"nature study." But instead of focusing their attention on the achieved generalizations and organized classifications which are the final product of scientific research, they emphasize the elementary steps in scientific method, the process of investigation, the "tentacles of inquiry," which are the psychological beginnings of science. From this point of view one of the aims of nature study is formulated in the Review as follows:

To give the first training in accurate observing as a means of gaining knowledge direct from nature, and also in the simplest comparing, classifying and judging values of facts, in other words, to give the first training in the simplest processes of the scientific method.

It is interesting to note that this is the idea of instruction in natural science emphasized by Rousseau (see p. 198), but which the Pestalozzians generally failed to appreciate.

Pestalozzian-Ritter geography. — No subject exhibits as clearly the influence of the Rousseau-Pestalozzi movement on actual practice in elementary schools as does the development of the teaching of geography. This subject had little or no place in most elementary schools before the nineteenth century. The prevailing method of instruction down to the last part of the nineteenth century was generally poor. Practically all the reforms in method can be traced to Pestalozzi and the great German geographer, Carl Ritter (1779-1859), and their followers. Here, as in other phases of the Pestalozzian movement, the most striking improvements in method were in the lower grades of the elementary schools.

The older type of geography teaching may be called the dictionary-encyclopedic geography. In contrast with this type, the characteristic element in the new Ritter geography was the emphasis on the general principles of the influence of physiographic conditions on human activities and social development. The Pestalozzian element associated with the Ritter geography was the necessity and possibility of providing children with real, first-hand geographic experiences by beginning with home geography. We will summarize first

the development of the "dictionary-encyclopedic" type of geography and then take up the Ritter-Pestalozzian reforms. Dictionary-encyclopedic geography. Geography not common in elementary schools before 1800.-We noted in Chapter IV that geography was not taught generally in American elementary schools before the Revolution, but that by 1800 the rudiments of the subject were taught in some schools. The following quotation indicates the general condition as late as 1824. The statement was made by W. A. Alcott, one of the leaders in American education in the early part of the nineteenth century.

Up to this period [1824] geography as a science had received little attention in the public schools of New England. . . . Some schools studied Morse; a few others used as a reading book, Nathaniel Dwight's" System of Geography," which was arranged in the form of question and answer. The majority, however, paid no attention to the subject. (22 55.)

First American geographies: Morse, 1783, 1789.- The first large American geography was the "American Universal Geography" of Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826), published in 1789. Several revised editions were issued, and by 1800 it contained fifteen hundred pages. It included a great deal of information of the type found in encyclopedias. An example from the edition of 1800 is the description of the Boston schools, quoted in Chapter IV (see p. 86). This book was intended to be used in higher schools. A small edition, entitled "Geography made Easy,” had been published in 1783. An abridgment, known as "The Elements of Geography," was published in 1797.

Several other elementary geographies were prepared during this period, but they possessed the same encyclopedic character. Sometimes variations in style were introduced to make the material more interesting to children. Perhaps the best known books of this type were those of Peter Parley issued from 1829 on. Parts of Parley's books were phrased in verse.

Even after the Pestalozzian influence began to be felt this dictionary-encyclopedic type of geography continued to be taught in most places and is not uncommon at the present time. Its dictionary phase is exhibited in the long series of definitions which are to be memorized, particularly in the so-called mathematical geography. Its encyclopedic phase consists of the masses of particular political, commercial, and statistical facts, which children were commonly required to memorize.

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Geography a conglomerate subject before 1819. - This unorganized, encyclopedic type of geography prevailed not only in the textbooks, but it was practically the only kind of geography in existence before the work of Ritter, about 1820. Discussing this condition, Ritter said that from the three traditional divisions, namely, mathematical, physical, and political, our ordinary text books compile their usual aggregate of facts, and each becomes after its own pattern a motley in miniature. exposition of geography is seldom to be found in them. at the foundation only arbitrary and unmethodical collections of all facts which are ascertained to exist throughout the earth. . . . The facts are arranged as the pieces of a counterpane, as if every one existed in itself and for itself, and it had no connections with others. . . The beginning is usually made with boundaries which are generally most unstable and uncertain, instead of being made with some rudimental fact around which all others arrange themselves as a center. These geographical treatises . . . indicate knowledge rather than science; they form a mere aggregation and index of rich materials, a lexicon rather than a true text book. And therefore ensues, despite the undenied interest of the subject and its high claims, the mechanical and unfruitful method only too common the crowding of the memory without judgment, without thought. (12: xxiv.)

