FALSE GEOGRAPHY

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 147, 22 June 1923, Page 4

FALSE GEOGRAPHY

The other day one of the leading educationists in Australia, addressing a meeting in London, "urged a more intelligent method of teaching geography and history in order to develop a better understanding of the Empire's growth and resources,' , and "deplored the absurd statements in English textbooks regarding Australia, which, in one of them, was regarded as a land of parched rivers." New Zealanders have had to make similar complaints. The schoolboy of to-day is very much better off in the way of interesting text-books than was his father or grandfather. .Many a

present-day parent enjoys reading the admirably illustrated and generally well written books that his children use at school, and wishes that in his time history and geography and information generally had been presented in a form as attractive. Accuracy, however, does not always keep pace with style and illustrations. Some, time ago attention was drawn to some grossly inaccurate statements made about New Zealand in a popular encyclopaedia, published under namee of good reputation. Those responsible apparently thought that this country was in the tropics. Inexcusable ■mistakes in school publications have also been pointed out: an amusing one is before us, though in this case the responsibility is partly colonial, for the. work was published in Britain for an English firm that, has establishments in Australasia and does a large business here. The letterpress under a picture of the Auckland waterfront in a school atlas contains this statement: "Chief among its public buildings are- the University College, the Cathedral, and the Public Free Library and Art Gallery." This was published a few years ago, long before work was begun on the. new University building. Obviously, the writer had not only never seen the old University building, but had taken no trouble to find out anything about it. He read that Auckland had a University College, and he assumed that the old wooden barn of a place in Eden Street was a fine building. Also, he seems to have been hazy about "the Cathedral"; which did he "mean. St. Mary's or St. Patricks? We suspect that cases of similar carelessness could be. found in other school publications. As for the reputation of Australia. at

I Home, it should be admitted that I Australians themselves are partly to blame. Australian poets will write ahout "the. wastes of the XeverXevcr," '"where the dead men lie,"' and Australian journals will publish such' questionable advertisements of their country as lurid coloured pictures depicting settlers riding for their lives from bush fires.