largely spent on work which call for some amount of thought the main object of the laboratory work is lost. My experience has demonstrated that the laboratory sections should be small and that all should be at work on the same map at the same time. By all working on a map of the same section all the members may get the benefit of the questions asked by both students and teacher. Of course cases do arise where students will depend too much upon other members, and one might wish that adjacent students were not at work upon the same maps. The directions given to the student for the study of the map should not be much more than outlines and the teacher must be ready to lead discussions and ask questions as the work advances. As a result of a discussion started one day in our class one of the girls had the old and well fixed idea that "a volcano is a burning mountain," rooted out of her head by settling the fact that Mt. Shasta was a volcano long before that part of the cone which rises above 8,000 feet of elevation was formed. Our work on contour maps included the study of coastal plains, lake plains, flood plains of rivers, plateaus and mountains. In nearly all cases maps have been selected so as to show the effects of erosion on these features. I cannot see why classes that can visit coastal plains or a seashore cannot work out inductively the formation of that class of plains and then by the aid of proper contour maps be led on to the development of the plateau. The combination of the feld work at hand with the properly selected contour maps will make possible the inductive study of the life history of even our everlasting hills. We have arranged our laboratory work to alternate with the class work whenever it is needed for inductive study. Of course sometimes this is not more than a demonstration. It is harder to arrange the field work so as to introduce topics with their related field work for the weather and other school plans have to be considered. I believe too much effort cannot be made to keep the work of the field and laboratory from becoming mere mechanical drill. The less diligent students are apt to be satisfied with answers to questions of detail. For that reason the directions given the student should be as far as possible questions involving some amount of reasoning and not calling for direct answers. A laboratory course in physical geography is a new departure in our educational system and it certainly deserves a distinct place. I tried to introduce a laboratory course in physical geography in the school where I was teaching two years before the present syllabus was written and succeeded in getting permission of the superintendent to have field work and map building. I believe even that concession was more than could have been obtained under a superintendent less interested in scientific work. A new course may be expected to have its imperfections and we have no doubt much to learn as to just what to give and how to present it. It does seem to me that some of the experiments suggested in the present syllabus are beyond the second year student. In fact I am sure that no one of our second year students could grasp all of them. Is it not true that the department's directions for the study of contour maps are in many cases too long for the time we have to give to them? I believe that the introduction of laboratory work in physical geography is a step in the right direction by means of which we are going some time to give the student a splendid opportunity to develop scientific habits of thought. By the inductive study of the phenomena which he constantly sees, valuable information will be given. He will go into the physical sciences better prepared for scientific work and he will obtain a glimpse of the possibilities of matter and energy which he could not otherwise acquire outside of the college. THE BUREAU OF GEOGRAPHY OF THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS. BY JANE PERRY COOK, Chicago Normal School. Within the last few years much use has been made of illustrative material in the teaching of Geography. This has led to the collection of books, pictures, lantern slides, specimens of products of different countries, natural or manufactured, and to their arrangement into suitable and convenient form for use in schools. Chicago was one of the first cities to make such a systematic collection and to organize it in such wise that it could be drawn upon as needed by the various schools of the city. This collection or museum is known as the Bureau of Geography and is now established in the new building of the Chicago Normal School. The bureau has become known outside the city in various ways, principally through a visit made to the Normal School last November by the Earth Science section of the Central Association of Science and Mathematics Teachers, at which time the rooms of the Bureau of Geography were opened for inspection. Since this visit many letters of inquiry as to the management of this bureau have been addressed to the writer. To answer these letters in detail was impossible. The following account is therefore written in answer to these letters of inquiry as well as in the way of suggestion to teachers of geography The Bureau of Geography was organized by forty-four principals of the elementary schools of Chicago on May 25, 1901. This organization was due in large measure to the efforts of Mr. Richard Waterman. Each principal contributed the sum of ten dollars and many business firms in the city and elsewhere were asked to make contributions of material suitable for geographic illustration. Much of this material was given free of charge and a part of the money contributed by the principals was used to buy the proper cases in which the exhibits might be safely shipped to different parts of the city. Finding after a time that the work of administering the Bureau was very heavy, the principals decided to give the collection into the keeping of the Board of Education, which assumed the management October 28, 1903. The following month the Bureau of Geography was transferred to the Chicago Normal School. where it is under the direction of the Department of Geography. The work of carrying on the Bureau is in the hands of a salaried curator appointed by the School Board. It is his duty to send out supplies on the written requisition of the principals of the elementary schools, to verify the contents of the boxes on their return, to collect material, to arrange such material in sets, to select from whatever sources he may suitable discriptive printed matter and pictures to illustrate these sets, and with the approval of the Geography Department to expend such sums as may be voted by the Board of Education for the maintenance of the Bureau. Each collection sent out from the Normal School is packed in three or more stout pasteboard boxes, made for the purpose. The set of boxes is shipped in a strong wooden packing case. One of these smaller boxes contains pictures, the second holds selected magazine articles bearing on the subject or typewritten descriptions of the materials, and the third box, divided into compartments by pasteboard partitions, contains bottles showing specimens of the product studied in the different stages of its manufacture or preparation. These collections may represent: (3) One product of a country. (1) In the case illustrating South America the boxes contain samples of as many products of that country as could be obtained. e. g., rubber, coffee, etc. The literature and pictures were chosen to give as true an idea of South America as possible. Again the collection may represent (2) a part of the country, as for example, Argentina. The boxes contain typical products of Argentina and the pictures chosen are such as to illustrate the typical industries and characteristic physical features of that state. Still again the boxes may illustrate (3) one product of a country, as for instance wheat. In this case the sample boxes contain specimens of different kinds of wheat as well as samples cf the various stages in the preparation which the wheat berry undergoes in the process of flour making. The pictures and printed matter illustrate the various processes of flour manufacture, as well as showing the methods of wheat raising and harvesting which obtain in America, Argentina, Russia, or any other wheat growing country. |