form that will make the functions of the parts of the body real. Any amount of apparatus can be devised by teachers and pupils. Give the boys and girls the right sort of encouragement and many pieces of apparatus will be found at home and brought to school. When THE RELATION BETWEEN GEOGRAPHY AND LITERATURE. WHILE the close connection which exists W between history and literature has long been realized the still closer relationship between geography and literature has been ignored almost entirely. In one sense the connection between history and literature is more obvious than that between geography and literature; and yet, the geographical element in literature is re-inforced for the reason that geographical precede historical facts, and, to a much greater extent than is recognized ordinarily, hold a causal relation to them. Then, too, history is concerned with litterature only when the localities or characters dealt with are drawn with reference to their actual history, while geographical elements underlie nearly every literary production and many which will never be included within the term "literature." The terms " geography" and "geographical" as used in this paper will have a somewhat broader significance than is sometimes given them. Until recently, by geography was meant the mere superficial descriptions of the earth's surface or parts of it-its appearance, productions, cities, races, and the boundaries, both natural and artificial, of its political divisions and sub-divisions, and the location of its objects of chief interest; such as, cities, rivers, oceans, or mountain chains. To Professor Arnold Guyot, more than to any other scientist, is due the recognition of the deeper, and broader significance of geography and geographical study which characterizes the present methods of geographical study. He led scientists to regard the physiographical conditions of the earth as determining elements in the development of the characteristic racial distinctions; from that proposition it was a natural and logical conclusion to decide that political divisions of the earth's surface were as much dependent upon physiographic conditions as were the so-called natural divisions, although the results were not so quickly apparent. That Switzerland so early became a republic and retained its government in a continent devoted to monarchies was foreshadowed by Cæsar, who, two thousand years ago, after describing the people of Helvetia and its situation, wrote: "His rebus fiebat, ut et minus late vagarentur, et minus facile finitimis bellum inferre possent; qua ex parte homines bellandi cupidi magno dolore adficiebantur." For it follows that if the Helvetians found it difficult to wage war upon their neighbors, their neighbors found a return of the bellicose compliments equally difficult. The Scottish Highlands, China, Thibet, and certain African localities owed their long immunity from conquest to unconquerable physiographie conditions. Again, the development of a country depends upon its wealth in natural resources -agricultural and mineral, and its facilities for commerce, foreign or domestic. The military development of a country must necessarily depend upon its fitness for supporting a large body of armed men, upon the possibility of speedily mobilizing large bodies of troops, and upon its possession of harbors for fleets. When one reads of the wintering of Sir Francis Drake on the California coast in the year 1580 one cannot but wonder what would have been the effect upon American history, and, incidentally, upon American literature had he known of the mineral wealth,—to say nothing of the agricultural possibilities, buried beyond the low Coast Range. It is safe to say that two reasons which prevented English exploration of the California coast at that date, when England and Spain contended for the naval supremacy of the world, was the absence of suitable harbors, and, probably, the forbidding and barren aspect of the Coast Range. Suppose the wonders of the Klondike gold fields had excited the world thirty years earlier than they did! Imagine that the Rocky Mountain chain could be so swung as to lie at right angles to its position; imagine the transposition of Behring's and Davis' straits; imagine that the Mississippi takes its rise upon the northern slope of the "Height of Land"; imagine a thousand transformations of physiographic conditions over the earth, and then attempt to fit history and literature as they now stand to those changed conditions, if necessary, to prove the existence of an underlying geographical foundation. We do not expect the inhabitants of an island to show the same characteristics and mode of development that are found in the people of an inland, mountainous country. The natives of the American continents showed very plainly the effects of geographical and climatic conditions in their modes of life. Compare the Digger with the Aztec tribes, the Sioux with the Kootenai. Mr. Hugh Robert Mill in The Realm of Nature says: "The way in which igneous rocks occur, whether poured out as lava on the surface or forced as intrusive sheets between beds of other rocks, greatly influences the part they take in determining the scenery of a country." It seems impossible that the average reader of general literature, who does not give special thought to the matter, realizes how much the skillful author depends upon scenery to emphasize his delineations of incident or character. This is especially true in poetry; witness, Longfellow's voluminous compilation published under the title of "Poems of Places." Entirely omitting works of