r these conditions as perceptible as possible. To "learn geography"
is to gain in power to perceive the spatial, the natural, connections of
an ordinary act; to "learn history" is essentially to gain in power
to recognize its human connections. For what is called geography as a
formulated study is simply the body of facts and principles which have
been discovered in other men's experience about the natural medium in
which we live, and in connection with which the particular acts of our
life have an explanation. So history as a formulated study is but the
body of known facts about the activities and sufferings of the social
groups with which our own lives are continuous, and through reference to
which our own customs and institutions are illuminated.

2. The Complementary Nature of History and Geography. History and
geography--including in the latter, for reasons about to be mentioned,
nature study--are the information studies par excellence of the schools.
Examination of the materials and the method of their use will make clear
that the difference between penetration of this information into living
experience and its mere piling up in isolated heaps depends upon whether
these studies are faithful to the interdependence of man and nature
which affords these studies their justification. Nowhere, however, is
there greater danger that subject matter will be accepted as appropriate
educational material simply because it has become customary to teach
and learn it. The idea of a philosophic reason for it, because of the
function of the material in a worthy transformation of experience, is
looked upon as a vain fancy, or as supplying a high-sounding phraseology
in support of what is already done. The words "history" and "geography"
suggest simply the matter which has been traditionally sanctioned in the
schools. The mass and variety of this matter discourage an attempt to
see what it really stands for, and how it can be so taught as to fulfill
its mission in the experience of pupils. But unless the idea that there
is a unifying and social direction in education is a farcical pretense,
subjects that bulk as large in the curriculum as history and geography,
must represent a general function in the development of a truly
socialized and intellectualized experience. The discovery of this
function must be employed as a criterion for trying and sifting the
facts taught and the methods used.

The function of historical and geographical