And so indeed she contrived to make it. She had brought a magic lantern
to school with her, and used it for most of her lessons, arranging thick
curtains to darken the windows. She had a selection of good slides
showing many different countries, and when her pupils were somewhat
accustomed to these she would test their knowledge by exhibiting one and
asking them where it was, whether in a hot or cold country, what kind of
people lived in such a place, what fruits, flowers, and animals would be
found there, and for what reasons British traders went to it. If the
girls made mistakes she would show them again the particular slides
relating to the place, explaining where they had been wrong, and taking
them, by means of the eye, on a short foreign tour.
"Imagine you're there and you'll feel quite travellers!" she would say.
"Now on this slide you notice a little pathway up the hill among some
trees. If you could walk up that path what would you be likely to find?
What language would the people, whom you met, speak? And how would they
be dressed?"
Geography on these lines became very attractive, and, as in the case of
the history lessons, the girls eagerly looked out all kinds of points in
books of reference so as to come to class armed with information about
the birds, flowers, or native customs of some particular country. By
visualising the place, imagining themselves to be there, and relating all
they saw, they created such vivid mental pictures that they could almost
believe they had spent the hour really in Africa or South America, as the
case might be.
"You'd know what clothes to take with you to India or Canada at any
rate," said Miss Mitchell, "and what sort of a life you must be prepared
to live there. Before the term is over I think you'll realise what
British women are doing all over the globe. Climatic conditions have an
immense effect upon people and ought to be properly understood. The
knowledge of these is the foundation of the brotherhood of races."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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