CHAPTER XIII GEOGRAPHY Leipsic.—Primary School. Class VI.b. Forty girls, nine and ten years of age. A Lesson on the Town Schools Teacher. Which was the first school in this town? What part of the town is it in? What streets must you pass along from here in order to get to it? What other name has this school? How many schools are there of this name? What church is it near? The answers given were required to be in complete sentences, and correct grammatical form was insisted on; but the number of children who seemed able to answer was small. At this point the teacher began a continuous statement, of which the following were the chief points : Formerly the people could not read or write. There were two schools only; in these they taught Latin. Then there were schools in which reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught, but not geography, history, singing, or drill. There were often more than one hundred children in one small room; the teachers were not taught to teach, and the children did not learn much. Then followed a review of these statements by the usual method of question and answer. A concluding section gave more information by the teacher, and dealt with the first public school opened in the town, its situation, and how one could reach it; that it was only for the children of the poor; that then the first citizen school was built; and that now there were thirty schools where the children paid 4 marks 50, fourteen schools where 18 marks were paid, and four schools where 36 marks were paid annually. No plans or drawings were referred to. This class of young girls was under admirable control, and the pupils were, as usual in Germany, perfectly attentive to the oral teaching; but my own feeling was that such a lesson would have been more suitable to older children. Town geography, though nearer in space to the children, is not so near to them in sentiment and thought as the geography of natural objects. Berlin. - Primary School. Class III.-Geography. The ages of the children in this class were eleven, twelve, and thirteen. When the rector entered the class-room with me the scholars were occupied in writing out geography notes in their exercise books. He requested the teacher to stop this and to review the last lessons. I give a summary of the principal points touched upon. No question in the teaching of geography is more debated among our own teachers than how much shall be attempted; and what is actually learnt in another country cannot therefore fail to be interesting. Teacher. Name some of the principal towns in the German Empire. Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin were given. Teacher. Give the population and position of each of these. The mention of Berlin led to the kingdoms in the German Empire. Teacher. How many kingdoms are there ? Which is the smallest ? Pupil. Saxony is the smallest. Teacher. Describe it. A selected pupil then gave a few sentences about Saxony, and the teacher proceeded to ask for the rivers of Saxony, then the mountains, and finally the towns. Teacher. What do you know about Dresden ? Pupil. Dresden is the capital of Saxony. Teacher. What can you say of Leipsic? Pupil. Leipsic is the largest town. Leipsic has a famous "Fair." Leipsic contains the Supreme Law Courts of Leipsic has a great book-meeting.1 Leipsic has a university. 1 This refers to a meeting at Leipsic of publishers' representatives, who, it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say, come from all over the world. Three smaller manufacturing towns in Saxony were mentioned, and a question about the Saxons obtained the answer, "The Saxons are a brave and industrious people." The Germans, be it noted, do not disdain to use their schools to overcome local animosities. Teacher. Who is King of Saxony ? Then a similar series of questions and answers dealt with Bavaria. The answers were ready, and it seemed that every boy knew them, as far as an oral examination can give evidence of this. The teacher's voice was pitched low, and the attention was very good indeed. Berlin.-Primary School. Class II. Seventh School Year. Official age, twelve to thirteen. Forty-four boys present; only one boy on the register absent. The pupils here had no geography books; but every boy had an atlas, which was clear and uncrowded. For geographical information which the map did not provide the scholars were entirely dependent upon the oral lessons of the teacher, supplemented by such notes as he was able to give them. To prepare the geography of a country at home meant chiefly to study the map. The German boy's power of description from a map is quite astonishing to one accustomed to English boys; but sketch maps are not drawn by him in school. I thought that drawing would have led to a better understanding of a map I than verbal description, for words are singularly inadequate when definite and individual space relations are in question; but German teachers appear to think otherwise. The lesson opened with a "repetition" of the work done in the home lesson, which happened to be the geography of Spain and Italy. The usual question and answer method obtained, and the teacher questioned on 1. Mountains, names and situation; 2. Rivers, names, direction, and situation; 3. Towns, with their situation and the reason of their importance. The lesson had been moderately well prepared, but the answers contained several bad shots, particularly where position was concerned. The question, for example, "Which towns are on the Ebro?" obtained many towns in answer, but not on the Ebro. The map had, doubtless, been most attentively looked at, but a rough sketch once or twice would have vastly added to the memory of position. (I suggest the exact statistical determination of this improvement to investigators in pedagogical psychology.) More than one report on German geographical teaching led me to expect a linking up of the geographical facts so as to show the dependence of one set upon another, and I listened closely for illustrations of this method. But I heard few, if any. No doubt there are such lessons given, but those I heard were the ordinary lessons of the school, and were not given for exhibition purposes. |