Abstract
THIS book will not assist to make commercial geography a scientific study. Like the geographical books of old time, the volume consists largely of disconnected details which no pupil ought to be asked to remember, and which produce weariness of the flesh in the unfortunate reader. If commercial geography means what Mr. Bovn makes it, then it is the duty of all who are anxious for the introduction of reasonable methods of instruction in schools to condemn it at every opportunity. Here are a few examples of unqualified or loose statements which occur in the early pages of the book. “The greatest heat for the greatest number of days is on the Equator” (p. 1). “As the Equator is neared [from the Tropics] two days have vertical sunshine at each point within the Tropics, approaching gradually to the autumn and vernal equinoxes at the Equator ” (p. 1). “Added to the effects of the neighbouring land or water are the similar effects of the winds that blow over them” (p. 2). “The Gulf Stream washes the coast of Norway” (p. 11). But we do not object so much to statements of this kind as to the principle of cramming pupils with information which has to be accepted without inquiry and cannot be assimilated. The less we have of commercial geography of this kind the more likely are we to create an interest in the study of the subject.
A Commercial Geography of Foreign Nations.
By F. C. Boon Pp. viii + 174. (London: Methuen & Co). Price 2s.
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A Commercial Geography of Foreign Nations . Nature 65, 245 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/065245b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065245b0