Charlotte Mason - Elementary Geography

ELEMENTARY

GEOGRAPHY

With Maps and Illustrations

Including 10 Brand New Illustrations!

By

Charlotte Mason

London

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.,

Broadway House: 68-74, Carte Lane, E.C.

NEW EDITION. REVISED 1925

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CONTENTS

This little book is confined to very simple reading lessons upon the Form and Motions of the Earth, the Points of the Compass, the Meaning of a Map: Definitions.

The shape and motions of the earth are fundamental ideashowever difficult to grasp.

Geography should be learned chiefly from maps, and the child should begin the study by learning the meaning of map, and how to use it.

These subjects are well fitted to form an attractive introduction to the study of Geography: some of them should awaken the delightful interest which attaches in a childs mind to that which is wonderfulincomprehensible. The Map lessons should lead to mechanical efforts, equally delightful. It is only when presented to the child for the first time in the form of stale knowledge and foregone conclusions that the facts taught in these lessons appear dry and repulsive to him.

An effort is made in the following pages to treat the subject with the sort of sympathetic interest and freshness which attracts children to a new study.

A short summary of the chief points in each reading lesson is given in the form of questions and answers.

Easy verses, illustrative of the various subjects, are introduced, in order that the children may connect pleasant poetic fancies with the phenomena upon which Geography so much depends.

It is hoped that these reading lessons may afford intelligent teaching, even in the hands of a young teacher.

The first ideas of Geographythe lessons on Placewhich should make the child observant of local geography, of the features of his own neighbourhood, its heights and hollows and level lands, its streams and pondsshould be conveyed viva voce. At this stage, a class-book cannot take the place of an intelligent teacher.

Children should go through the book twice, and should, after the second reading, be able to answer any of the questions from memory.

Charlotte M. Mason

ELEMENTARY GEOGRAPHY

Sun, moon and stars, by day and night,
At Gods commandment give us light;
And when we wake, and while we sleep,
Their watch, like guardian angels, keep.
The bright blue sky above our head,
The soft green earth on which we tread,
The ocean rolling round the land,
Were made by Gods almighty hand.
Sweet flowers that hill and dale adorn,
Fair fruit trees, fields of grass and corn,
The clouds that rise, the showers that fall,
The winds that blow - God sent them all.
The beasts that graze with downward eye,
The birds that perch, and sing, and fly,
The fishes swimming in the sea,
Gods creatures are as well as we.
But us He formed for better things,
As servants of the King of kings,
With lifted hands and open face,
And thankful heart to seek His grace.
Montgomery.

Perhaps you have not yet thought much about places far from the town or village where your home is. No doubt you have heard of the wonderful sights of London, if you have not seen them, and you know that London and many other towns are in our own country, England. Perhaps, too, you have friends who have travelled, and who speak of far-away places they have seen. And you may have thought, as you listened, how very big the world must be to hold so many places!

Our wonderful, beautiful world is very large and very full; with more people and places and things in it than you can ever know about. Indeed, there are many parts of it which nobody has seen yet, though brave men often make difficult and very dangerous journeys to find out and explore these unknown places. But, after all, the strange thing is, that our world must come to an end somewhere. Have you ever thought of that? It was a great puzzle to learned men who lived long ago, and who did not know so much about some things as you may learn before the end of this lesson. They knew the world was not everywhere; that the sun and moon which shine above us are not part of the world, but are a great way off. So they said, Why do we never come to the end of the world? If we journey on over land and sea for years, surely we should come to the end then? And what is the end like? Would we fall off the edge, just as a cup might fall off the edge of a table?

At last it was discovered that people never came to the end of the world on account of its shape. There are certain things we use which you might run your finger along all day without ever coming to an edge. Round things, such as balls or oranges, have no edge, no end. And our world is round. It is more the shape of an orange than of a ball, because it is a little bit flat at what we may call the top and bottom.

This was a wonderful thing to find out. You can see that a ball is round; even if it were a ball as big as the house, you could see enough of it to know its shape. But only God above can see the whole of this huge world; how then could men discover its shape?

You would not understand all the reasons which prove that the world is round, but three are easy enough. The captain of a ship found out that, by sailing on and on, and never turning back, he came at last to the very place he had started from. Try that plan on a straight table, and you will find that the farther you go, the farther you will be from your starting place. Try on a ball which you have first stuck a pin into for a mark. After you have moved your finger half-way round the ball, the farther you go, the nearer you get to the pin, until at last you touch it, and have reached again the point you started from. As people now very often sail round the world in this way, we know that the world is round in one direction. The other two reasons we shall find in the fourth lesson.

You say, dear mamma, it is good to be talking
With those who will kindly endeavour to teach.
And I think I have learnt something while I was walking
Along with the sailor-boy down on the beach.
He told me of lands where he soon will be going,
Where humming-birds scarcely are bigger than bees,
Where the mace and the nutmeg together are growing,