




































Nature Study and the New Geography: Pre-Incarnations of Place-Based Educational 

Theory and Practice, ~ 1890-1920 
 

Charles Joseph Elfer 

Clayton State University 

 

Abstract 

Through an exploration of the primary 

works of progressive era geography educators and 

nature study advocates, this paper identifies two 

important historical antecedents of modern place-

based curricular reform. In addition to 

systematically detailing connections between 

nature study, the new geography, and place-based 

curricular tenets, the paper discusses the ways in 

which deeper historical understanding might 

inform contemporary practice. 

 

Introduction 

Place-based education represents an 

approach to schooling in which local histories, 

geographies, sociocultural arrangements, and 

ecological systems take center stage in the 

learning process. In part or whole, the unique 

contexts and experiences in which schools are 

situated inform both the curriculum and practice 

of place-based education (see Sobel, 2004; Smith 

and Sobel, 2010). Nearing its twentieth 

anniversary as a formal, named approach to 

teaching and learning, place-based education has 

gained considerable momentum in educational 

research literature. Despite its growing popularity, 

however, place-based education is hardly a new 

approach. In fact, it is very much a reincarnation 

of several well-established educational theories 

and practices. This paper stands to clarify the 

relationship between contemporary and historical 

illustrations of place-based education through an 

examination of the developments in American 

nature study and geography education that took 

shape at the close of the nineteenth century. 

Together, nature study and the “new geography” 

provide representations of place-based 

educational ideals nearly a century in advance of 

their modern counterpart.
1 

This paper explores the 

educational writings surrounding nature study and 

the new geography in the years spanning roughly 

from 1890-1920 in an effort to bring to light two 

early localized curricula.  

By the 1890s, the nature study movement 

encompassed a range of perspectives and 

motivations. Proponents developed extended 

courses of study designed to supplement 

traditional curricular fields, primarily elementary 

science. The adoption of school garden work, 

field excursions, and student inquiry projects 

represented a general appeal toward the 

rearrangement of the student-teacher relationship, 

one in which the learner‟s experience would 

assume renewed prominence. Advocates of the 

approach called on practitioners to bring the 

surrounding home and school environment into 

the classroom. Nature study grew into an 

educational movement which exemplified many 

place-based pedagogical ideals, yet predated its 

modern counterpart by one-hundred years or 

more.  

Whereas nature study best complimented 

the science curricula and those domains most 

relevant to an investigation of the natural, 

biological environment, suggested reforms for 

geography education in the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries approached what 

American educators would ultimately come to 

regard as the social studies, encompassing those 

subject areas most appropriate to man study. Like 

nature study, however, an emphasis on the home, 

the familiar, and the local, became very much a 

part of a new geography. From Charles 

McMurry‟s discussion of home geography in the 



32 
 

mid-1890s and well beyond mid-century with 

Paul Hanna‟s “expanding communities” 

curriculum (see Stallones, 2002), educational 

reformers have historically been more than 

casually interested in the role of local contexts in 

the learning process.  

 

Framework and Method 

This study is based thoroughly within the 

notion that place-based education, though new in 

title, is actually quite mature as an approach to 

teaching and learning. Although there appears to 

be a casual awareness that place-based education 

is not an entirely new idea (see Duffin, 2005; 

Knapp, 2008; Smith and Sobel, 2010), little in the 

way of historical research on the subject is 

available currently. Two outstanding 

counterexamples to that trend are Canniff‟s 

(1998) brief foray into the County Life Movement 

(~1900-1920) and its connections to place-based 

ideals and Jayandhan‟s (2009) appraisal of the 

concept of place in the work of John Dewey. 

Most other examples of place-based educational 

literature suggest a past, yet stop far short of in-

depth or systematic evaluations, thereby 

overlooking the potentially valuable insights 

represented in the curricular past. With that in 

mind, the study also assumes much about the 

potential worth of historical research in the field 

of education, particularly curriculum historical 

work. Following Tanner (1982) and others, this 

paper assumes that there is great value, or 

“useable knowledge” (410), embedded within the 

educational/curricular past. Grounded in these 

dual assumptions, this study endeavored (a) to 

identify nature study and early twentieth century 

geography education as precursors to modern 

place-based education and (b) to comment on the 

potential value of such a determination in the 

context of contemporary place-based reforms. 

