of civilization, are distinctly marked; viz., the ancient or Greek, the mediæval or speculative, and the modern or scientific. An outline of the geography of the Greeks is important because it shaped geographical work in modern times and formed the basis of modern geography. Eratosthenes, the librarian of Alexandria, wrote what was perhaps the first general scientific treatise of geography in three books; viz., 1. A Review of the Progress of Geography. 2. Mathematical Geography, 3. Descriptive Geography. He reconstructed and improved the map of the world, used parallels, meridians, and poles, established five zones, and with a gnomen measured with considerable accuracy the size of the earth. This work was an authority for two hundred years. (59, 89a.) Strabo (66-24, B. C.) gave a systematic description of the world in seventeen books. He had travelled extensively, and had full command of the new knowledge gained by the extension of the Roman empire. He conceived the earth to be spherical, immovable, and surrounded by the heavens. He thought the habitable world formed a sort of cloak or mantle over the globe. His geography was very important, for from it Pliny gathered most of the facts about the universe which filled his volumes on geography, from which most of the materials of instruction in geometry and geography through the dark ages were gathered. |