The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 6, December 1837Various
History
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 6, December 1837
Various
Periodicals
A great improvement was supposed to have been made, some years since,
in geography, by a new method of classification and arrangement.
The subjects on which it treats were associated according to their
relation to each other, and not according to their relation to a
particular country. Thus, a chapter would be devoted to colleges,
and these institutions would be treated of in connection with each
other, throughout the world, instead of being separately treated
of, when the particular country in which they are 'located' was
under consideration. The author of this system was Mr. WILLIAM C.
WOODBRIDGE, and his larger work contains, perhaps, a greater variety
of valuable matter than any work on the subject, of equal size, in
the language. His geography has had a circulation sufficiently wide
to satisfy a reasonable ambition, or even cupidity itself. But it is
questionable whether his system of classification is, after all, the
best. One principle of association is laid hold of, while another and
more important principle of association is abandoned. Location of
place is every thing in geography; and an association of particular
facts with the country to which they belong, is more important than
an association of these facts with similar facts, in other parts of
the world. After an abundant trial of this plan, it is believed that
public opinion is reverting back to the old method of classification.
Other geographies, on a different plan, have in a considerable
measure superseded Woodbridge's smaller geography, while as yet no
work has been produced on a different plan, which has sufficient
merit to occupy the place of his larger geography, unless the recent
work of Bradford, taken chiefly from Balbi's Geography, be of this
character. This work will be found to be exceedingly rich in its
materials, and peculiarly lucid in its arrangement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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