ON GEOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY.
The usual manner of teaching Geography and Chronology, may, perhaps,
be necessary in public seminaries, where a number of boys are to learn
the same thing at the same time; but what is learned in this manner,
is not permanent; something besides merely committing names and dates
to the memory, is requisite to make a useful impression upon the
memory. For the truth of this observation, an appeal is made to the
reader. Let him recollect, whether the Geography and Chronology which
he learned whilst a boy, are what he now remembers--Whether he has not
obtained his present knowledge from other sources than the tasks of
early years. When business, or conversation, calls upon us to furnish
facts accurate as to place and time, we retrace our former
heterogeneous acquirements, and select those circumstances which are
connected with our present pursuit, and thus we form, as it were, a
nucleus round which other facts insensibly arrange themselves. Perhaps
no two men in the world, who are well versed in these studies, connect
their knowledge in the same manner. Relation to some particular
country, some favourite history, some distinguished person, forms the
connection which guides our recollection, and which arranges our
increasing nomenclature. By attending to what passes in our own minds,
we may learn an effectual method of teaching without pain, and without
any extraordinary burden to the memory, all that is useful of these
sciences. The details of history should be marked by a few
chronological aeras, and by a few general ideas of geography. When
these have been once completely associated in the mind, there is
little danger of their being ever disunited: the sight of any country
will recall its history, and even from representations in a map, or on
the globe, when the mind is wakened by any recent event, a long train
of concomitant ideas will recur.
The use of technical helps to the memory, has been condemned by many,
and certainly, when they are employed as artifices to supply the place
of real knowledge, they are contemptible; but when they are used as
indexes to facts that have been really collected in the mind; when
they serve to arrange the materials of knowledge in appropriate
classes, and to give a sure and rapid clue to recollection, they are
of real advantage to the understanding. Indeed, they are now so
common, that pretenders cannot build the slightest reputation upon
their foundation. Were an orator to attempt a display of long
chronological accuracy, he might be wofully confounded by his
opponent's applying at the first pause,
[12]Els_luk_ he would have said!
Ample materials are furnished in Gray's Memoria Technica, from which a
short and useful selection may be made, according to the purposes
which are in view. For children, the little ballad of the Chapter of
Kings, will not be found beneath the notice of mothers who attend to
education. If the technical terminations of Gray are inserted, they
will never be forgotten, or may be easily recalled.[13] We scarcely
ever forget a ballad if the tune is popular.
For pupils at a more advanced age, it will be found advantageous to
employ technical helps of a more scientific construction. Priestley's
Chart of Biography may, from time to time, be hung in their view.
Smaller charts, upon the same plan, might be provided with a few names
as land-marks; these may be filled up by the pupil with such names as
he selects from history; they may be bound in octavo, like maps, by
the middle, so as to unfold both ways--Thirty-nine inches by nine will
be a convenient size. Prints, maps, and medals, which are part of the
constant furniture of a room, are seldom attended to by young people;
but when circumstances excite an interest upon any particular subject,
then is the moment to produce the symbols which record and communicate
knowledge.
Mrs. Radcliffe, in her judicious and picturesque Tour through Germany,
tells us, that in passing through the apartments of a palace which the
archduchess Maria Christiana, the sister of the late unfortunate queen
of France, had left a few hours before, she saw spread upon a table a
map of all the countries then included in the seat of the war. The
positions of the several corps of the allied armies were marked upon
this chart with small pieces of various coloured wax. Can it be
doubted, that the strong interest which this princess must have taken
in the subject, would for ever impress upon her memory the geography
of this part of the world?
How many people are there who have become geographers since the
beginning of the present war. Even the common newspapers disseminate
this species of knowledge, and those who scarcely knew the situation
of Brest harbour a few years ago, have consulted the map with that
eagerness which approaching danger excites; they consequently will
tenaciously remember all the geographical knowledge they have thus
acquired. The art of creating an interest in the study of geography,
depends upon the dexterity with which passing circumstances are seized
by a preceptor in conversation. What are maps or medals, statues or
pictures, but technical helps to memory? If a mother possess good
prints, or casts of ancient gems, let them be shown to any persons of
taste and knowledge who visit her; their attention leads that of our
pupils; imitation and sympathy are the parents of taste, and taste
reads in the monuments of art whatever history has recorded.
In the Adele and Theodore of Madame de Silleri, a number of
adventitious helps are described for teaching history and chronology.
