Paradigm, No. 19 (May, 1996)

There is a not insubstantial literature which in one way or another concerns the nature, the content and its implications, the language, and the use made of geography textbooks in the United Kingdom. But there is little which attempts to trace the origins of the geographical ideas contained in such textbooks. I shall justify this statement in the review of the literature which follows. This is why I undertook to investigate a selection of textbooks published in the last 25 years of 19th and the first 25 of the 20th century to elucidate from where the authors obtained the ideas conveyed in those textbooks.

I was originally commissioned to write a kind of social history of geography textbooks for the series which was initiated with Ian Michael's Early Textbooks of English¹ and began browsing through the shelves of geography textbooks stored in the Institute of Education Library's Depository. In doing so I was struck by the fact that geography textbooks proper, that is those meant to be used in schools, tended at first to be clearly destined for elementary schools, and that books for secondary education were few in number until the turn of the century when they began to increase as a result, no doubt, of the 1902 Education Act which allowed Local Education Authorities to set up secondary schools. Nor did a single university in the United Kingdom offer a degree in geography (or geography and another subject) at that time. So where did the ideas which were incorporated in textbooks for secondary schools come from?

I shall first briefly examine the existing literature on geography textbooks; secondly, an examination will be made of a sample of such textbooks published in the last 25 years of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th; thirdly, on the evidence provided I will attempt to show that the evolution in the nature of these textbooks was the result of three main influences: the changing conception of geography, the development of pedagogical practice and the political climate of the time. In 1989 Michael Apple wrote:

. . . given the ubiquitous character of textbooks, they are among the things we know least about. While the text dominates curricula at the elementary, secondary and even college levels, very little critical attention has been paid to the ideological, political and economic sources of its production, distribution and reception. ²

Whilst one accepts that the literature on school textbooks is not extensive, it is perhaps uncharitable to say that little critical attention has been paid to them; in particular geography textbooks have been subject to a certain amount of critical scrutiny, and not just from inside the geography profession.

Allford³ as far back as 1964 wrote a thesis which, though historical, contains both implicit and explicit criticisms of the geography textbooks published up to 1902. Regular reviews of geography textbooks took place in the pages of Geography, the organ of the British Geographical Association from 1958 onwards, for example, by L. J. Jay^4. Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that these reviews, although meant to be informative, are rarely sharply critical, but they do indicate how these books were evolving. Cox⁵, from an Australian vantage point, wrote a brief but penetrating analysis of the characteristics of geography textbooks available then in terms of how far they matched the avowed aims of geographical education. The Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe also took an interest in geography textbooks, especially in so far as these textbooks gave inaccurate information about the member countries, and recommended a series of measures including the mutual exchange and criticism of textbooks among member countries.⁶ In a similar vein, I tried to ascertain the kind of information that a sample of current geography textbooks on Europe as used in the UK, actually conveyed.⁷ This showed, inter alia, how such textbooks were very much influenced by the political climate of the times. However, David Wright⁸ is not enamoured of such research, which he feels, quoting John Milton, "to be exceedingly ‘fugitive’ or ‘cloistered’", or even both at once.

The question of the language of geography textbooks has roused the interests of language specialists and later of geographers themselves. Rosen⁹ wrote scathingly about the language of, among others, geography textbooks. In the late 1960s, Milburn¹⁰ undertook a study of the geographical terminology then used in textbooks, and attempted to find out what a sample of children of both primary and secondary age understood by these terms. Marsden¹¹ made an historical appraisal of the language of geography textbooks, showing how, although this had evolved over the years, there was still a tendency to get children to learn words, even if the conceptual understanding behind the word might not have been learnt. In 1989 Frances Slater edited Language and Learning in the Teaching of Geography, in the first chapter of which she summarized research by Carol Robson on the way students interact with a textbook and attempt to supply meanings for what they read.¹² The whole question of language and the learning of geography was taken up by a Working Group set up by the Education Standing Committee of the Geographical Association. This Working Group issued a report in 1981 which contains a chapter entitled Textbooks and Other Published Materials, which criticises the assumptions of most textbook writers that a 'transmission-reception model' of teaching is effective with most pupils.¹³

In an examination of the ideologies behind the teaching of history, geography, economics and social science, Rob Gilbert analyses some geography textbooks, arguing that they tend to present an image:

of people as moved more by environmental or economic forces than by intention, whose role is to respond to circumstances as they present themselves rather than to create them.¹⁴

Textbook writers, according to Gilbert, tend to convey the image of geography as a neutral subject in respect to many social issues of the day. On the other hand David Wright in examining a textbook, Patterns in Geography II, comes to the conclusion that the book contains many elements which are unwittingly racist.¹⁵ His is but one of a series of studies which look at bias in such textbooks.¹⁶ Marsden¹⁷ also undertook research to find out how far textbooks in print or newly published between 1930 and 1960 could be said to have exemplified 'good geography, good pedagogy and good social education'. He found that seldom did the three characteristics coincide in one book. Walford¹⁸ continued Marsden’s examination for the period from the 1960s to the 1990s. However, his emphasis was different from that of Marsden and concentrated on examining the role of the conceptual revolution, curriculum development projects, publishers and individuals on the kind of books published. There is no detailed study of the contents of the books mentioned. More recently Walford¹⁹ has argued that the tendency from 1930 to 1990 has been for the written text to become shorter whilst pictures, graphs, charts and tables of statistics take up most of the space in textbooks.

