Considering then that geography is primarily a study in which cause and effect can be emphasized in their relations, what shall be our aims? and what shall we strive to give to the child?

We have in the study of geography, as in every science, two classes of materials to deal with, facts and principles. Our facts, we must observe, carefully, critically and fully. Our principles we must draw by generalizing many facts and the proof that our labor is good is to see if the principles we have inferred from our observations in one place can be made to explain what we observe in another. We cannot hope in any science to make a complete study of the subject matter of that science; and certainly, we cannot hope in geography to make a complete study of the earth or to give the child all the information known about the earth at the present moment. We must aim to give a certain amount of information; but we should aim above all, to give the ability to gather information; in other words, we should develop the knowledge of principles through the knowledge of facts. We cannot expect every child to be a philosopher, and we cannot expect them in the early years to see clearly and without introduction that facts are related to principles. We must in our early work study facts not singly and in a separated manner, but in their relations in time and space so as to lead the child to appreciate that there are one or more underlying truths which make the explanation of the fact easy; then we can generalize. We must show the child by numerous and familiar examples that eralizations are legitimate and that they are but short handed ways of summarizing our knowledge which for lack of time we could never give fully in a school curriculum. If we develop in the child the ability to discover and apply principles, we give him the power to gain knowledge, and not merely unrelated items of information. His information may be forgotten in a day, a week or a year; but the power to use his own mind, to observe, to analyze and generalize the conditions about him, is a power that will go on increasing in use and will be ever helpful to that child through his life. It will be the ever open window whose vista is continually widening with the advance of years, and through which the child will get the most beautiful, the most helpful and the most pleasing knowledge of the world about him. We must, therefore, aim to make the

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child think.

We cannot arbitrarily lead him up to a principle which we have worked out for ourselves and make him accept it. We must make him see the reasons on which we have founded the principle. Then he will accept it; and will, later, learn to apply it.

If our aim, therefore, is to develop principles and give a child a better working knowledge of himself, we will at once make the child inquisitive in a rational way; will make him more intelligent, more interested in the conditions about him. If he can be made to feel that the animal, the plant, and the man are all facts intimately inter-related with other facts and to be explained in their present positions and characters by one or more fundamental principles, he will have not only an interest in nature but a love for it. He will feel a certain kinship between all living things and himself; and the study of geography will come to be to him not simply the blind memorizing of individual items, but a science in which he sees a rational development and which gives to him not only an increased knowledge but an increased power to gain more knowledge. This last, is the primary object of all education.

If, then, our aim is to develop principles as outcome of facts, how are we to proceed? Are we to wait and bring forth those principles in the later years of the study of geography, or are we to attempt to bring them out in the earlier grades and prove the strength of our position by applying them in the later years? In other words, are we simply to observe and generalize without proving, or are we to follow the three fundamental steps which are followed by every thinker in science before he gives to the world the result of his thought? I feel that the latter course is the proper and best one. Therefore, the next point is, concerning the order of procedure in a course of geography in the elementary schools. My opinion, gained from trial and experience is, that we should aim in the first, second and third years of our geography work so to combine what is commonly known as nature study with the elementary principles of geography as to give the child an interested love for the world about him and to give him the fundamental facts so related that he can develop therefrom, by a process of reasoning, the simpler underlying principles of geography. By the latter part of the third year, and surely throughout the fourth, the child

should be able to go from a study of his home locality to a study of the other parts of the world through a process of reasoning the exact opposite of that followed hitherto in his work. He should have acquired principles and should be able from the map of the globe to apply those principles and to prophesy the geographic features that he would expect to find in the continent under consideration. For instance, having had something of a knowledge of the shape of the earth, of the shape of the land and its meaning, of climate and its effect, of the effects of mountains upon winds and the migration of man, he should be able to prophesy from the physical map of Asia where in that continent he would expect to find the people most numerous, the civilization better advanced, agriculture possible or impossible. He should be able to tell the effects of the great axial mountain system of Asia upon the country north and south of it. To those who would say that such prophetic work is impossible, I can say that my classes have done such work and with valuable training for the individuals.