The manner in which the study situated 

nature study and the new geography as pre-

incarnations of place-based thinking also warrants 

clarification. An outgrowth of a much larger, 

extended consideration of the history of place-

based education (Elfer 2011), this study 

incorporated the use of an analytical net, or filter, 

which was then applied to historical curriculum 

models as encountered. The net contained three 

essential elements which together represented the 

core themes embedded within modern place-

based education as presented in the literature 

currently available on the subject. Attention to 

local context, a respect for the nature and needs of 

the learner, and responsiveness to community, 

broadly defined, were the three criteria used to 

create the analytical filter.  

Through a consideration of the primary 

works of early geography educators and nature 

study advocates, this study sought to identify two 

important historical antecedents of modern place-

based pedagogy, thus addressing a significant gap 

in the literature. This research was informed by 

period journals, such as the Nature-Study Review 

and the Journal of School Geography, suggested 

courses of study, handbooks and manuals for 

practice, and descriptions of contemporary 

normal school training. Though not exhaustive, 

the educational writings of such nature study 

advocates as Liberty Hyde Bailey, Wilbur S. 

Jackman, and Clifton H. Hodge played critically 

important roles. With regard to the new 

geography, the primary works of major figures 

such as Charles and Frank McMurry, William 

Morris Davis, and Richard E. Dodge offered 

comparative illustrations. In addition to those core 

historical contributions, this study was informed 

also by relevant secondary works. Armitage‟s The 

Nature Study Movement (2009) and Barton‟s 

(2009) recent analysis of “home geography” 

represent two of such resources.   



33 
 

Findings 

Context for the nature study movement. 

The American nature study movement grew out 

of several wider sociopolitical developments of 

the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

In the first place, the nature study movement was 

backgrounded by what Cremin (1961) described 

as “a stormy period of early industrial growth” 

(15).  Indeed, the American experience post-Civil 

War was one of significant cultural, religious, 

economic, and political change. Responses to 

industrialism and its consequences in America 

were not singular, but rather pluralistic and often 

contradictory, and by the 1890s a wide variety of 

vocalized responses to change had begun to take 

shape (Urban and Wagoner, 2004). Without 

overlooking the diversity of the movement, 

however, whether reforms were geared toward 

sanitation and hygiene, or immigration and labor, 

the collective response to the industrialization of 

America represented a far-reaching Progressive 

Era transformation, a period of reorientation and 

change which provided a backdrop for a range of 

educational reform plans such as nature study 

among others.  

 Within the larger progressive movement 

of which it was a part, an independent nature 

study movement grew up and out of two 

additional developments, one social and one 

educational. In the first place, nature study should 

be regarded as a reflection of late nineteenth 

century American environmentalism and 

naturalism. Kohlstedt (2010) clarified that 

connection in her recent historical appraisal of 

American nature study noting that “the wide 

acceptance of nature study proved to be 

emblematic of public attitudes toward both nature 

and the human condition in the anxious years of 

social and intellectual change at the turn of the 

twentieth century” (1). On the one hand, 

Americans began to look back to nature in a 

somewhat romantic and sympathetic fashion that 

longed for a deeper aesthetic appreciation in life 

perceived to exist in pre-industrial times as the 

result of a closer connection with the natural 

environment. Not unrelated, burgeoning trends to 

promote the conservation and preservation of the 

nation‟s natural resources also buttressed support 

for nature study initiatives. But in addition to 

desires to reconnect and to preserve, support for 

nature study was also prompted by a growing 

appreciation for science itself. By the late 1890s, 

a “ … scientific worldview had entered the daily 

lives of people as never before” (Armitage 2009, 

2) and the study of nature offered a complement 

to that intellectual development.  

