How we are sheltered; a geographical reader

Preface

The most marked tendency in the educational movement of to-day is the effort to make the experience and the power gained within the school fit into and supplement the life without. Education has been, and is, too largely a process of dealing with abstractions, with expression rather than with experience. By a strange perversity we have insisted upon presenting to the child that which is distant in place and time, and we have then wondered why he was so ignorant both of that and of the life about him.

Education is the application and the enlargement of experience, resulting in the development of the individual. Geography is one of the important factors in education. All real knowledge of geography is based upon experiences derived through study of the home surroundings and relations. To-day, as never

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before, the home and the world, the individual and the millions of mankind, are bound together by ties as strong as chains of steel, yet as sensitive as nerves.

In the teaching of geography, we should help the child to grasp, as far as he is capable, those physical and human conditions by means of which the life about him, his life, is anaintained. This involves the presentation of conditions and peoples remote from him, it is true ; but whatever line may be followed, the pupil soon becomes aware that the study of the subject begins and ends in the home, while it encompasses the world. This furnishes the only real foundation for all later study of geography.

Since much of the thought and activity of every individual and nation is centered about food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and communication, these should be made the corner stones of home geography. But while these are the central thoughts, the countless opportunities which they present to teach facts and truths aside from them should be seized by the

PREFACE vii

fceaclier. Indeed, if this be not done, the work falls far short of its purpose.

Much of man's progress has grown out of cooperation and specialization, and his present daily life is, in large measure, dependent upon them. This great truth, applicable to the family, the community, the school, the world, is not sufficiently developed by teachers and parents. In the abstract it means nothing to the child, but in this work he is repeatedly brought face to face with it, in ways that show clearly how his own welfare and happiness depend ujDon the labor and the thought of others, and how he, in turn, should contribute to the benefit of those about him.

Maps and globes should be constantly used by teacher and pupils. All places mentioned should be definitely located and routes of travel traced. The pupil should see the position of places with reference to his home, and should have some idea of the time required to reach them.

While the books of this series are called geographical readers, they are calculated to viii PREFACE

perform a much, larger function than do supplementary books. Where the plan here presented is followed, lessons will be assigned and the books used as regular texts. In the school with which the author is connected this has been done for several years.

More and more we are realizing the value of good illustrations in our schoolbooks. In the preparation of this volume no effort has been spared to secure pictures which actually illustrate the work undertaken. It remains for the teacher to use them in the most effective manner.

I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to Miss Kathrine Lois Scobey of Dearborn Seminary, Chicago, who read the entire manuscript and furnished many valuable suggestions.

Trusting that this little book may be of real service in the great field of education, I submit it to my fellow-teachers.

JAMES FRANKLIN CHAMBERLAIN.

Los Angeles, California.

Contents

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