Possibly the most important research undertake so far in the field of geography textbooks is the study by Lidstone²⁰ of the use that teachers made of these books in their day-to-day teaching. As might be expected there were wide variations in the way teachers used textbooks, from those who merely utilised them as a source of photographs, maps, diagrams and statistics, which became incorporated in their lesson plans, to those who worked their way through the book with the pupils. But most teachers used the textbook as a source of content and sometimes method for their teaching. In this connection van Leeuwen analyses the visual material presented in certain school textbooks with a view to finding out what features or explanations are predicated by the text and its visuals.²¹ An interesting aspect of textbook research is one which is embedded in studies on ‘knowledge products', such as films, museum exhibitions, learned papers, curriculum development projects as well as textbooks, whose purpose is to inform or convey knowledge. As part of a review of such research, H. S. Verduin-Muller²² asked Frances Slater to recall how she came to produce an edited textbook entitled People and Environments²³; this study sheds some light on the way authors come to undertake such work and what influences their choice of collaborators, how they structure the text, and the choice they make of the content.

Thus the origins of the ideas which somehow found their way into the secondary school textbooks of the late-19th and early-20th centuries are not explicitly dealt with in any of the research reviewed. I will therefore proceed to examine a sample of textbooks published during that period.

It is as well to be clear about the educational setting in which these textbooks were published. Whilst the 1870, 1876 and 1880 Education Acts were mainly concerned to establish primary or elementary education, there was no legislation affecting state secondary education until 1902. Consequently there were few 'secondary' schools in existence, and most of these were either the so-called public schools or the endowed grammar schools whose curriculum was relatively narrow.²⁴

Geography was not a favoured subject. The curriculum was dominated by Classics (Latin and Greek), and few head-teachers thought geography had anything to offer in the way of intellectual stimulation, and therefore was fit to feature in the curriculum of schools destined to produce the country's élite. Thus, the scope for publishing geography textbooks relevant to secondary education was limited.

The post-primary level textbooks were clearly inspired by the elementary school tradition of providing information with a minimum of commentary. In this category falls George Gill's The Oxford and Cambridge Geography [1881 edition], expressly compiled for pupils preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations. The sample pages on France (see Figure 1) are typical of many of the books in this class and are not much different from books published 50 or even 100 years earlier except in so far as the facts are more up to date. Apart from facts about the relief, rivers and climate of France (which is described as beautiful!), there is assorted information about agriculture, industry and commerce, some of which is peculiar indeed: for example, it is said that Cherbourg is defended by 3,000 guns and that Calais exports 60 million eggs annually to England. No doubt some children will remember these facts and forget the rest.

Gill also published The Students’ Geography: Physical and Descriptive, Industrial and Commercial, Political and Social, Etymological and Historical [1891] which seems to address an older age-group than the previously cited book but which is cast in a similar mould. It is difficult to see evidence in its pages for its claim to be 'social' and 'etymological'; its commercial aspect is based on very odd tables of statistics which are shown on page 640 of the book. The examination questions printed in the book (see Figure 2) give an indication of the intellectual level required; the questions themselves often lack precision. It would be difficult to argue that these textbooks contained any ideas, hint at relationships, or attempt any explanation. There is an implicit assumption that things British are good and that somehow the foreign country does not quite match up to the standards set by Britain, a not-unfamiliar assumption made by some even today. The commercial emphasis is meant to stress that since Britain's economy depended to a large extent on trade, it was important for pupils to be aware of its nature and how they could contribute to its development. Commercial geography may be seen as a manifestation of the concerns of society at that time, particularly as Britain's industrial pre-eminence was being steadily eroded by Germany and the USA. But commercial geography was also a means of reminding pupils of the wide-flung Empire from which many of the products traded came. Gregory²⁵ reminds us that Freshfield, then one of the secretaries of the Royal Geographical Society and later president, asked whether:

. . . we English who inherit so large a part of the world [shall] not acquaint ourselves with our inheritance and the conditions under we can retain and make the most of it?²⁶

 Figure 2. From George Gill (1891) The Students' Geography: Physical and Descriptive, Industrial and Commercial, Political and Social, Etymological and Historical (Geo. Gill & Sons)

It was Freshfield who was instrumental in getting the R.G.S. to appoint John Scott Keltie as Inspector of Geographical Education. Keltie's Report proved greatly influential in the development of geography teaching in schools in Great Britain.²⁷

