and beams of balances. In 1862 culinary articles made from aluminum were displayed at the London exposition, but for practical use in the household the cost at that time was prohibitive. Its days of limited usefulness are at an end. Today it finds a wide application in the arts and manufactures. It is extensively used in the purification of iron and steel. It is replacing copper and brass wherever lightness is a desirable feature, as in bed plates for torpedo boat engines, internal fixings for ships, motor car parts, and in chemical works. It is especially desirable in the manufacture of camp equipment where its lightness and non-corrosive qualities make it doubly valuable. For army use it has had a wide application in several countries along lines of marine engineering, as shells for cartridges, and in drum heads. European powers have equipped their soldiers with it in the present war wherever possible. Aluminum is at present being used in the New York telephone and telegraph wires and giving satisfactory service under all weather conditions. In Chicago some of the electric lines are of aluminum and here again it has justified its use. The new transmission line which carries power to Los Angeles over a distance of 275 miles is of the same metal. Aluminum has an electrical conductivity double that of copper per pound. Aluminum combines readily with a number of other metals to form a large series of useful alloys which gives it a still greater range of usefulness as it combines the lightness of aluminum with greater strength and hardness. The aluminum bronzes, composed of varying proportions of aluminum and copper are the most important of these alloys. One of the aluminum bronzes has a tensile strength as high as forty-one tons per square inch which makes it desirable for machinery, propeller blades, and for castings of heavy guns. With the discovery of large deposits of rich aluminum ores and the perfection of metallurgical processes by which cheap extraction is possible on a commercial scale, the metal has ceased to be a chemical curiosity and is rapidly. coming to be regarded as a household necessity. SOME VALUABLE GOVERNMENT REPORTS Special Consular Reports: "Australia"-No. 47; "The Railway Situation in China"-No. 48; "Cocoa Production and Trade"-No. 50; "New Zealand"-No. 57; "Russia"-No. 61. May be obtained by addressing the Bureau of Manufactures, Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C. The Bureau of Fisheries of the same department has issued "The Fisheries of Alaska" (Document No. 730), "The Fur-seal Fisheries of Alaska" (Document No. 735), "The Fisheries and Guano Industry of Peru" (No. 663), "Sponge Culture" No. 670), "The Fisheries of China" (No. 664), "The Fisheries of Japan" (No. 665). IN A STUDY OF GEOGRAPHY IN NORMAL SCHOOLS* N order to make a comparative estimate of the geography offered in the public normal schools of our country, a study was made of the work in one hundred and forty-four schools of this class. . . . In the 144 schools studied, geography is offered in some form in 131, and is required in some quantity in 103. In 109 schools offering a two-year course beyond a high school, geography is required in varying amounts in 78. Of the 13 schools making no mention of geography five offer courses in geology, of which one offers eight courses in geology. In the 109 normals offering geography in some form, no electives are offered in 55. The maximum requirement found was three courses, five hours each for a half year; the minimum was 30 hours and the average perhaps 100 hours. . . . The following table showing the offering in ten schools requiring high school graduation for admission to a two-year professional course will indicate the variety in the geography opportunities. The details here shown are taken at random Amount of Required 1 term : Nature of Work Methods . General geography, meth- North America, Eurasia, com- Geography Electives Offered Geography and physiography. 1 term mercial geography 100 hours Methods, local geography A summary of the work throughout the country indicates that the amount of training in geography is, in general, inadequate in quantity, and often in quality, as a preparation for teaching one of the five fundamental subjects in *Abridged from a paper by Professor R. E. Dodge in the Teachers College Record, Mar. 1914. the elementary schools, at least to one especially interested in geography. This inadequacy in quantity is recognized by many enthusiastic teachers of geography and by some administrative officers, but the interest in improvement is not general. . . From one of the more progressive normal schools of the country comes the statement that for high school graduates "one term of geography"—so called "review," is required. "This course combines the work of method and subject matter, dealing with the elements of geography, with which we spend the larger portion of the term. While our students come from high schools, about forty per cent of them have had no geography whatever beyond the seventh or eighth grade." From one of the states most widely known and praised for its excellent work in normal school geography, some illuminating facts have recently been given as to the geography preparation at admission and at graduation from three large normal schools. Of 1678 high school graduates admitted to these three schools, 28 per cent had no geography in the high school, 34 had onehalf year's work, 30 per cent had one year's work, and 8 per cent had one and one-half year's work. Of 648 graduates from these normal schools graduated with life certificates, 41 per cent had no geography work while in training, 42.3 per cent had one twelve-weeks term, 12.5 per cent had two terms of the same length, 2.3 per cent had three terms, 1.3 per cent had over three terms. The general deficiency in geographic training of senior students in normal schools is recognized in many localities, but not generally so. One large normal now requires the passing with high standing of an examination in locative geography before admission to the senior year, thus indicating that others besides the geography specialist recognize the general need of a knowledge of the A B C's of ordinary school geography.. However unsatisfactory may be the time given to geography in normal schools, the use of the time available is even more discouraging when the field as a whole is viewed. Of the required courses in geography given in the schools studied, 38 are physiography, 9 are commercial geography, 66 are methods, 29 are "geography," 48 are regional geography and review, 5 are principles, 2 geography and history, 1 is map drawing, and 3 are geology. Or of the 200 courses in geography, 50 are high school in type, and 140 are either methods courses or