The Project Gutenberg EBook of Discoverers and Explorers, by Edward R. Shaw

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Title: Discoverers and Explorers

Author: Edward R. Shaw

Release Date: July 22, 2007 [EBook #22116]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS

BY

EDWARD R. SHAW
_Dean of the School of Pedagogy_
_New York University_

NEW YORK :: CINCINNATI :: CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

Copyright 1900
By EDWARD R. SHAW.

PREFACE.

The practice of beginning the study of geography with the locality
in which the pupil lives, in order that his first ideas of geographical
conceptions may be gained from observation directed upon the real
conditions existing about him, has been steadily gaining adherence
during the past few years as a rational method of entering upon the
study of geography.

After the pupil has finished an elementary study of the locality, he
is ready to pass to an elementary consideration of the world as a whole,
to get his first conception of the planet on which he lives. His
knowledge of the forms of land and water, his knowledge of rain and
wind, of heat and cold, as agents, and of the easily traced effects
resulting from the interaction of these agents, have been acquired
by observation and inference upon conditions actually at hand; in
other words, his knowledge has been gained in a presentative manner.

His study of the world, however, must differ largely from this, and
must be effected principally by representation. The globe in relief,
therefore, presents to him his basic idea, and all his future study
of the world will but expand and modify this idea, until at length,
if the study is properly continued, the idea becomes exceedingly
complex.

In passing from the geography of the locality to that of the world
as a whole, the pupil is to deal broadly with the land masses and their
general characteristics. The continents and oceans, their relative
situations, form, and size, are then to be treated, but the treatment
is always to be kept easily within the pupil's capabilities--the end
being merely an