The  more  thoroughly  these  exercises  are  carried  out,  the  better  equipped
will  the  scholars  be  for  all  late  geographic  study.  The  mental  images  aroused
by  geographic  terms  will  be  vivid  and  accurate.  Maps  of  foreign  countries
can  be  better  read.  The  geographic  scenery  of  history  will  be  truer  to  nature.
All  the  efifort  that  the  work  may  cost  will  be  repaid  by  the  close  approach
that  it  enables  the  scholars  to  make  toward  the  real  facts  of  the  world.
Accurate  ideas  concerning  the  geography  of  the  state  are  gained  in  this
way:  the  study  of  geography  becomes  essentially  scientific  in  character,  as  it
should  be.  The  information  gained  is  useful;  the  training  gained  is  educa-
tive. It  is  manifest  that  familiarity  with  the  features  of  the  home  district
gained  by  actual  observation  is  the  essential  foundation  for  work  of  this  kind.
Relation  of  surface  features  to  occupation  by  man.    From

the  time  of  the  first  occupation  of  the  state,  its  people  have  been
constantly  influenced  in  their  selection  of  places  for  settlement,  in
their  subsequent  purchases  of  land  from  one  another,  in  their  occu-
pations and  in  their  movement  from  place  to  place,  by  the  geographic
features  that  they  observed  about  them.  There  has  been  a  reason,
a  cause,  for  every  item  of  boundary,  location,  movement,  or  indus-
try; and  a  large  share  of  the  reason  or  cause  has  been  geographic.
The  scholars  should  therefore  be  led  during  the  progress  of  the
observational,  physiographic,  and  comparative  studies  above  out-
lined, to  perceive  the  character  of  the  various  geographic  influences
by  which  settlement,  occupation,  etc.   have  been  determined.
