Lessons in chalk modeling: The new method of map drawing

by Ida Cassa Heffron

The larger part of the surface of the earth (nearly three-fourths) is covered with water, and the action of this mighty agent, under the influence of that great dynamic force and life-giving energy, heat, opens an immense field for investigation.

These combined influences constitute the study of the environment of all organic life; and knowing these in a given case, we get an approximate idea of the stage of development. The development of man, the highest type of organic life, depends largely upon structural, climatic, vegetable and animal environment.

To know these is to understand his habits of life, his reasons for choice of homes, and to judge of his probable advancement in civilization.

The powerful influence which the physical features of the earth’s surface have exerted in shaping the current of historical events, can hardly be realized, until thoughtful investigation of the subject has been made. The knowledge of geographical conditions, as climate, mountains, valleys, rivers and seas, with vegetable and animal life gives us the theatre of action for events in history.

As the mere existence of mountain range, desert, sea or river, may be essentially the influence which has led to the growth or downfall of empires, it is clearly seen that a sound knowledge of structural geography is absolutely necessary for all intelligent study of history; no general relation of important occurrences can be traced without it.

Nearly, if not equally necessary is it in the study of literature. In order to properly appreciate the works of our best writers, both of prose and poetry, an acquaintance with nature, a scientific and geographical knowledge, local and general, is very essential. It forms a basis for the correct understanding of books, since the best writers and thinkers of all ages have been students of nature. Their writings are filled with lessons and illustrations, as well as generalizations drawn from close observations of her methods. If, then, a knowledge of structural geography is requisite to the true understanding of man’s relation to man and the world around him, it becomes important that the subject be presented in such a manner as to attract and hold the interest of the pupil; and properly presented there can be nothing more interesting than the study of his immediate environment—that which touches him in his every day experience.

This study of his immediate environment is essential to the forming of mental images of areas and surface forms outside and beyond his sense grasp and to a comprehension of the structure and surface contour of the world at large: such mental images being fundamentally a necessity to the delineation of adequate structural maps of the whole or any part of the earth’s surface.

NECESSITY FOR FIELD LESSONS AND IMPORTANCE OF FORMING, IN CONNECTION WITH THEM, A HABIT OF MODELING, PAINTING AND DRAWING.

The study of geography, which in the past consisted mainly in the memorizing of meaningless names with little or no exercise of the reasoning faculties, or opportunities for making generalizations through acts of comparison and inference, has been superseded by instruction of a more rational order.