The second category contains books which are more cerebral, without necessarily being destined for adult readers. In fact it is often difficult to find out which audience they addressed. For example, in 1890, Blandford wrote An Elementary Geography of India, Burma and Ceylon which in 210 pages manages to be a reasonably scholarly introduction to the area by someone who has first-hand experience of these countries. Although there is some listing of mountains and rivers, there is sufficient detail and argument about the relationships between the life of the people and the natural and cultural conditions to make the book at that time interesting reading. Another example is Archibald Geikie'sAn Elementary Geography of the British Isles, first published in 1888. Geikie was a scientist who became Director of the Geological Survey He had written a book published in 1887 called Teaching of Geography in which he had stressed the importance of using geography as a means of training young people to observe and record phenomena and to develop their reasoning capacity. In spite of such an aim, he evoked a series of deterministic relationships between the position of the British Isles in the world and the destiny of its peoples. He declared:

We thus understand how true is the assertion that some of the more striking features in the history of the British People can be traced to the influence of the geographical position of the country. Living on islands, and therefore near the sea, the inhabitants naturally grew into a nation of sailors. Their love of the sea led them to become navigators and discoverers of new lands in many parts of the globe. The small size of the island-home and the crowding of their population compelled them to roam abroad and found colonies elsewhere. Their command of the sea and their central position on the habitable part of the earth, made them traders also, and led to the establishment of their world-wide commerce. And so we perceive that from the little mother-country of the British Isles there has sprung the greatest maritime empire which the world has yet seen.²⁸

Much of the text, for example that which describes the counties of Britain, is written in a style which, though more readable than that of Gill's text, contains none of the deterministic statements of the kind we see above. At the same time it has to be admitted that in spite of his statement in the Preface that 'The present little work has been prepared in accordance with the plan advocated in [his] Teaching of Geography’, there is little evidence that the teaching methods there advocated are put into practice in the book, as Figure 3 suggests.

A textbook coming from a somewhat different tradition is that written by R. A. Gregory (1864-1952) called An Elementary Physical and Astronomical Geography.²⁹ Just over one-third of the text concerns astronomy and mathematical geography, another third is on the atmosphere and what we would now call geomorphology, and the rest is on bio-geography including a section on what he calls 'mankind' which is about the different 'races' and their distribution on earth (see Figure 4). Throughout this book there is an attempt to adopt a strictly scientific attitude and there is greater concern with observation and explanation than producing a catalogue of factual information.

Figure 4. R. A. Gregory (1891) An Elementary Physical and Astronomical Geography (Joseph Hughes & Co.).

In the preface of another book³⁰ Gregory explains that ‘. . . facts relating to the earth's movements and place in the universe are usually treated in an inadequate manner . . . The scientific method of observation and induction should be used in elementary astronomy as in other physical sciences.’

Gregory is an interesting case of someone whose experience of 'being promoted from the ranks' (he was educated in an elementary school but eventually became Professor of Astronomy at Queen's College, London) led him to have a feel for what was required to improve the scientific education at school level. A biography of Gregory (1957) details his achievements in promoting science in a cultural environment that was anything but scientific.³¹ It seems, however, that his work was to be eclipsed by the textbooks subsequently written by Herbertson and those belonging to the regional geography tradition, for whom see below.

Commercial geography is the description of the Earth's surface with special reference to the discovery, production, manufacture, transport and exchange of useful or desirable things. It is geography applied to the purposes of commerce; and it describes the Earth in such a way as to bring into prominence everything which enables people to turn natural conditions to practical account.

Two entirely different kinds of preliminary study are necessary in order to understand the principles of Commercial Geography. These are: Physiography…..Economics......³²

As one goes through the text it becomes clear that the facts to be learnt are stressed rather than the principles. Mill writes:

it is absolutely necessary to possess a sound groundwork of general geography, and to go through the drudgery of learning the exact positions of countries, with their boundaries, and the position and distances apart [sic] of the chief towns.

But some principles are enunciated, for example:

The features which give a region commercial importance are its position, configuration, climate, natural resources and people.

A substantial book, which in 1892 was in its 6th edition, was Meiklejohn's A New Geography On The Comparative Method, which ran to 554 pages of relatively small print. It covers what we might now call thematic or systematic geography in 50 pages and then covers the world country by country in the following 500 or so pages. The author states:

The book contains all that is necessary for the Examinations of Pupil Teachers and Students at Training Colleges; and also for candidates for the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations . . .³³

Thus in this case the readership is explicitly stated. By the standard of its time, it is a relatively attractive book, having a large number of clear uncluttered maps and diagrams, and using different types and size of print to emphasize particular facts or names (see Figures 5a and 5b). But the bulk of the book is essentially descriptive and factual. Even in the section devoted to systematic geography, there little that could be called explanation, except in that part which concerns the atmosphere, but this is limited. There is more concern with defining and classifying than with explaining.

In general books of this period tend to be descriptive and factual and, apart from elementary explanations of climate and the seasons, the only idea which seems to be adopted by some of the books is that there is a deterministic relationship between position, climate, relief and geology, and the life and destiny of people in an area. Comparisons with Britain are, more often than not, favourable to Britain and its empire. There is also a tendency to pronounce on the character of national groups. For example Meiklejohn states of the French:

The Frenchman is said to be light and frivolous, but in most cases he is a very serious person, brave, when he is succeeding but too easily depressed; very clever with his hands, and generally amiable, polite and urbane. Intellectually, the Frenchman is famous for lucidity of thought . . .