 Of course, the nature study movement was 

largely a pedagogical entity, one deeply impacted 

by the practical and theoretical reforms that 

characterized parallel trends in certain brands of 

educational progressivism. “ … [T]eachers taught 

with natural objects from their local 

environments” and “ … insisted that pupils 

should be taught using materials attractive to 

them and at a level readily understood” 

(Kohlstedt 2010, 1; 6). These sorts of curricular 

and instructional strategies flourished in the 

school reform climate of the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries. With these wider 

contexts in view, the discussion below turns to 

American nature study as an historical precedent 

for place-based reform. 

 

The local, the learner and the community  

Numerous reformers depicted nature study 

as a localized curriculum in the latter nineteenth 

and early twentieth centuries. In many ways, in 

fact, this characteristic was a defining feature of 

the approach. In his Manual of Nature-study by 

Grades, an early contribution to the movement 

published in 1898, William Handford Hershman 

exemplified the use of the surrounding local 



34 
 

environment in nature study and offered practical 

nature study lessons on such topics as plant life, 

animal life, geography, weather, and physiology. 

An excerpt from a sample third-grade lesson on 

trees was illustrative:  

 

The autumn month any time before frost 

will be the proper time to introduce the 

study of trees. A trip into the woods by 

the whole school is the best way to 

secure the right kind of interest. This 

may be done immediately after a study 

of leaves in the school room, as given in 

the first part of this outline … 

(Hershman 1898, 39) 

 

Throughout his manual, Hershman highlighted 

the value of what observers might term a 

curriculum of opportunity which was provided 

through locally available environments and 

conditions, extensions of the classroom-based 

laboratory. An early contributor to the movement, 

the emphasis on the local environment in 

Hershmans‟s work was not his alone, but rather a 

characteristic trait across the literature 

representative of the nature study movement.  

Clifton Hodge‟s contributions provided a 

similar illustration of the localized character of 

nature study. Speaking to the possibilities for 

insect study, Hodge wrote in Nature-study and 

Life, that “The best rule to follow is to study the 

insects that happen to be of most importance or of 

greatest interest for any locality or season” (1903, 

50).  

 

We never can tell what will come next,” 

he added, “so, … we must not be too 

much influenced by a formal list, but 

keep our minds open to study nature as it 

flows by and be ever ready to do the 

thing that is most worth our while” 

(Hodge 1903, 50). 

 

 In Hodge, as in numerous other nature 

study texts, readers found advocacy for an 

opportunity curriculum whereby the unique 

context of the school and community determined 

the character of student work. The precise 

dimensions of the nature study curriculum were 

locally determined and immediately accessible 

from the school. 

A philosophical leader and fixture in the 

nature study movement, Liberty Hyde Bailey‟s 

plan was characteristically localized as well and it 

was Bailey‟s intention that the general principles 

of the approach be adapted by teachers and 

students to particular local contexts. Though 

widely applicable, nature study could not be 

photocopied and duplicated in precise ways from 

one school to the next. “After all these years of 

nature-study enterprise,” he wrote: 

 

it is naturally assumed by many persons 

that we ought to be able to give statistics 

of the number of pupils who are enrolled 

in the subject, the number of books that 

have been read, and other exact figures. 

This supposition misses the very purpose 

of The Nature Study Movement, which 

is to set pupils at work informally and 

personally with the objects, the affairs 

and phenomena with which they are in 

daily contact … If I could give a 

statistical measure of The Nature-Study 

Movement, I should consider the work 

to have been a failure, however large the 

figures might be. (Bailey 1909, 10-11) 

 

