Hasty and superficial observation of objects presented for inspection always calls for severe criticism; else collections and experiments become valueless. Nor should objects be shown too lavishly; pupils must often be told beforehand what they will have to look for. Frequently it may serve the purpose to employ successively good descriptions, pictures, and direct observation. CHAPTER IV =Geography= 263. As to geography, at least two courses may be distinguished. One of these is analytic and begins with the pupil’s immediate neighborhood, the topography of the place, while the other starts with the globe. Here only the former will be discussed, as the latter can be had directly from good text-books. =Note.=--The usual method of taking the globe as the point of departure would be less open to criticism, if, in order to render the conception of the earth’s sphericity more intelligible, attention were directed to the shape of the moon, the observation being carried on occasionally with the aid of a telescope. But even if this is done, it still remains a blunder to substitute the faint and vague idea of a huge ball for direct perception. Equally injudicious is the plan of beginning with Portugal and Spain. That spot where pupils and teacher are at the moment is the point from which the pupils must take their bearings, and in thought extend their horizon. It will never do to pass over the natural starting-points provided by sense-perception. Had the note to this section been properly heeded, we should not have had to wait for fifty years after Herbart’s death before witnessing the present rational methods of applying geographical science to elementary education. It is the proud boast of the modern elementary geography that it begins with a study of the pupil’s actual environment. The term _home geography_ has now become a familiar one. It signifies that the pupil is taught to observe the geographical elements as they exist in his own neighborhood. He studies hills, watercourses, soil, woods, lakes, together with the industrial phenomena that come within the reach of his investigation. Upon this primary sense-basis he rears the structure of his geographical knowledge.