Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV GEOGRAPHY OF FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES —TYPE STUDIES OF NORTH AMERICA — ILLUSTRATIONS The lessons of the fifth and sixth grades are mainly devoted to a study of the United States and North America. In addition to this the historical stories relating to Europe call for the explanation of a number of large and important geographical topics, while mathematical geography in the latter part of the sixth grade brings into prominence some of those more difficult problems of the earth's motions, the changing seasons, latitude and longitude, which need to be clearly mastered. The importance of the full study of the United States and of North America as a whole at this stage of the course needs to be clearly demonstrated. It is the second of the four great stages in geographical study. I. The first reason that may be assigned for this emphasis of the United States is that it is the one country above all that we need to thoroughly understand. We shall have more dealings with it in all sorts of ways than with all the other countries combined, and these dealings have to do with the essential labors and pleasures of life. An understanding of the physical and social conditions that surround us in America is fundamental to any intelligent and practical appreciation of our duties and opportunities as citizens of the world. 2. Again the United States is not a small and secluded corner of the world, where only a few things come to light. We are almost in the centre of the highways of the world, and there is displayed about us a great profusion of the most instructive and delectable geographical topics. Our wide-spreading plains and forests, our canals and rivers, mountains and lakes, our varieties of climate, coast-line and products, our cities, and teeming industrial life, fu...