regional courses. Of the latter, the larger number are merely review courses of elementary school geography, as the description of text-book used will indicate. Of the elective courses offered in the two years' normal courses, numbering in all 162, 41 are physiography (5 advanced in type), 27 are commercial geography, 25 are methods, 9 are "geography," 6 are entitled principles, 6 are rural school geography, 42 are regional geography, largely review courses, 4 are geography and history and 2 are devoted to map drawing. The emphasis is given in the large to a review of the elementary facts of geography which form the larger portion of elementary school courses, and to methods of teaching in elementary schools. With this limited attention to geography in our normal schools, and with the work, except in a few shining instances, either high school physiography, methods or review of elementary texts, is it any wonder that geography is so widely considered merely a children's subject that has not grown up? In a few institutions slowly but surely increasing in number, specially trained teachers are giving work in geography of very superior quality. They are the beacons that are pointing the way to the more conservative schools on the one hand, and, on the other, to the newer institutions in which the requirements in education are so great that a serious study of the materials of the elementary subjects is impossible.. The causes of these conditions are many. In the first place, educational theory and practice, as important to the prospective teacher as is the knowledge of materials, in many institutions are over emphasized, and little time is left for the study of so-called academic subjects, other than from the bread and butter point of view. In the second place, pupils who enter the normal schools from a high school course have, as a rule, no knowledge of geography beyond that gained in the sixth or seventh grade of the elementary schools. Elementary school geography is rightly, and probably will remain, largely regional geography with an increasing emphasis in the higher grades of causal regional geography, culminating in a study of the reasons for economic and social conditions. High school courses of study in geography are usually specialized courses in physical geography or physiography, or in commercial geography. Thus the geographic training of the prospective teacher, on admission to the normal school, has been away from the field of elementary geography, and the normal school teacher of geography must bridge the gap as effectively as his limited time will permit. Three methods of procedure are possible. The easiest for the teacher not trained in higher geography, is to review the details of elementary school work, as is so frequently done. The pupil-teachers thus go out to their work with a preparation little beyond that of the uppils in the upper grades and rarely with any new point of view that will make it possible for them to vivify a subject deadened by a mass of detail. The margin of safety of the young teachers is slight, the ice is always thin, and they naturally expose themselves to the dangers of the subject as little as possible. The second plan, the systematic, is to organize the normal school work so as to treat in turn the underlying principles of geography, some special continent from a causal standpoint, and methods of teaching geography in elementary schools. . The revivification of school geography, long misunderstood and unappreciated because so largely devoted to detail in memorizing myriads of items, all of questionable permanent value, depends upon the right point of view on the part of the normal school teachers. If the best training in geography is that which gives the students the best knowledge of essentials, and the best power to organize and evaluate details, the method of study to be followed in normal schools is that which will give the best outlook upon the field, and best awaken the mind of the pupil to the opportunities in geography and to its problems. . . GEOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN SELECTING THE SITE FOR THE NATIONAL CAPITAL IN N the opening chapter of his recent book, A History of the National Capital (Macmillan, 1914) Mr. W. B. Bryan says: "A vital consideration in selecting the location of the seat of government of the United States was convenience of access to all portions of the country. It was to be central as to population and territory. Moreover, it was to be on a navigable river connecting the Atlantic on the one side with the great western country on the other." Geographical considerations were the dominant ones all through the 10 year period of discussion and wire-pulling which culminated in the selection of the present site of Washington. The New England colonies and the colonies south of Virginia recognized that, on geographical 'grounds, they were ruled out. Each of the middle colonies strove energetically to persuade congress that it contained the one and only spot, predestined by nature for the National Capital. Nine days after the preliminary articles of peace were signed in Paris, Kingston on the Hudson began a movement to have itself selected for the honor. A few months later, Annapolis, Md., proceeded to offer land to congress for a federal district. Within another month, the New Jersey legislature offered land and money for the same purpose, recommending a site at the head of navigation of the Delaware, near Trenton. Virginia quickly followed with an offer of the town of Williamsburg, including a gift of the then existing "palace," the capitol, all of the public buildings, 300 acres of land, and money not to exceed 100,000 pounds for the erection of thirteen hotels for the delegates in congress. Virginia also offered to unite with Maryland in ceding land on opposite sides of the Potomac. Congress, however, took no definite action for several years. Throughout the protracted discussions, three conditions were always held to be essential: (1) the national capital must be geographically central; (2) it must be on a navigable river heading in the West; (3) it must not be near enough to the coast to be in danger of a sea attack. The choice gradually settled down to possible sites on the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac. At one time the plan of having two capitals, to be used alternately, was considered. Another plan was to place the federal district well up the Potomac in the narrow neck of Maryland, where it should be very near to both the Virginia and the Pennsylvania boundaries, thus satisfying the ambitions of three states. The formation of the Potomac Company for the purpose of improving the upper river for navigation tended to increase the claims of that river. |