Excerpt from The Journal of Geography, 1906, Vol. 5: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine
Let us turn in another direction. We are told today that the period Of infancy which in man is longer than in animals is Of vast Significance, and a man's characteristics at various ages are more largely due to modifications produced by his own and less to race experience than is the case with any other animal.1 And all this in order that he may adapt himself to his con dition in life or that he may enjoy a plasticity of physical and mental being, whereby changing methods in life and varying lines Of philosophy and science may be realized by him. If this is so, then one of the aims Of education should be to develop a faculty of adaptation that will give a new idea a welcome and an Opportunity of eliciting a reasonable response. TO learn and to be able to locate the cities of the earth is a task which the athletic memory of a child easily overcomes. This knowledge may be retained because of what we call a good memory or because the mental process becomes habitual by means Of repetition or drill. Soon, however, such knowledge may lose its value. Some unessential feature, as the rhythm or rhyme or even the inflection, is Often the basis Of this special act Of memory; like a tune which is not easily taken up at a subordinate measure but which once begun is Often carried to a successful conclusion. Thus the knowledge becomes a memory chain, a pathway Of narrow width, and all the data therein become encased in a setting. The independent facts cannot be readily used, apart from their associate ideas. And what is worse, if there comes a time when a shifting of the values occurs, and such a memory scheme is relied upon, there is no provision in this method to meet such a condition Of afiairs. These are some of the steps that lead us to believe that our geography teaching should be something more than an exercise in memory and a drill. Apart from that value in the study of geography which adds to the sum of human happiness through the Channels Of general intelligence, I Should place the greatest weight on the training that comes from Classifying and cataloging in one's mind the pano ramic scenes Of the earth as the years unroll the canvas.
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