Some easy problems may be given to the senior classes to be answered by reference to physical conditions: 

Why are London, New York, Chicago, Montreal, and Halifax, such important centres?  Why are certain places fitted for certain manufactures?  Will Winnipeg become a more important city than Montreal?  Will Vancouver outstrip San Francisco?  What is a possible future for the Western Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan?  What might have been the state of North America to-day, if the Rocky Mountains had run along the East coast, instead of along the West?

On the other hand, history contributes a human interest to geography; the places of greatest interest are often those associated with great events in history—­Athens, Mount Sinai, Waterloo, Queenston Heights.

HISTORY AND LITERATURE

Literature gives life and human interest to both history and geography.  By means of literature we are able to get a better notion of the ideals and motives of a people than the mere recital of the facts of their history can give.  In this connection we naturally think of Homer’s Iliad and its influence on the Greeks.  It was their storehouse of history, morals, religion, aesthetics, and rules for the practical guidance of life, as well as their literary masterpiece.

It is often easy to interest pupils in a period of history by reading or quoting to them some ballad, poem, or prose narrative that colours the historical facts with the element of human feeling.  Macaulay’s Horatius gives a deeper impression of Roman patriotism than almost anything in pure history can; the various aspects of the Crusades are vividly shown by W. Stearns Davis in God Wills It, a story of the first Crusade.  In fact, if stirring events can be linked in the child’s mind with stirring verse, if the struggles and progress of nations can be presented in a vigorous narrative that echoes the thoughts, feelings, and interests of the time, we make an appeal to the interest of the pupil that is almost irresistible.  The objection is sometimes urged against the reading of standard historical tales and novels, that these are somewhat exaggerated in sentiment and inaccurate in facts.  Even if this be so, it may be said that they give in outline a fair picture of the period described, that the interest in history aroused by such tales begets a liking for history itself, and that such exaggerations and inaccuracies are soon corrected when the pupil begins to read history.

The course of history has been modified by songs, ballads, and stories.  The influence on the national spirit and ideals of songs such as Rule Britannia and The Marseillaise, of stories such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, of novels such as those of Dickens and of Charles Reade is incalculable.

A few poems and prose compositions are given here as suggestions; a fuller list may be found in Allen’s Reader’s Guide to English History, Ginn & Co., 30c.