Project Gutenberg's Home Geography For Primary Grades, by C. C. Long

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Title: Home Geography For Primary Grades

Author: C. C. Long

Release Date: May 1, 2004 [EBook #12228]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HOME GEOGRAPHY
FOR
PRIMARY GRADES

BY
C. C. LONG, Ph.D.

AUTHOR OF NEW LANGUAGE LESSONS, LESSONS IN ENGLISH, ETC.,

TO THE TEACHER.

Geography may be divided into the geography of the home and the
geography of the world at large. A knowledge of the home must be
obtained by direct observation; of the rest of the world, through the
imagination assisted by information. Ideas acquired by direct
observation form a basis for imagining those things which are distant
and unknown.

The first work, then, in geographical instruction, is to study that
small part of the earth's surface lying just at our doors. All around
are illustrations of lake and river, upland and lowland, slope and
valley. These forms must be actually observed by the pupil, mental
pictures obtained, in order that he may be enabled to build up in his
mind other mental pictures of similar unseen forms. The hill that he
climbs each day may, by an appeal to his imagination, represent to him
the lofty Andes or the Alps. From the meadow, or the bit of level land
near the door, may be developed a notion of plain and prairie. The
little stream that flows past the schoolhouse door, or even one formed
by the sudden shower, may speak to him of the Mississippi, the Amazon,
or the Rhine. Similarly, the idea of sea or ocean may be deduced from
that of pond or lake. Thus, after the pupil has acquired elementary
ideas by actual perception, the imagination can use them in
constructing, on a larger scale, mental pictures of similar objects
outside the bounds of his own experience and observation.

To effect this, the teacher should visit with her class places wher