Of course, we cannot expect a child at the age of nine, to be able to know or apply all the fundamental principles, but he can gain much from applying the elementary ones. If this course is followed, every child has for himself, under the guidance of the teacher, made two of the steps of the scientific development of a belief. He has observed, he has generalized; from his generalizations he has prophesied certain conclusions. The proof of his work depends upon examining the conditions and finding if they are such as he would expect. At this stage in the development of the geography of the continent, the descriptive part of the geography, together with certain collateral reading, should be given him. If the teacher has followed a wise and far-seeing course he has led the child in this way through such a stage of mental development and progress that he finds his conclusions as he would expect to find them, and thus gains confidence in the method of study and a greater desire to pursue the method to other continents and in more detail.

Such a teacher would have no need of arguing that geography gave rational training and good mental discipline. The pupils would be living proofs of the fact and their mental training thus gained would help them in other classes. I have seen pupils of

eleven years reason out right conclusions in geography, by such a method as I have suggested, with much more accuracy and far greater confidence, than much older pupils who had never had such training; who had been taught to remember, not think.

To my mind, the continents should be studied at least twice; the first time after the manner I have suggested, starting from the home locality and going to the foreign; and later, studied in more detail with an attempt to bring out the more inconspicuous and subtle principles that have determined the geographical conditions, and to develop a knowledge of the continents by comparison. This is the method suggested and used to a considerable extent in Germany, France and England. The following lines quoted from an article on Geographical Education in the Scottish Geographical · Magazine for November 1896 and written by Mr. A. J. Herbertson, will state the same ideas in other words:

"The home region should be used to teach the first notions of geography and then these should be applied to unknown regions, first likenesses and then opposite conditions being noticed. Gradually general laws should be pointed out, but at first only as far as they are illustrated in the locality of the school. In treating the systematic geography of other lands, the teacher should reverse the process he has hitherto adopted. The maps and pictures of the unknown land should be studied systematically and the pupil led to discover for himself the salient features. He should constantly be brought to compare the strange land he is now discovering with the familiar; to try to find within his own ken in miniature or larger scale, something of the nature of this region or in marked contrast with it.

"It is necessary to treat geography differently in higher classes, to make it more intensive as well as more extensive. In a properly arranged curriculum, the earth surface will be studied at least twice; the second time more in detail and what is even more important with a profounder study of the general principles."

Finally, in summary it should be said, that the principal aims of geography are to give every pupil a knowledge of the fundamental principles of geography and a wholesome knowledge of the world as a whole, to give him power to investigate clearly and accurately for himself, and to give him such an interest in the

world about him that he will be anxious to make such a study. He should be led to be self-reliant and independent of teacher and textbook. If some such method of progress as I have suggested is followed, I feel very sure from experience, that the pupil will gain a better knowledge of the earth, will have his facts better correlated and arranged, will be more thoughtful, will be more in love with nature about him, and will go out from his schooling with a broader and more sympathetic knowledge of the world and its features; by such a method the teacher can teach something besides geography ; she can teach self-reliance, studiousness and the power to think. RICHARD E. DODGE.

NOTES.

The Farthest North.-Dr. Fridthof Nansen, who has returned this last summer from his thrilling and hardy voyage toward the North Pole has added many points of interest to our geographical knowledge of this region. Going to within 261 miles of the Pole, 195 miles farther north than any other explorer he has won great fame. His highest latitude was 86° 14' N. His scientific results are many and memorable. He has found that the North Polar Sea to the north of Franz Joseph Land and Spitzbergen is about two miles deep, which seems to indicate no land about the Pole. The deepest sounding was 1,942 fathoms. He has further proved that no great land masses occur to north of Asia. He went beyond the limit of bird migration and beyond all signs of animal life, though fox tracks were numerous far out upon the ice, and at great distance from any possible land.

Nansen has discovered no new lands, but he has fixed definite limits to lands long known, and he has given us many definite facts about the cold, the moisture, the life and the character of the far north.

The Transvaal.-Mr. George F. Becker, of the United States Geological Survey, gives an impartial account of the recent troubles in the Transvaal in the November number of the National Geographic Magazine. He describes the country which lies between the Limpopo, or Crocodile River on the north, and the Vaal River