Logically one may begin geography with Space, the Solar System, our rotating globe, the oceans and the continents, and so on; but children may do better by beginning at the other end with maps of places where they live. I have sent Lustleigh school a map of Lustleigh, 6 ft. wide and 4 ft. high, Ordnance Survey, 25 inches to the mile, or one square inch for each square acre, with the acreage of all the fields and gardens printed on them. On that map the children see their homes and other things they know; and having seen how these are mapped, they get a better notion of what maps really mean. A map is easily misunderstood. At one point the Bosporos is less than half a mile in width--no wider than the estuary of the Teign--and thus would be invisible on ordinary maps unless its width was much exaggerated. With this exaggeration and different colouring on each side, the maps make people think there is a great gulf fixed between the Europeans and the Asiatics there; whereas, as all Levantines say, Europe really ends at the Balkans. Another of those school-books says that the beginning of a letter (my dear So-and-so) is to be called the Salutation, and the address is to be called the Superscription. That is a pretty bit of pedantry for a village school. It also says that words of opposite meaning, such as ‘far’ and ‘near,’ are known as Antonyms. That is jargon, and quite wrong. (Antonyms could only be produced by antonomasia, and therefore would be substituted words, like ‘Carthaginis Eversor’ for Scipio and ‘Iron Duke’ for Wellington.) The authors of those books all claim experience in the art of teaching; but that does not make up for their imperfect knowledge of the subjects they have taught. What is the good of teaching children that the reign of George the Third “was marked by disaster and disgrace”? They have heard of Trafalgar and of Waterloo. Yet one of their school-books says this. Another one says that Edward the First gave England “a Parliament in which all classes were represented.” The serfs were far the largest class: they were not represented at all; and very few of the free men had any voice in choosing representatives. When children are learning about England and its place in Europe and the World, they might as well be taught that English is an Aryan language, and that all Aryan languages have grown from the same roots, whereas Semitic languages are of another growth. ‘What do they know of England who only England know?’ Change ‘England’ into ‘English,’ and the answer is the same. Children could be taught Grimm’s Law which shows how words assume a different shape in different languages. They need not learn the languages: merely a few words on a list to give them mastery of their mother tongue. Time would be better spent on this than on their physical drill, a thing for children in a slummy town but quite superfluous here.