Bailey‟s consternation for any finite or fixed 

nature study reform plan seemed to stem from his 

understanding that nature study was an organic, 

localized affair in practice. If nature study 

directed students and teachers to consider their 

own lived experiences, a necessarily idiosyncratic 

venture in many instances, a fully standardized 

practice would nearly always be elusive. Nature 



35 
 

study, as Frederick Holtz noted in his manual for 

teachers, was to begin “ … with the common 

things in the home, garden, fields, and streets of 

the child‟s neighborhood” (1908, 402). And 

similarly, as Coulter, Coulter, and Patterson 

(1909) concluded in their elementary-level nature 

study guide, “Nature-study is necessarily 

restricted in the materials it uses to those which 

any particular environment affords. Hence the 

details of nature-study courses must differ 

widely” (13). The practice could reasonably be 

generalized across a variety of contexts, but the 

nature study curriculum itself was inherently 

localized. Across the writings of the influential 

nature study advocates considered above, but a 

sampling of the texts reviewed in this study, a 

consistent and deep commitment to local contexts 

emerged. 

The local emphasis characteristic of nature 

study was, at least in part, an outgrowth of the 

perceived needs and nature of the learner. The 

organization of nature study curricula around the 

shared contexts of home, community, and school 

was a matter of necessity, or perhaps efficiency, 

given the attention to student development and 

the significance attached to the lived experiences 

of the student. The impetus within nature study to 

organize instruction around first-hand observation 

and inquiry further promoted the use of the local 

as a curriculum source, as such measures 

provided the requisite opportunities for the study 

of objects and phenomena. In this way, American 

nature study in and around the early twentieth 

century reflected a pedagogical outlook that 

observers might regard as both experiential and 

child-centered. Advocates also emphasized 

problem-solving and inquiry skills over 

pedagogical alternatives geared toward rote 

memorization of unconnected disciplinary facts 

and principles. 

Hodge (1903) offered one portrait of the 

manner in which nature study might channel and 

nurture the native interests of the learner. Hodge 

expressed his confidence in the notion that the 

approach held a unique capacity to build upon 

what he viewed as the natural motivations of 

young students through first-hand explorations of 

the natural environment, the local natural 

environment in fact. He concluded: 

 

… [W]e shall have a nature-study that 

shall bind home and school together as 

nothing in the curriculum does at 

present. Instead of giving over our entire 

school system to passive book learning, 

we shall have at least one subject that 

shall keep alive in the child the spirit of 

research, under the impetus of which he 

makes such astounding progress in 

learning the great unknown of nature 

around him during the first three or four 

years of life. This matter of original 

research in hand-to-hand contact with 

nature ought to be made the breadth of 

life in an educational system. (Hodge 

1903, 14) 

 

First-hand experience with the local environment 

and an educational philosophy that created 

possibilities for student inquiry and exploration 

seemed to define Hodge‟s nature study agenda. 

He was consciously sensitive to the needs and 

development of young learners, at least as far as 

he understood those dynamics. His goal, like 

many of his contemporaries, was to bring into 

greater union the learner and the subject matter to 

be learned. 

 Like Hodge, Bailey‟s (1909) vision of 

nature study was also rooted in a respect for the 

unique character and development of the learner. 

To move away from strictly textual learning and 

toward a more experiential approach was a central 

part of his overall program. Bailey insisted upon 



36 
 

an educational program designed around what he 

believed to be great human potential for reason 

and thought. “Nature-study,” he argued, “is not 

the teaching of facts merely for the sake of the 

facts, or materials for the sake of the materials: its 

purpose is to develop certain intellectual powers 

by the use of the materials … We must begin with 

the fact, to be sure, but the lesson lies in the 

significance of the fact” (Bailey 1909, 6). 

Bailey‟s nature study encouraged habits of logical 

thinking and questioning, and again, the context 

deemed most appropriate for promoting such 

habits was that with which the student could 

interact directly. The local, familiar environment 

was the ready-made laboratory of nature study 

work. It was there that the school could be 

brought into greater association with the lived 

experiences of the learner. Bailey explained that 

“Nature-study should not be unrelated to the 

child‟s life and circumstance [and lamented] how 

indirect and how remote from the lives of pupils 

much of our education has been” (1909, 33). An 

educational leader and a prominent reformer, 

Bailey was not alone, but was rather in the 

company of many like-minded nature study 

proponents. 