a serious or popular scientific nature many works might be enumerated which would be valuable to the teacher in the emphasis of physiographic conditions. Personally, I recall that Russia was made much more vivid to me by witnessing the production of a dramatization of Jules Verne's political novel, Michael Strogoff, the Courier of the Czar. While the performance of such a play by a superior company upon a well-appointed stage is more impressive than the mere reading of a book the value of both is traceable to the same principle. Although I was a teacher of many years' experience before reading the book, the descriptions of Iceland,-its ancient customs, the horrors of its penal colony working in the sulphur mines and the inevitable influence of the privations of life in an isolated region upon life in its broadest sense, as shown by Mr. Hall Caine in The Bondman made Iceland more real to me than years of enclyopædic study could have done. The formal study of such conditions lacks the interest bestowed by the personality of strong fictional characters. A similar impression is made by Mrs. Barr's Jan Vedder's Wife and her Prisoners of Conscience. To the mysteries of an unread nature we owe the beautiful myths which were the beginning of literature-the world over. That nature should assume diverse forms and suggest diverse meanings to the peoples of different localities is our gain, from a literary point of view. The Grecian and the Norse myths are exemplifications of this gain. Ancient religions were for the most part outgrowths of an imperfect conception of nature. While there is a vast difference in the presentation of the religious ideas of the Persians and the Druids, their original basis was identical, but modified by physiographic, climatic, and racial conditions. Rev. James Freeman Clark in Ten Great Religions traces the place of nature in the epoch-making religions of the world in a very strong, convincing manner. To return to literature:-who that has read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables did not pause after the description of the battle of Waterloo and consider the part played by the sunken road of Ohain in the development of nineteenth century civilization. The conqueror of all Europe finally lost his freedom, and made St. Helena famous, because of an unknown-ditch! The library method of studying history is becoming justly popular among the better class of teachers. It will be a great advance in the correlation of the different studies when library methods of studying geography are introduced. Such work presupposes access to a good library, a deeply-read corps of teachers and the spending of more time and money in preparation than most teachers under present conditions can afford to spend. A class of children whose average age is thirteen have been very much interested recently in their geography. When volcanoes were the subject of study the description of the eruption of Vesuvius as given by Bulwer Lytton in The Last Days of Pompeii was provided for them; other extracts from literature were presented, and pictures of noted volcanoes were shown to them. These pupils were introduced to Washington Irving while studying the Hudson River, and geography is to them a very vital thing. It is not half so important for pupils to know the exact population of New York and London as to know why large populations must center at those places. Some of these children have older brothers and sisters whose study of geography consisted in bounding countries and states, learning their capitals and chief cities and giving formal descriptions of rivers, mountain natural features after the question lack of method. drawn by the children are as are amusing. MADISON, WIS. chains, and other antiquated mapThe comparisons suggestive as they MUSIC. EDITED BY J. G. CRABBE, Ashland, Ky. INFLUENCE OF MUSIC AND ART IN NATIONAL LIFE. In a brief glance at national history we may see the effect on national character and achievement of an education founded upon music. Just beside this nation we may see another that had no music in its system of education, and actively opposed the pursuit of music by its citizens. These two nationalities struggled for supremacy in Greece through the centuries. Sparta excelled in producing fighting men, but dreaded with superstitious fear the supposed enervating influences of literature, poetry, art and music. It even feared the influence of a mother's love, and the state took the future warrior from his mother's arms almost in babyhood and trained him in brutality even as Rome trained her gladiators. Athens remains to-day the great fountain of art, poetry, sculpture, and music, and history tells us that music was part of all the poetry, literature, and such sciences as were then known. They sang and chanted all the lessons in these departments. The great Aristotle advocated and perfected this system. You know the record. Sparta! What is her record? Her brute force died with the stalwart bodies of her sons, and she left no record in literature, art poetry, or music. Two paragraphs from the encyclopedia sum up the end of Spartan influence. "The site of the city has not been thoroughly investigated, and it is a question whether much remains worth bringing to life." The second is: "She sank finally, we know not how, under the degrading dominion of a sort of robber chief, Nabis, who fastened his dominion upon her by the support of emancipated slaves and mercenaries of the lowest class. Her best citizens were put to death or banished, and she was debased into a refuge of pirates and robbers." NEED FOR COMPETENT