These character-sketches seem either to come from the author's imagination or they are quotations from travel books he has consulted.

The origins of the deterministic streak in these textbooks are difficult to trace, since they do not acknowledge their sources. Darwin's Origins of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859, could be said to have influenced these textbook writers, just as it was said to have influenced Ratzel in Germany and subsequently Semple and Huntington in the USA, all of whom wrote books in which environmental determinism was a powerful motif, though Wanklyn argues that Ratzel's views were not so simply stated.³⁴ But these geographers published works either during the last quarter of the 19th century or in the early-20th century; it is doubtful that Geikie, for example, could have read Ratzel, though he was obviously aware of Darwin's theories. Certainly these textbook authors could not have read Huntington or Semple whose works were not published until 1907 and 1911 respectively. I am much more inclined to believe that the idea that people's lives were closely affected by their physical environment gradually became an attractive theory to which the work of Darwin could be said to lend some support, and that this could give some academic respectability to a subject that seemed to many to be devoid of any intellectual rigour. Indeed Richard Peet argues that

Environmental determinism was geography's entry into modem science. Determinism attempted to explain the imperial events of late 19th and early 20th century capitalism in a scientific way.³⁵

Halford Mackinder's paper The Scope and Methods of Geography³⁶ was read to the Royal Geographical Society in 1887 and it was some time before its impact was felt by textbook writers. Thus at the turn of the century, geography textbooks, with the exception of those written by Gregory, were still at a stage where their main purpose was to impart factual information which the pupil had to commit to memory, but also to indicate to most pupils that in the British Empire they had something to be proud of, a sentiment which, at that time, would have been widely shared; and lastly that Britain's pre-eminence in the world was in a large measure due to her 'geography', meaning largely her position, climate and natural resources.

During the first quarter of the 20th century the number of textbooks published and destined for the secondary school market increased significantly, as has been noted earlier, in part due to the growth in the number of secondary schools, many of which were Local Education Authority schools. Further, the nature and purpose of geography as an educational subject began to be much more frequently debated than it had been in the past and some of this discussion began to rub off on textbook authors, particularly when those writing academic papers also decided to write textbooks.

The Royal Geographical Society (R.G.S.) had commissioned a report from John Scott Keltie on the state of geographical education in England. The sorry tale he told³⁷ determined the R.G.S. to do something about the situation, particularly to attempt to develop the teaching of geography in higher education in order to provide a cadre of teachers qualified with a 'modern view' of the subject so that they could make it intellectually stimulating. In 1887 Mackinder read his now famous paper, mentioned above, The Scope and Methods of Geography, in which he defined geography as 'the science whose main function is to trace the interaction of man in society and so much of his environment as varies locally’.³⁸

This man/land view of geography was close to that of the French geographer Vidal de la Blache, in which the physical environment is seen as influencing people's activities but not determining them. Given the fact that Mackinder started teaching geography at Oxford in 1887, that his Britain and the British Seas³⁹ subsequently exemplified his view of the subject and that his series of textbooks⁴⁰ was sufficiently popular still to be in print in the 1930s, it is not surprising if his view of the nature of geography teaching soon found its way into schools. One interesting aspect of Mackinder's textbooks was that they intimately linked history and geography, just as his Britain and the British Seas does. This shows that his thinking was evolutionary, and very close to that of Vidal de la Blache. Thus physical conditions might well influence people's lives, although such influence changes over time according to what we would now call technological change.

Although Mackinder's textbooks were reasonably popular, they were outstripped by Herbertson's. Andrew John Herbertson (1865-1915), a scholar of many talents, had been recruited by Mackinder to help him at Oxford when the School of Geography was founded in 1899. He tackled his work with characteristic vigour, became Honorary Secretary of the Geographical Association in 1900 and started its journal The Geographical Teacher (which later became Geography) and remained its Editor until his death in 1915. He shared the view of Mackinder and the R.G.S. that not much progress would be made in developing geography in schools until a sufficient number of teachers had been trained in the so-called 'new geography'. Consequently, like Mackinder, he participated in a series of summer schools for teachers. But probably his most important contribution to the teaching of geography was his 1905 paper ‘The Major Natural Regions: An Essay in Systematic Geography’, which was an honest academic exercise attempting to divide the world into regions according to multiple criteria (climate, vegetation, physical features), each region being in some way unique. This he felt would be a better way of describing the world than one based on the political divisions which were artificial. Whatever the merits of his scheme, it had a great impact on others and more particularly on teachers who were to be the vanguard of the 'new geography'. Further Herbertson incorporated his natural regions into the textbooks he wrote, some with his wife, which were by the standard of his day immensely successful.⁴¹ Other authors followed suit, and it was not long before textbooks found it de rigueur to use Herbertson's framework of natural regions in their description of the world.⁴²

