It is curious to note that one destined to become a great traveller and
explorer should have found the study of geography "a painful subject."
But this was, as he afterwards understood, entirely due to the method of
teaching then, and sometimes now, in vogue, which made no appeal
whatever to the imagination by creating a mental picture of the peoples
and nations, or the varied wonders and beauties of nature which
distinguish one country from another. "No interesting facts were ever
given, no accounts of the country by travellers were ever read, no good
maps ever given us, nothing but the horrid stream of unintelligible
place names to be learnt." The only subjects in which he considered that
he gained some valuable grounding at school were Latin, arithmetic, and
writing.
This estimate of the value of the grammar-school teaching is echoed in
Darwin's own words when describing his school days at precisely the same
age at Shrewsbury Grammar School, where, he says, "the school as a means
of education to me was simply a blank." It is therefore interesting to
notice, side by side, as it were, the occupation which each boy found
for himself out of school hours, and which in both instances proved of
immense value in their respective careers in later life.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32