TEACHERS IN MUSIC. The chief difficulty with the plans of music teaching as they exist to-day is that they have been prepared especially to meet the incapacity of incompetent teachers. Such treatment of music lowers the plane of music teaching. An incompetent teacher and an incompetent plan-what a combination! By what principle of pedagogy, modern or otherwise, can such an alliance be justified? Most certainly do the teachers of our schools need help, but they never can be benefited by robbing music of its charm and inspiration, by treating it in a so-called practical way. This practical treatment is impractical in the highest sense of the word, for no teacher can teach a subject in the proper spirit when the real spirit and life of that subject has been taken out of it by the plan of grading and arrangement. Therefore, a plan of music for the child, and for the teacher as well, should be more than a logical development of the science of music; it should be psychological in its adaptation to the development of the child, appealing in the highest degree to every quality of mind and heart, and this can be accomplished only by the teacher who is thoroughly imbued with her subject, who appreciates the possibilities of music for the child, and who works for the development of these possibilities. The teacher who does not possess qualities that fit her to teach music properly will find much inspiration in a plan of work that is based on the true idea of musical development. Music in the soul must precede music on the lips; heart and mind must work in accord, then a knowledge of tune and time will follow and the hour devoted to singing will be one of inspiration, enthusiasm, interest and benefit for both pupil and teacher. -P. C. Hayden at N. E. A. THE TOUCH OF ART. Sometimes the day is dark, and all goes wrong, And clouds hang dull and heavy o'er the land, While lonesome longings lie about the heart. Then, by and by, they shape themselves to song; And chords, awakened by the master hand, Soothe other souls to peace-and this is art. -Albert Bigelow Paine. In choosing their trees for observation the children were limited, for class work, to the selection of those upon the school ground or in the immediate vicinity of the school, as frequent visits to the trees were absolutely necessary and fundamental in the work. However, the interest of individual children in the trees about their homes or in places visited by them was always recognized and encouraged, and the data gathered by them outside of school were used whenever possible for comparison in making their class observations. The children's reasons for choice of trees were usually very simple, for example: "I choose the pine because it's the Christmas tree!" "I choose the birch because it's the prettiest tree!" "I choose the elm because it's the tallest tree!" The oak was often selected for its shade or acorns, the willow for its catkin, etc. As the children were always spontaneous and unhampered in their choices we could judge what appealed most strongly to them. The following plan has been revised many times upon the basis of natural interest, until now no attempt is made in it to force the children into close analysis of the parts and processes of the trees and leaves, but it suggests that the children be allowed, under favorable conditions, to observe and compare the general habits and uses of several varieties of our common trees. II. NOTES ON READING. The results of the children's observations were used for blackboard and printed reading lessons. As each month brought a change in the trees and new questions concerning them, there was a constant increase in their written and printed vocabulary, and as they looked again and again at the same trees, continued repetition of words was necessary for expressing what they saw. Each reading lesson had a distinct purpose. It not only summed up the observations of the class so that the children could hold them clearly in mind but each one contained the data for some new inferences; for instance in the following lessons: The trees need water. They give pleasure. They can give back heat, light and soil. All the facts were in the experience of the children, yet the mere summing of their knowledge and seeing it in a new relation gave them a feeling of power and exerted a strong influence for further investigation. III. CONSTRUCTION AND COLOR WORK. Once or twice in each month the children recorded, in painting*, their ideas of the appearance of the landscapes, trees, birds, fruits, etc. By the end of September they felt the desire to preserve their work. They bound it into book form and then by measuring, determined the size of a cover and made it of manilla paper. At the end of the next month, the October conditions were represented and bound in the same manner. Decorative Design began when the children painted upon the covers something typical of the month;-i. e., they were given seeds, stems, leaves, etc., and they arranged their patterns upon their desks and then represented them in color upon their book-covers. At the end of the year the ten books were bound into one large book. The cover of this book was made of cardboard covered with leatherette. IV. NUMBER. Accuracy and skill in measuring in whole numbers and fractions were acquired in making the books, seed envelopes, boxes for wood, and in the experiments which the work necessitated. V. LITERATURE. The selection of stories, songs and poems of course depended in part upon the experience and environment of the particular class of chil*Colored crayon can be used for this purpose. |