It is impossible to overemphasise the importance that these ideas subsequently had for the next 60 years on the teaching of geography in schools. The regional framework for syllabus construction became entrenched and many texts on the teaching of geography advocated it, including the Board of Education's Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers published in 1915. There were modifications of Herbertson's ideas to take account of pedagogical considerations. For example, it had long been advocated that with younger pupils it was more sensible to work from the particular to the general than the other way round. This was the movement towards 'reality in geography', dealing with phenomena that could connect with children's experience. Yet Herbertson's 'natural regions' were large areas and the criteria for defining them much too abstract for pupils in the early years of secondary schools. Thus the response of the pedagogues, such as Fairgrieve (1870-1953), was to scale down the region to that which French geographers advocated, namely the pays or local region, and to undertake case studies within the region or, as they were then known, ‘sample studies’. Thus Fairgrieve who had been since 1912 lecturer in geography method at the London Day Training College (later the University of London Institute of Education) became editor of a series of books known as the New Regional Geographies which in four volumes covered geography up to the London General School Examination. However, there is some inconsistency in the way the chapters are arranged. In Brooks' volume, A Regional Geography of Asia and Australia⁴³, the first 10 chapters are on systematic geography and the last 11 chapters are on regional geography (see Figure 6), which does not accord with the idea of going from the particular to the general. It seems clear that some compromise had to be reached with respect to satisfying examination requirements and, no doubt, the publisher.

Another aspect of the developing nature of textbooks in geography is the attempt by some authors to make the textbook a useful pedagogical instrument rather than simply a record of facts to be memorised. This is well illustrated by a book in the series Macmillan's Practical Modern Geographies, written by A. Morley Davis. The text is divided into lessons, each lesson consisting of a series of exercises that the pupils must work through, as shown in Figs. 7a and 7b. The author explains his purpose in the preface:

In planning and writing this book, the author has had two aims continually before him. The first was to present material from which conclusions of geographical significance can be derived, so that pupils learn by doing all that can be done is to place before them impartial records from which they can extract the essential facts and relations between facts. These records are maps and statistics The second aim was to follow a progressive method, so that the earlier lessons should reveal principles applicable to later lessons.⁴⁴

 

Whilst he does not state what 'conclusions of geographical significance' are, there is little doubt that pedagogically such a book was well ahead of most of its competitors though, given its intellectual level, it probably appealed to selective-school pupils. The only other textbooks having a similar format and presumably similar aims were those belonging to The New Outlook Geography published by Harrap⁴⁵, though the weight of questions in the text is somewhat less than in Morley Davis. This type of book must have been somewhat ahead of its time for it was not until the !ate 1950s that another series, Heinemann’s Geography for Schools, edited by R. C. Honeybone, used a similar technique. This proved successful and was widely imitated. Authors such as Morley Davis conceived these books as sources of documents to be analysed in order to get pupils thinking about the meaning of the relationships between the data. They were to be used in order to develop the pupil's ability to think inductively and to develop an understanding of the relationships which existed between, for example, relief and transport routes. Inevitably, some of the interconnections which the books were trying to exemplify were still environmentally deterministic.

In fact, although the few academic geographers practising in Britain had to a large extent abandoned environmental determinism, school textbooks and school teachers in simplifying the relationships that Lucien Fèbvre was to call later 'possibilistic', were to perpetuate the teaching of deterministic relationships. The Macmillan Practical Modern Geographies were under the general editorship of Sir Richard Gregory, who made great efforts to transform geography into a more scientific subject than it had been in Britain for most of the 19th century He had himself written textbooks, but he also revised some of the books originally written by William Hughes⁴⁶.

Figure 8, a copy of the Contents page of Hughes's book, shows clearly the influence of Gregory's scientific bent, but it is in line with Hughes' own ideas of what geography should be about, essentially covering physical geography with limited references to the influence of human beings. This book seems to have been taken over in 1912 by two new authors A. T. Simmons (a friend of Gregory's) and E. Stenhouse. It was reprinted eight times up to 1927, the date of the copy examined.

Textbooks on geography for secondary schools published during the 50 years that span the turn of the century, demonstrate an evolution which if slow and uneven is nonetheless present. They changed from being repositories of facts to be memorised to being pedagogical instruments to be used by the teacher and embodying a view of geography as a subject with educational aims and objectives. These changes reflected the evolution in the conception of geography as a discipline, changes in pedagogical theory and practice, as well as the then social and political climate within the United Kingdom where there was a celebration of the British Empire, manifested particularly through the medium of commercial geography.

