作者：维吉尔·Ｍ·希利尔
出版社：天津人民出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
写给学生的世界地理：A CHILD’S GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD(英文版)试读：
INTRODUCTION
This book is for the child who: thinks heaven is in the sky and hell is under the ground; has never heard of London or Paris and thinks a Dane is a kind of dog. It is to give a traveler’s view of the World—but not a commercial traveler’s view. It is to show the child what is beyond the horizon, from “Kalamazoo to Timbuktu.” It is to show him not only “the Seven Wonders of the World” but the seventy times Seven Wonders of the World. When-I-was-a-boy in New England we had for Thanksgiving six kinds of pie: apple, peach, cranberry, custard, mince, and pumpkin, but I was allowed to have only two kinds and I never could make a satisfactory choice. I have had the same difficulty in selecting geographical places and subjects to tell about. There are too many “most important” places in the World to be included in this first survey, and there will inevitably be those readers who will wonder why certain countries and certain places have been omitted, especially the place where the reader may live.To me, as a child, geography was a bugbear of repellent names—Climate and Commerce, Manufactures and Industries, and products, products, PRODUCTS. It seemed that the chief products of every place in the World were corn, wheat, barley, rye; or rye, barley, wheat, corn; or barley, corn, rye, wheat. In my geography modern Greece had but a paragraph—because, I suppose, it did not produce wheat, corn, barley, rye. Geography was a “stomach” geography; the “head” and “heart” were left out.I loved the geography pictures and maps but hated the text. Except for an occasional descriptive or narrative paragraph the text was wholly unreadable—a confused jumble of headings and sub-headings and sub-sub-headings: Home Work, NOTES, Map Studies, Suggestions to Teachers, Helps, Directions, Questions, REVIEWS, Problems, Exercises, Recitations, LESSONS, Picture Studies, etc., etc., etc.The World was an orange when I went to school, and there were only three things I can remember that I ever learned “for sure”—that the Dutch children wore wooden shoes, the Eskimos lived in snow houses, and the Chinese ate with chopsticks.We had a question and answer catechism which we learned as we did the multiplication tables. The teacher read from her book:Q. “What is the condition of the people of the United States?” and a thirteen-year-old boy in the next seat answered glibly: A. “They are poor and ignorant and live in miserable huts.” At which astounding statement the teacher unemotionally remarked, “No, that’s the answer to the next question, ‘What is the condition of the Eskimos?’”When my turn came to teach geography to beginners nine years of age, I found the available textbooks either too commercial and industrial, on the one hand, or too puerile and inconsequential, on the other. Statistics and abstractions were entirely beyond the ken of the child of nine, and random stories of children in other countries had little value as geography.As I had been a traveler for many years, had visited most of the countries of the Globe, and in actual mileage had been five times the distance around the World, I thought I would write a geography myself. Vain conceit! A class would listen with considerable attention to my extemporaneous travel talks, so I had a stenographer take down these talks verbatim. But when I read these notes of the same talk to another class, then it was that I discovered a book may be good—until it is written. So I’ve had to try, try again and again, for children’s reactions can never be forecast. Neither can one tell without trial what children will or will not understand. Preconceived notions of what words they should or should not know are worthless: “Stupendous and appalling” presented no difficulties whatever but much simpler words were misunderstood.I had been reading to a class from an excellent travel book for children. The author said, “We arrived, tired and hungry, and found quarters in the nearest hotel.” The children understood “found quarters” to mean that the travelers had picked up 25-cent pieces in the hotel! Then again I had been describing the “Bridge of Sighs,” in Venice, and picturing the condemned prisoners who crossed it. Casually I asked if any one could tell me why it was called the “Bridge of Sighs”. One boy said, “Because it is of big size.” A little girl, scorning his ignorance, said, “Because it has sides.” A boy from the country, with a far-fetched imagination, suggested it might be because they used “scythes”; and a fourth child said, “Because it belonged to a man named ‘Cy.’”The study of maps is interesting to almost all children. A map is like a puzzle picture—but new names are hard. And yet geography without either name or place is not geography at all. It is only fairyland. The study of maps and names is therefore absolutely essential and large wall maps most desirable.Geography