NEW GEOGRAPHY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 5

NEW GEOGRAPHY

Use of Travel Folders

When most of the middle-aged people of to-day attended the primary school, they were taught geography with the aid of an atlas and a text book. These aids served very well indeed, and gave the intelligent scholar a broad knowledge of the world wherein he lived. The system must have changed When a reporter was visiting a firm which acts as agent for various lines of steamers, two boys approached the counter and asked for travel folders. On inquiry as to the significance of the visit, the manager said: —“They have some new fangled way of teaching geography in the schools, and these illustrated folders seem to help. Sometimes as many as half a dozen boys or girls will come in during an afternoon looking fox- these folders. If we have them in quantity we usually hand them out,” It seems that primary school geography has gone past teaching only the capital cities, mountains, rivers, capes and lakes of a country. It takes in the “why and wherefore” of the physical features of a country—its watersheds, the alterations made by erosion, the effect of glacial action, and volcanic disturbances. It also seeks to teach youth the scenic beauties of a country, its mountain playgrounds, its seaside resorts, its mineral waters, and its industrial and natural resources. This is evidently where the gailycoloured folder comes into the picture, as some of them not only include actual photographs of places, but convey a wealth of information about the country concerned.