That changes in the conception of the nature of geography owe their origins to such scientists and scholars as Humboldt (1769-1859), Ritter (1779-1859), Somerville (1780-1872), Ratzel (1844-1904), Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918) is well documented. But of these only Vidal de la Blache became involved in teacher education to any extent, and then in France. It was not until such men as Mackinder and Herbertson began to 'prime the pump' by involving themselves not just in geography in higher education, but also in the education of teachers and in the production of textbooks that the kind of geography being taught in schools began to change and began to emphasise people/land relationships. Although school textbooks began to reflect the changed paradigm from environmental determinism to possibilism, the emphasis was still on the primary influence of the environment on human activities

There is, however, another paradigm, which emanates from those who were natural scientists and wished to see geography taught as a science. To that group belonged T. H. Huxley (1825-95) whose Physiography was published in 1877, R. A. Gregory who, though not primarily a geographer, saw geography as a way of introducing young people to the scientific method, and Archibald Geikie, a geologist who stressed observation, recording and interpretation in his The Teaching of Geography, though his venture into writing An Elementary Geography of the British Isles was less happy. This scientific geography was, however, to be overwhelmed by the regional view of the subject that received so much support from Herbertson's scheme for the division of the world into natural regions, aided by the pedagogues who saw the region as providing the basis for drawing upon 'reality' to make contact with young minds⁴⁷.

The pedagogues had another effect on these geography textbooks. Because they believed in active methods of learning, they introduced into some textbooks questions within the text in order to stimulate pupils to respond to the data put before them in the form of maps, photographs (few in number), statistics and narrative text. These questions differed from the usual examination questions placed at the end of a book or at the end of each chapter; they were questions to engender thinking about the data presented, or to develop a skill rather than asking for recall of information. Such questions bore some resemblance to the application exercises found in mathematics or modern language textbooks: they were part of the process of learning. But books of this type were, at the turn of the century, few in number compared with those that just presented information. Further they originated from natural scientists such as Gregory, rather than geographers such as Herbertson and Mackinder.

To sum up, the origins of the ideas contained in late-19th and early-20th century geography textbooks are derived firstly from an early form of environmental determinism which accorded well with the political ambiance of the times, modified to a limited extent by the possibilist views of embryonic university geographers; secondly from a scientific paradigm which stressed careful observation, recording and interpretation; thirdly from Herbertson's attempt to divide the world into 'natural regions'; and finally from a nascent geographical education pedagogy which espoused the small region as the base from which the process of geographical enquiry in schools should start. Any sampling of the textbooks at the turn of the century reveals works which manifest some or all elements of these traditions.

I should to thank the referee and Dr. Frances Slater whose comments and advice proved useful and stimulating, and the staff of the Institute of Education library who dealt with my many requests to obtain old textbooks from the depository.

Notes

1. Michael, I. Early Textbooks of English (1993).

2. Apple M. W. The Political Economy of Text Publishing (1989).

3. Allford, G. R. The Development of Geography Textbooks used in England before 1902 (1964).

4. Jay, L. J., ‘Books for Schools: New Titles and Trends’. Geography, 49 (3) (1964).

5. Cox, B. ‘Textbooks for Secondary School Geography’. Journal of Geography Teachers’ Association of Queensland, 4 (1967), pp. 61-69.

6. Marchant, E. C. (ed.) Geography Teaching and the Revision of Geography Textbooks and Atlases (1967).

7. Graves, N. J. Information on European Countries in British School Geography Textbooks.

8. Wright, D. Applied Textbook Research in Geography (1988).

9. Rosen, H. The Language of Textbooks (1967).

10. Milburn, D. Children’s Vocabulary (1972).

11. Marsden W. E. ‘The Language of Geography Textbooks: An Historical Appraisal’. Westminster Studies in Education, 2, 1979

12. Slater, F. Language and Learning in the Teaching of Geography (1989).

13. Williams, M. (ed.) Language Teaching and Learning 2: Geography (1981).

14. Gilbert, Impotent Image (1984).

15. Wright, D. ‘In Black and White Racist Bias in Textbooks’. Geographical Education, 5(1), 1985.

16. Hicks, D. Images of the World: What Do Geography Textbooks Really Teach about Development? (1981); Kent, A. (ed.) Bias in Geographical Education (1982); Fien, J. ‘Bias in Geography Textbooks: A Review’. Research in Geographical Education, 2 (1983).

17. Marsden, W. E . ‘Continuity and Change in Geography Textbooks: Perspectives from the 1930s to the 1960’s’. Geography, 73, pt. 4, 1988.

18. Walford, R. ‘On the Frontiers with the New Model Army: Geography Publishing from the 1960s to the 1990s’. Geography, 74, Pt. 4, 1989.

19. Walford, R. ‘Geographical Textbooks 1930-1990: The Strange Case of the Disappearing Text’. Paradigm, No. 18 (1995)

20. Lidstone, J. G. (a) ‘What Are We Really Teaching? Pupil Perception on a Textbook-based Geography Course’ Research in Geographical Education, 1981; (b) A Study of the Use of Geography Textbooks by selected Teachers in English Secondary Schools (1985).