lends itself admirably to research on the part of the child. A large scrap-book arranged by countries may easily be filled with current pictorial news, clippings from magazines and Sunday newspapers, and from the circulars of travel bureaus. There is a wealth of such scrap-book material almost constantly being published—pictures of temples in India, pagodas in China, wild animal hunts in Africa, parks in Paris—from which the child can compile his own Geographic Magazine. Furthermore, the collection of stamps offers a most attractive field, particularly for the boy just reaching the age when such collections are as absorbing as an adult hobby.Of course, the best way to learn geography is by travel but not like that of the business man who landed in Rome with one hour to see the city. Jumping into a taxi and referring to a slip of paper, he said: “There are only two things I want to see here—St. Peter’s and the Colosseum. Drive to them as fast as you can and back to the station.” He was accordingly driven to St. Peter’s. Sticking his head out of the window he said to the driver, “Well, which is this?”In the little town where I was born, there lived an old, old man whose chief claim to distinction was the fact that he had never in his whole life been ten miles away from home. Nowadays travel is so easy that every child may look forward to traveling some day. This book is to give him some inkling of what there is to see, so that his travel may not be as meaningless as that of the simple sailor who goes round the world and returns with nothing but a parrot and a string of glass beads. “ALL ABOARD!” When-I-was-a-boy, my nurse used to take me to the railroad station to see the trains. A man in a blue cap and blue suit with brass buttons would call, “All aboard for Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and points north and east!” and wave his arm for the train to start. My nurse said he was a conductor.So when I went home I used to put on a cap and play conductor shouting, “All aboard for Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and points north and east!” over and over, again and again, until I was told, “For pity sake, stop it!”But some day I hoped, when I grew up, to be a real conductor in a blue cap and a blue suit with brass buttons. And now that I am grown up, I am still playing conductor, for in this book I am going to take you to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and points north, east, south and west—round the World! a child’s geography of the world begins here 01 The World Through a Spy-Glass You have never seen your own face.This may surprise you and you may say it isn’t so—but it is so.You may see the end of your nose.You may even see your lips if you pout out—so.If you stick out your tongue you may see the tip of it.But you can’t go over there, outside of yourself, and look at your own face.Of course you know what your face looks like, because you have seen it in a mirror; but that’s not yourself—it’s only a picture of yourself.And in the same way no one of us can see our own World—all of it—this World on which we live.You can see a little bit of the World just around you—and if you go up into a high building you can see still more—and if you go up to the top of a high mountain you can see still, still more—and if you go up in an airplane you can see still, still, still more.But to see the Whole World you would have to go much higher than that, higher than any one has ever been able to go or could go. You would have to go far, far above the clouds; way, way off in the sky where the stars are—and no one can do that, even in an airplane.Now you cannot see the World in a mirror as you can see your face. So how do we know what the World looks like ?A fish in the sea might tell her little fish, “The World is all water—just a huge tub; I’ve been everywhere and I know.” Of course, she wouldn’t know anything different.A camel in the desert might tell her little camels, “The World is all sand—just a huge sand pile; I’ve been everywhere and I know.”A polar bear on an iceberg might tell her little polar bears, “The World is all snow and ice—just a huge refrigerator; I’ve been everywhere and I know.”A bear in the woods might tell her little bear cubs, “The World is all woods—just a huge forest; I’ve been everywhere and I know.”In the same way, once upon a time, people used to tell their little children, “The World is just a big island like a huge mud pie with some water, some sand, some ice, and some trees on it, and with a cover we call the sky over us all; we’ve been everywhere and we know.”When some inquisitive child asked, “What does the flat World like a mud pie rest on?” they really truly said, “It rests on the backs of four elephants.”But when the inquisitive child asked, “And what do the elephants stand on?” they really truly said, “On a big turtle.”Then when the inquisitive child asked, “What does the turtle stand on?” no one could say—for no one could even guess farther than that—so the turtle