e effort to
present facts, but rather it tells how to gather, classify and study
facts. It is intended to be used with children during the age when they
especially delight in the making of collections, and is intended to turn
to a definite use this childish instinct.

Map study is based entirely upon the child's experiences as he makes
plans of his schoolroom, schoolhouse, streets and city. The suggestions
regarding the study of things foreign to the child are based entirely
upon his experience in the study of the types with which he has become
familiar in his study of his surroundings.

Milton C. Cooper,
Superintendent of District Nine, Philadelphia.

INTRODUCTION

Geographical knowledge should progress from the known to the unknown,
from the familiar to the unfamiliar. The world is the home of mankind.
We can best understand the larger world by a preliminary consideration
of our own small intimate home. We therefore begin to study geography
with an account of the child's immediate environment. The school stands
for the common home of the class. From the school we gradually widen out
our teaching to include the immediate neighborhood with its buildings,
and finally the whole town or community.

We study the various types of people whom we meet every day, and the
industries in which they engage in their efforts to obtain the three
main necessities of human life,--food, clothing and shelter. The animals
and plants sharing the world with man and contributing to his sustenance
next focus our attention.

The home neighborhood has its physiographical features distinguishing it
from other places and influencing the life of its inhabitants. The land
and water divisions in the immediate environment are studied as types,
while those not closely related to our home are reserved for
consideration as each one occurs in its local geographical place in the
course of study.

We must know something of direction in order to conveniently locate the
streets, buildings and physiographical features near our home. Finally,
we will try to realize the great size of the earth, of which our home is
but a small portion, by a consideration of the relationship of our
community to the rest of the world and to some of this world's great
diversities.

As geography is a study of cause and effect, the early lessons should be
mainly oral. Later, in order to obtain a broad knowledge of geographical
data, not one but many books shoul