21. Van Leeuwen, T. Learning to Look through a Geographer’s Eyes (1993).

22. Verduin-Muller, H. S. Serving the Knowledge-based Society (1993).

23. Slater, F. People and Environments (1986).

24. Davis, R. The Grammar School (1967).

25. Gregory, D. Ideology, Science and Human Geography (1978).

26. Freshfield, D. The Place of Geography in Education (1886)

27. Jay, L. J. Douglas Freshfield’s Contribution to Geographical; Education (1980).

28. Geikie, A. Elementary Geography of the British Isles (1893 ed.), p. 7.

29. Gregory, R. A. An Elementary Physical and Astronomical Geography (1891).

30. Gregory, R. A. The Planet Earth as an Astronomical Introduction to Geography (1894).

31. Armytage, W. H. G. Sir Richard Gregory: His Life and Work (1957).

32. Mill, H. R. Elementary Commercial Geography (1894).

33. Meiklejohn, J. M. D. A New Geography of the Comparative Method (1892).

34. Wanklyn, H. Friedrich Ratzel: A Biographical Memoir (1961).

35. Peet, R. ‘The Social Origins of Environmental Determinism’. Annuals of the Association of American Geographers, 753 (1985), pp. 309-333.

36. Mackinder, H. J. ‘The Scope and Methods of Geography’. Proc. of the R.G.S., 9, 1887.

37. Keltie, J. S. ‘Geographical Education -- Report to the Council of the R. G. S.’. Supplementary Papers, 1, Part 4, 1886.

38. Mackinder, H. J. ‘The Scope and Methods of Geography’ (1887).

39. Mackinder, H. J. Britain and the British Seas (1902).

40. Mackinder, H. J. Our Own Islands (1906); Lands Beyond the Channel (1908); Distant Lands (1910); The Nations of the Modern World (1911); The Modern British State (1912); Our Island History (1914).

41. Gilbert, E. W. ‘Andrew John Herbertson 1865-1915: An Appreciation of his Life and Work’. Geography, 50, 1965.

42. Graves, N. J. Geography in Education (3rd edn. 1984).

43. Brooks, L. A Regional Geography of Asia and Australia (1935; 1st. edn. 1916).

44. Morley Davis, A. A Geography of the British Isles Part II Scotland and Ireland (1909; 1st. ed. 1904).

45. Brown, W. C. and Johnson P. H. The Home of Man: Part III, section I: North and Central America (1914).

46. Hughes W. (Revised by R. A. Gregory) An Elementary Classbook of Physical Geography (1904).

47. Fairgrieve, J., Geography in School (1926).

 

References

Allford, G. R. The Development of Geography Textbooks Used in England Before 1902. M.A. thesis, University of Leeds, 1964.

Apple, M. W 'The Political Economy of Text Publishing'. In S. De Castell, A. Luke and C. Luke (eds), Language, Authority, and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook (Falmer Press, 1989).

Armytage, W. H. G. Sir Richard Gregory: His Life and Work (Macmillan, 1957).

Cox, B. 'Textbooks for Secondary School Geography'. Journal of Geography Teachers' Association of Queensland, 4 (1967), pp. 61-69; also in D. S. Biddle and C. E. Deer (eds), Readings in Geographical Education, Vol. II (Whitcombe and Tombs, 1973).

Davis, R. The Grammar School (Penguin Books, 1967).

Fairgrieve, J. Geography in School (University of London Press, 1926).

Fien, J. 'Bias in Geography Textbooks: A Review'. In J. Fien, R. Gerber, K. Laws and P. Wilson (eds), Research in Geographical Education, 2 (Australian Geographical Education Research Association, 1983).

Freshfield, D. 'The Place of Geography in Education'. Proc. of the Royal Geographical Society, 8 (1886).

Geikie, A. Teaching of Geography (Macmillan, 1887).

Gilbert, E. W. 'Andrew John Herbertson 1865-1915: An Appreciation of his Life and Work'. Geography, 50 (1965).

Gilbert, R. The Impotent Image: Reflections of Ideology in the Secondary School Curriculum (FaImer Press, 1984).

Graves, N. J. Geography in Education (Heinemann, 3rd edn.,1984).

Graves, N. J. 'Information on European Countries in British School Geography Text Books'. In De Vecchis (ed.), The Teaching of Geography in a Changing Europe (Publicazioni della Cattedra di Geografia, Libera Universita "Maria Assunta", 1991).

Gregory, D. Ideology, Science and Human Geography (Hutchinson, 1978).

Herbertson, A. J. 'The Major Natural Regions'. Geographical Journal, 25 (1905).

Hicks, D. 'Images of the World: What do Geography Text-books Really Teach about Development?’. Cambridge Journal of Education, XI (1981).

Jay, L. J. 'Douglas Freshfield's Contribution to Geographical Education'. In W. E. Marsden (ed.), Historical Perspectives on Geographical Education (International Geographical Union/University of London Institute of Education, 1980).

Jay, L. J. ‘Books for Schools: New Titles and Trends'. Geography, 49 (3) (July, 1964).

Keltie, J. S. 'Geographical Education' [Report to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society] Royal Geographical Society Supplementary Papers, 1 Pt. 4 (1886).

Kent, A. (ed.) Bias in Geographical Education (Dept. of Geography, University of London Institute of Education, 1982).

van Leeuwen, T. 'Learning to Look Through a Geographer's Eyes'. Paper delivered at the Conference on Pedagogic Text Analysis, University of Joensuu, 1993.