was left standing—on nothing.That’s the old story that parents long ago used to tell their children as to what the World was like. But just suppose you could go way, way off above the clouds; way, way off in the sky, sit on a corner of nothing at all, dangle your feet over the edge and look down at the World far, far below. What do you suppose it would really look like? I know—and yet I have never been there.The World from way off in the sky and through a spy-glass would look just like a full moon—round and white; not round like a plate, but round like a huge snowball. Not exactly white, either, but bright—for the sun shines on this big ball, the World, and makes it light just as the headlight on an automobile shines on the road at night and makes the road light. Of course, the sun can shine on only one side of this big ball at a time; the other side of the World is dark, but the World keeps turning round and round in the sunlight.If you looked at the World through a telescope—you know what a telescope is: one of those long spy-glasses that make things seem closer and bigger—as men look at the moon, you would see on one side of the World two big patches that look like queerly shaped shadows and on the other side of the World twice as many big patches, four queerly shaped shadows. These patches which look like shadows are really land and are called by a long name: con-ti-nents. These continents have names, and if their names were printed across them in letters a thousand miles high—which they are not—so that the man with a spy-glass could read them, he would read on one side of the WorldNORTH AMERICASOUTH AMERICAand if he waited until the World turned round, until the other side showed in the sunlight, as I’ve seen the World do in “the movies,” he would read on this continent EUROPE and on that continent ASIA and on the other continent AFRICA, and the smallest one would have the longest name, AUSTRALIA. At the very bottom would be ANTARCTICA.We call one side of a piece of money “the head,” because there is usually the head of some one on that side, and the other side we call “the tail,” as that is opposite from the head. It would be easy to tell which side of the World was which if we could call one side heads and the other tails. But there are no heads or tails on the World—only these queer shadows—so we use two big words instead of “heads” and “tails” to tell which side of the World is which. We call one side the “Western Hemisphere” and the other side we call the “Eastern Hemisphere.” Whew! Why don’t they call it something easy?—well, let’s call it “Half-a-Ball,” for that is what Hemisphere means. The Western Half-Ball has two continents and the Eastern Half-Ball has four continents.The tip top and the very bottom of the World are called the Poles, although there are no poles. Around the top and bottom Pole it would be all white—snow and ice—for the Poles are so cold ther e is snow and ice there all the time.The part of the World that isn’t patches of shadow or snow is water. The water all around the continents is the ocean, and though of course there are no walls nor fences dividing it into different parts, its different parts are called by different names.Do you know your right hand from your left? Of course you do if you’re over six years old. But do you know the west side from the east side? If you are over nine years old you should. The east is where the sun rises, the west is where it sets. And if your right hand is east, your left hand is west, your face is north and your back is south.The Atlantic Ocean is on the east side of North and South America. The Pacific Ocean is on the west. The ocean entirely in the Eastern Hemisphere is called “Indian.” No, it is not named for our Indians. At the top of the World is the Arctic Ocean. At the bottom, all around Antarctica, is the Antarctic Ocean. The Arctic and Antarctic Oceans are mostly ice, for it is so cold there the water freezes and stays frozen. If we wanted to put names on the oceans so that a man off in the sky could read them, we would have to stick huge signs in the water, as we can’t paint letters on the ocean.There is no reason why I should show you the World turned this way with North America on top. I might just as well show it upside down or sideways, for there is no upside nor downside on the World. I suppose the reason the north side is always shown on top is because the people who made maps and geographies all lived in the north part of the World and they wanted their part of the World on top.So this is our World. You may wonder, “Are there any other Worlds besides ours?” Some have guessed that there may be—that some of those sparks in the sky that look like stars at night may be other Worlds like ours with people living on them. But no one knows, for the strongest telescope is not strong enough for us to see what is on those far off sparks, so we can only guess about them. 02 The World Is Round, for I’ve Been Round It Did you ever run away from home?I did—once upon a