There can be no doubt that these are useful; and although such an
apparatus cannot be procured by private families, fortunately the
print-shops of every provincial town, and of the capital in
particular, furnish even to the passenger a continual succession of
instruction. Might not prints, assorted for the purposes which we have
mentioned, be _lent_ at circulating libraries?
To assist our pupils in geography, we prefer a globe to common maps.
Might not a cheap, portable, and convenient globe, be made of oiled
silk, to be inflated by a common pair of bellows? Mathematical
exactness is not requisite for our purpose, and though we could not
pretend to the precision of our best globes, yet a balloon of this
sort would compensate by its size and convenience for its inaccuracy.
It might be hung by a line from its north pole, to a hook screwed into
the horizontal architrave of a door or window; and another string from
its south pole might be fastened at a proper angle to the floor, to
give the requisite elevation to the axis of the globe. An idea of the
different projections of the sphere, may be easily acquired from this
globe in its flaccid state, and any part of it might be consulted as a
map, if it were laid upon a convex board of a convenient size.
Impressions from the plates which are used for common globes, might be
taken to try this idea without any great trouble or expense; but we
wish to employ a much larger scale, and to have them five or six feet
diameter. The inside of a globe of this sort might be easily
illuminated, and this would add much to the novelty and beauty of its
appearance.
In the country, with the assistance of a common carpenter and
plasterer, a large globe of lath and plaster may be made for the
instruction and entertainment of a numerous family of children. Upon
this they should leisurely delineate from time to time, by their given
latitudes and longitudes, such places as they become acquainted with
in reading or conversation. The capital city, for instance, of the
different countries of Europe, the rivers, and the neighbouring towns,
until at last the outline might be added: for the sake of convenience,
the lines, &c. may be first delineated upon a piece of paper, from
which they may be accurately transferred to their proper places on the
globe, by the intervention of black-leaded paper, or by pricking the
lines through the paper, and pouncing powdered blue through the holes
upon the surface of the globe.
We enter into this detail because we are convinced, that every
addition to the active manual employment of children, is of
consequence, not only to their improvement, but to their happiness.
Another invention has occurred to us for teaching geography and
history together. Priestley's Chart of History, though constructed
with great ingenuity, does not invite the attention of young people:
there is an intricacy in the detail which is not obvious at first. To
remedy what appears to us a difficulty, we propose that eight and
twenty, or perhaps thirty, octavo maps of the globe should be
engraved; upon these should be traced, in succession, the different
situations of the different countries of the world, as to power and
extent, during each respective century: different colours might denote
the principal divisions of the world in each of these maps; the same
colour always denoting the same country, with the addition of one
strong colour; red, for instance, to distinguish that country which
had at each period the principal dominion. On the upper and lower
margin in these maps, the names of illustrious persons might be
engraven in the manner of the biographical chart; and the reigning
opinions of each century should also be inserted. Thus history,
chronology, and geography, would appear at once to the eye in their
proper order, and regular succession, divided into centuries and
periods, which easily occur to recollection.
We forbear to expatiate upon this subject, as it has not been actually
submitted to experiment; carefully avoiding in the whole of this work
to recommend any mode of instruction which we have not actually put in
practice. For this reason, we have not spoken of the abbe Gaultier's
method of teaching geography, as we have only been able to obtain
accounts of it from the public papers, and from reviews; we are,
however, disposed to think favourably beforehand, of any mode which
unites amusement with instruction. We cannot forbear recommending, in
the strongest manner, a few pages of Rollin in his "Thoughts upon
Education,"[14] which we think contain an excellent specimen of the
manner in which a well informed preceptor might lead his pupils a
geographical, historical, botanical, and physiological tour upon the
artificial globe.
We conclude this chapter of hints, by repeating what we have before
asserted, that though technical assistance may be of ready use to
those who are really acquainted with that knowledge to which it
refers, it never can supply the place of accurate information.
The causes of the rise and fall of empires, the progress of human
knowledge, and the great discoveries of superior minds, are the real
links which connect the chain of political knowledge.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] V. Gray's Memoria Technica, and the Critic.
[13] Instead of
William the conqueror long did reign, And William his son by an arrow
was slain.
Read,
William the Con_sau_ long did reign, And Ruf_koi_ his son by an arrow
was slain.
And so on from Gray's Memoria Technica to the end of the chapter.
[14] Page 24.