Lidstone, J. G. 'What Are We Really Teaching? Pupil Perception on a Text Book Based Geography Course'. In P. Wilson, R. Gerber and J. Fien (eds), Research in Geographical Education (Australian Geographical Education Research Association, 1981).

Lidstone, J. G. A Study of the Use of Geography Text Books by Selected Teachers in English Secondary Schools. Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 1985.

Mackinder, H. J. 'The Scope and Methods of Geography'. Proc. Royal Geographical Society, 9 (1887).

Marchant, E. C. (ed.) Geography Teaching and the Revision of Geography Textbooks and Atlases (Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe, 1967).

Marsden, W. E. 'The Language of the Geography Text-book: An Historical Appraisal'. Westminster Studies in Education, 2 (1979).

Marsden, W. E. ‘Continuity and Change in Geography Textbooks: Perspectives from the 1930s to the 1960s'. Geography, 73 (4) (1988).

Marsden, W. E. ‘Rooting Racism into the Educational Experience of Childhood and Youth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'. History of Education, 19 (4) (1990).

Michael, I. Early Textbooks of English (Colloquium on Textbooks, Schools and Society, 1993)

Milburn, D. ‘Children’s Vocabulary'. In N. Graves (ed.) New Movements in the Study and Teaching of Geography (Temple Smith, 1972).

Peet, R 'The Social Origins of Environmental Determinism'. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 75 (3) (1985).

Rosen, H. 'The Language of Textbooks'. In A. Cashdan and E. Grudgeon (eds), Language in Education: a Source Book (Routledge and Kegan Paul/Open University Press, 1967).

Slater, F. ( ed.) Language and Learning in the Teaching of Geography (Routledge, 1989).

Vaughan, J. E. 'William Hughes, FRGS (1818-1876) as Geographical Educationist’. In W. E. Marsden (ed.) Historical Perspectives on Geographical Education (IGU Commission on Geographical Education: University of London Institute of Education, 1980)

Verduin-Muller, H. S. 'Serving the Knowledge-based Society: Research on Knowledge Products'. Netherlands Geographical Studies, no. 123 (1991).

Walford, R. 'On the Frontiers with the New Model Army: Geography Publishing from the 1960s to the 1990s'. Geography, 74 (4) (1989).

Walford, R. Geographical Textbooks 1930-1990: The Strange Case of the Disappearing Text'. Paradigm, no. 18 (December, 1995).

Wanklyn, H. Friedrich Ratzel: A Biographical Memoir and Bibliography (Cambridge University Press, 1961).

Williams, M. (ed.) Language Teaching and Learning 2: Geography (Ward Lock Educational, 1981)

Wright, D. R. ‘In Black and White: Racist Bias in Textbooks'. Geog. Education, 5 (1) (1985)

Wright, D. R. 'Applied Textbook Research in Geography'. In R. Gerber and J. Lidstone (eds), Developing Skills in Geographical Education (IGU Commission on Geographical Education and Jacaranda Press, 1988)

References to Textbooks

Blandford, H. F. An Elementary Geography of India, Burma and Ceylon (Macmillan, 1904) [First edition 1890].

Brooks, L. A Regional Geography of Asia and Australia (University of London Press, 1935) [First edition 1916].

Brown, W. C. and Johnson, R H. The Home of Man :Part III, Section I: North and Central America (Harrap, 1914).

Geikie, A. An Elementary Geography of the British Isles (Macmillan, 1893) [First edition 1888].

Gill, G. The Oxford and Cambridge Geography (Geo. Gill & Sons, 1881)

Gill, G. The Students’ Geography: Physical and Descriptive, Industrial and Commercial, Political and Social, Etymological and Historical (Geo. Gill & Sons,1891)

Gregory, R. A. An Elementary Physical and Astronomical Geography (Joseph Hughes & Co., 2nd. ed. 1891).

Gregory, R. A. The Planet Earth as an Astronomical Introduction to Geography (Macmillan, 1894).

Hughes, W. (Revised by R. A. Gregory) An Elementary Classbook of Physical Geography (George Philip, 1904).

Mackinder, H. J. Britain and the British Seas (Oxford University Press, 1902).

Mackinder, H. J. Our Own Islands (George Philip, 1906).

Mackinder, H. J. Lands Beyond the Channel (George Philip,1908).

Mackinder, H. J. Distant Lands (George Philip,1910).

Mackinder, H. J. The Nations of the Modern World (George Philip, 1911).

Mackinder, H. J. The Modern British State (George Philip, 1912).

Mackinder, H. J. Our Island History (George Philip, 1914).

Meiklejohn, J. M. D. A New Geography On The Comparative Method (Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 6th. edn., 1892).

Mill, H. R. Elementary Commercial Geography (Cambridge University Press 2nd. edn., 1894).

Morley Davis, A. A Geography of the British Isles: Part II: Scotland and Ireland (Macmillan, 1909) [First edition 1904).

Simmons, A. T and Stenhouse, E. A Classbook of Physical Geography (Macmillan, 1927).

Slater, F. People and Environments (Collins, 1986).