time—when I was younger than you are.I wanted to see the World.My Mother had told me the World was a huge ball and that if I kept on, straight ahead, following my nose, I would go round the ball and come back to where I started.So early one morning, without telling any one, I set out to go around the World.But I didn’t get very far before night came on, and a big kind policeman brought me back home. When I was grown up and had no home, I started out once again to go around the World. This time I got on a train headed toward the setting sun. Night came on, but no big, kind policeman brought me back home; so I kept on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month—sometimes on trains, sometimes on boats, sometimes in automobiles, sometimes on the backs of animals—but always toward the side of the World where the sun sets, the side which the people call “the west.”I passed broad fields and thick forests, small towns and big cities—I went over bridges, round hills, and through holes in mountains—I reached a great ocean and sailed across it on a big ship to another continent—I came to strange lands where people dressed in strange clothes, lived in strange houses, and spoke strange languages; I saw strange animals, trees, and flowers; I crossed another great ocean and at last, after many, many months, always going in the same direction, I came back here to the exact spot from which I had started. So I knew the World was round, for I had been round it—but it was not round and smooth like a tennis ball, but humpety and bumpety, and so huge that it didn’t seem like a ball at all.It took me nearly half a year to go round the World—that seems like a long time, but then it was a long way—over twenty-five times a thousand miles. But others have been around the World in much faster time. The airship Graf Zeppelin flew around the World in three weeks. Two flyers took less than nine days to circle the globe in their airplane and return to their starting point, New York. An American Air Force plane flew around the World without stopping in less than four days.If a man could start out when the sun rose in the morning and keep up with it all day long, go over the side of the World when the sun set, and keep up with it on the other side of the World, he would be back again where he started the next morning. He then would have gone round the World in one day. But to do that he would have to travel over 1, 000 miles an hour to keep up with the sun for each of the twenty-four hours in a day and night.All around the outside of the World—as you probably know—is an ocean of air that covers everything on the World as the ocean of water covers everything in the sea. What you probably don’t know is that this ocean of air is wrapped only round the World—it does not fill the sky. Men and animals live in this ocean of air as fish live in the ocean of water, and if a huge giant picked you out of the air you would die just as quickly as a fish does when taken out of the sea. The air is thick near the ground but gets thin and thinner the higher up you go off the ground. That’s why airplanes can go up but a few miles high—there is not enough air to hold up the plane, for the plane must have air to rest on and for its propeller to push against, just as a boat in the water must have water to rest on and water for its propeller to push against. Or if it’s a jet plane, it must have air to feed its jet motors. An airplane could not rise beyond the ocean of air and sail off into the sky where there is no air any more than a steamship on the sea could rise out of the water and sail off up into the air.There is only one thing that men can send up high enough to travel above the ocean of air. That is a rocket, which doesn’t depend on air for its motor or to hold it up. Someday rocket ships will probably carry men on trips to the Moon or even to the planet Mars. How would you like to go exploring in a rocket ship beyond the World’s atmosphere out through empty, airless space? How would you like to be the first Man in the Moon? You wouldn’t find any living thing on the Moon, for the Moon is a dead, lifeless ball without any air on it at all. But if your rocket got to Mars you would almost certainly find some living plants—and perhaps, who knows?—even some living animals.Some mountains are so high that their tops almost stick out of the ocean of air; at least, there is so little air covering their tops that people can’t go all the way to the top unless they take along canned air to breathe.You can’t see air—you may think you can, but what you see is smoke or clouds, not air. When air is moving, we call it wind. Then you can feel it when it blows your hat off, you can hear it when it bangs the shutters and whistles round the house; but no one has ever seen air itself.The World wasn’t always as it is now. It was once a ball of fire—a huge burning ball. That was millions of years ago, and of course long before there were any people or animals or plants on the World. But试读结束[说明：试读内容隐藏了图片]