Such was the condition of geography as represented not only in the textbooks but also in the larger treatises. It was the work of Ritter to change the subject from a mere conglomeration of facts to a science containing the general principles of the relations of physiographic conditions to social development as its subject matter.

Creation of the science of geography by Carl Ritter, 17791859. Ritter's greatest scientific work was the publication of his mammoth geography, the first volume appearing in 1817. Its title was "The Science of the Earth in Relation to Nature and the History of Man; or General Comparative Geography as the Foundation of the Study of and Instruction in the Physical and Historical Sciences." This work, which represented years of previous study, was continued until his death in 1859, when nineteen volumes containing over twenty thousand pages had been issued. The principles of organization which it contained practically created the science of geography. Although Ritter was widely known for his scientific attainments before the publication of this work, its appearance so impressed the Prussian scientists and government officials that he was made professor of geography in the University of Berlin. Here he lectured for forty years (1819-1859) to crowded audiences, numbering often as many as three hundred students. Most of the famous geographers of the later nineteenth century were either directly or indirectly students of Ritter. Among these were Reclus (18301905), Kiepert (1818-1899), under whom F. W. Parker studied at Berlin, and the Swiss-American geographer Guyot, of whom more will be said later.

Ritter greatly influenced by Alexander von Humboldt's work on South America. In his own scientific development Ritter was greatly influenced by Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), with whom he was very intimate. Of this relationship Ritter's biographer says:

Among his distinguished contemporaries, none was to him of so much help as Alexander von Humboldt, who summed up in himself the progress of the age in the physical and natural sciences as applied to the science of the globe. I have said elsewhere how greatly he acknowledged his indebtedness to Humboldt's labors which furnished him with the indispensable foundation for his own edifice. His [Humboldt's] investigations of the general laws of the distribution of heat represented by his system of isothermal lines; of the distribution of plants, as depending

upon the two main elements of climate, [namely] heat and moisture; of the marine currents, as modifiers of climate in similar latitudes, were of general application to all parts of the globe. (11: 216.)

Humboldt had explored South America in 1799 and demonstrated the physical regions, the well-defined geographical types, which are to be found there, and showed

how they owe their existence to the fundamental traits of the structure of the continent, and to the powerful influence which that structure exercises on the climatic conditions, and through them, on animated nature and man himself. (11: 217.)

Ritter generalized the special labors of Humboldt. Ritter's addition to the work of Humboldt may be stated as follows:

Such a knowledge Ritter felt was to be acquired of every other continent, and above all, of the historical continents [Europe, and Asia especially]. That alone would be a safe basis for the further study of the influence of those natural regions on man's character and peculiar development, and on the special functions performed in the civilization of mankind by the nations which occupied them during the periods of their growth and activity. (11: 218.)

Ritter pedagogically a part of the Rousseau-Pestalozzi movement.—The preceding discussion suggested the fundamental scientific importance of Ritter's work in relation to Humboldt and later geographers. It remains to show how intimately he was identified with the general pedagogical movement which we have been considering.

Salzmann of Schnepfenthal, Ritter's pedagogical father. The school of Salzmann (1744-1811) at Schnepfenthal was described in Chapter X as the most successful example of the schools of Basedow, which were established during the period of enthusiasm created by Rousseau's "Émile." This school was opened in 1784 (see p. 212). Carl Ritter was its first pupil, and Guts Muths his special teacher and guardian. Here Ritter spent eleven years (between the ages of six and seventeen) as a student. After graduating, in order to prepare