 An additional illustration of the 

connection between nature study and the needs 

and nature of learners was evidenced in Charles 

B. Scott‟s Nature-study and the Child, published 

1910. For Scott, nature study dealt with the first-

hand investigation of the natural world, and with 

regard to the selection of materials in nature 

study, he recommended a straightforward 

approach whereby teachers could base 

instructional choices on both their own and their 

students‟ interests. “If teachers are fond of 

flowers,” he reasoned, “they will be more apt to 

awaken in the minds of their pupils a similar 

fondness” (Scott 1910, 297). Going further, an 

important component of Scott‟s conception of 

nature study was built around first-hand 

experience with the natural world. Nature study, 

for Scott, was “not books, not mere reading or 

listening, … [but rather] “a personal 

investigation” [whereby] “teachers and children 

[became] fellow-investigators of truth” (101). 

Like others, Scott intended nature study to 

address the unique needs of individual learners 

with the “aim to develop each child as an 

individual” (1910, 104-105). Across the nature 

study literature of the late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries, readers found a pronounced 

emphasis on the nature of the learner, a feature of 

the approach difficult to overlook or discount. 

Inquiry and first-hand experience with the 

familiar were central themes embedded within the 

movement. 

 Nature study promised much with regard 

to reformed classroom practice and student 

learning, but proponents were also very much in 

tune with the larger social purposes of the school 

and of education more generally. Many advocates 

hoped to address the health of the community of 

which the school was a part, if not society at 

large, and nature study‟s connection to a budding 

conservation ethos in the final decade of the 

nineteenth century was not inconsequential. For 

Hershman (1898), as one example, the ultimate 

purpose of nature study was “ … to enable [the 

student] to live completely” (vii). Hodge (1903) 

echoed those sentiments where he insisted that 

“the paramount value to be aimed at is character, 

will to do good, power to create happiness” (17). 

For him, nature study held the possibility for 

ethical, social, and spiritual development. Across 

Bailey‟s writing, too, the study of nature often 

assumed a message of conservation and an appeal 

for the wise use of the natural environment. 

Nature study, he wrote,  “ … explains the 

relations between man and his environment. It 

establishes a new sense of our dependence on the 



37 
 

natural resources of the earth, and leads us not to 

abuse or waste our resources. It develops a public 

intelligence on these matters, and it ought to 

influence community conduct” (Bailey 1909, 57). 

Bailey and others often looked to the beatification 

of the school grounds and public spaces to 

highlight the potential connections between 

nature study and the improvement of community. 

“To improve the school-grounds, … ” Bailey 

remarked, “is an expression of the people‟s 

interest in the things that are the people‟s” (1909, 

84). Nature study was to create a “bond of 

connection between the school and community” 

(Holtz 1908, 89) and the type of the thinking 

required in nature study programs held real worth 

as a priming exercise for democratic living (see 

Bailey 1916). In addition to a deeper sympathy 

with the natural environment, nature study 

reformers often recognized a relationship between 

educational programs and local citizenship, part 

of which was a consideration of school-

community linkages. 

  

Context for the new geography 

 Many of the social and political contexts 

that provided space for the establishment of 

American nature study reforms applied equally 

well to the changes that took shape in the new 

geography. Trends in geography education in the 

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

closely paralleled developments in American 

educational progressivism, such as the acute 

emphasis on the learner and scientific/systematic 

approach to educational problem solving. On the 

other hand, the reform of geography education 

was perhaps less rooted than nature study in 

conservation or aesthetic appreciations for life 

and leisure. But there were nonetheless larger 

Progressive Era forces at work, those in addition 

to the purely educational. 

 The establishment of a new geography 

beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth 

century in America was in some sense a reflection 

of a growing scientific spirit. Inspired by 

European pioneers, particularly the earlier 

German influences of Alexander Von Humboldt 

and Carl Ritter, the study of geography itself 

began to transform at mid-century into a scientific 

discipline. