Notes on German Schools, with Special Relation to Curriculum and Methods of Teaching

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...and the boy who was to answer was selected afterwards. I mention this because of its divergence from the usual custom, so far as I had hitherto observed. Frankfort.--Primary School. Class I.a.--Geography. Boys, aged thirteen to fourteen years. The geography lesson was regularly given by the head teacher. A large map of the Balkan Peninsula hung before the class. Teacher. What does the map show? Pupils then came out before the class and pointed out boundaries, mountains, rivers, &c. The noteworthy points were the readiness with which they named the natural features and the connected form into which they threw their statements. But when, and how, did they learn the names? They did not, I was told, learn them from their books, but at the close of each lesson on a new country the most important names, carefully spelt, were entered by the pupils in a little geography note book, and, with the aid of the atlas, which every boy possessed, he prepared himself for repetition at the next school lesson. One boy, who came to the front of the class, was able to continue his information for two or three minutes. Another boy was unable to proceed without suggestions from the teacher, such as, What is this river flowing round here? Show me the river. How is this country divided? Meanwhile a boy was drawing a rough coastline on the blackboard. This, however, was not used, and another boy drew a sketch map of the mountains and rivers only. More descriptions were given from the sketch map by selected boys, thus: --The river rises in, flows in such a direction, and receives the tributary on its left bank; then making a great bend it passes, and finally empties itself into through a delta. (The account here is much abbreviated.)...