HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART DEC 5 1923 WINSLOW'S GEOGRAPHY SERIES THE EARTH AND ITS PEOPLE THE UNITED STATES OUR AMERICAN NEIGHBORS EUROPE DISTANT COUNTRIES COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY D. C. HEATH & CO. 1A6 PREFACE THE purpose of this series is to occupy middle ground between the customary text-books and geographical readers, and to combine the essential advantages of both. The two extremes, whether employed separately or together, fail to meet the practical needs of the average schoolroom. The text-books adhere to the scientific method, at a sacrifice of the practical or pedagogical method. The teacher finds it difficult either to assign a definite lesson for study from the books or to use them for class exercises in reading and discussion. In their completeness the text-books contain so much that selection is difficult, and the attempt to teach the whole is disastrous. Geographical readers, in the form of stories of travel, go so far to the other extreme that they also fall outside of the daily task of the geography teacher. Courses of study very properly call for definite concepts and facts. After serious attention has been given to these, there is but little time to spare in the regular curriculum for lighter reading. There is need of books that shall select the essentials and set them forth in such an explicit and straightforward manner that they may be easily used, both for preparatory reading and for study and recitation. It is the design of these books to supply that want. Since they occupy a unique position, they should not be judged according to existing standards, but according to practical needs. It is the purpose of this second book and the remaining books of the series to build upon the foundation laid in Book One, and to complete a treatment of the essentials of an elementary course in geography. Such topics as have been given with full details in the primary book are omitted, or briefly mentioned, or treated from a more mature standpoint, in the later books. Unusual attention has been given to the industrial and commercial aspects of the subject, in the belief that these are of fundamental importance and of natural interest to children. The fact that political geography, or the geography of locations, is wrought out in close connection with such industrial and commercial development renders it more significant and more easily remembered. Topics of fundamental importance are fully explained in the text, but many minor points, which may be easily ascertained or inferred by pupils, are reserved and given at the end of each chapter, either in the form of questions or brief statements accompanied by questions. These exercises, supplemented by map sketching and other work that is here and there suggested, will provide definite lessons for the study period, which many teachers find it difficult to arrange. The review questions relate to principal points explained in the text, and may be employed either for the daily assignment of lessons or for occasional review. It is believed that these questions, together with the exercises given in connection with each chapter, include as much as pupils of elementary grades should be expected to learn. |