His successors, Cummings, Worcester, and others
abandoned that scientific arrangement and introduced the learners to
political and descriptive geography. Moreover, their teaching of
physical geography was devoted to definitions to be learned by rote.
Many of the text-books in use in the schools were framed upon similar
erroneous ideas. The first sentence in Murray's Grammar was a
definition of the science, and was in fact, the conclusion deduced
from a full knowledge of the subject.
George B. Emerson, who was one of our teachers, gave a great impetus to
the art of teaching grammar. He discarded books, and beginning with an
object, as a bell or an orange, he would give a child at the age of
twelve years a very good knowledge of the science in six lessons of an
hour each. Dr. Lowell Mason was a teacher in the institutes during my
entire period of service, although he offered to retire on account of
age. He was an excellent teacher, and in the art practically, perhaps,
the best of all. Professor William Russell was the teacher of
elocution. His recitations were good, as were his criticisms on
language, but as a teacher, he had not a high rank. After the
retirement of Professor Agassiz, I employed Sanborn Tenney, a young man
of great industry and enthusiasm. He had in him the promise of a
great career in natural science, but he died prematurely in the State
of Michigan while upon a lecturing tour.
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