During the past year an artist, Mr. A. Hugh Fisher, has been travelling through India collecting material for the Committee, and it is hoped that before another twelve months have elapsed a course of lectures on that country, well illustrated by means of the lantern, may be published. Ceylon, Somaliland, and Cyprus have also been visited, and Mr. Fisher is now in Canada, and will presently go to the Far Eastern Colonies. Other parts of the Empire will be dealt with successively, and in the course of three or four years, the Committee intend to have available for purchase by public educational authorities and others a complete survey of the Empire, uniform in method. Their hope is that with the aid of the various Governments and the kindness of many official and private friends, they may put together a series of illustrations rich in colour, suggestive of life and incident, and artistic in composition. I shall be responsible for the letterpress, and in that work hope to have the assistance of the Directors of Education in the several Dominions and Colonies. The Committee trust that in this way they may succeed in presenting in their relative importance and proportion all the chief facts essential to the popular understanding of the Empire. H. J. MACKINDER. LONDON, _December, 1908_. PREFACE TO THE INDIAN EDITION. The object of these Lectures, and of the lantern slides which accompany them, is to give to the school children of India, through their eyes as well as their ears, a true and simple impression of what the United Kingdom and its people are like. If this intention has in any degree been realised, it is probable that with some modification of the form of the lectures the interest of adults may also be aroused. The changes necessary to suit particular circumstances may be introduced in the process of translation into the vernacular. In regard to children, each lecture may well supply several hours’ lessons, being meant as the text for teaching, and a guide as to the method of teaching, and not simply to be repeated word for word in a single hour.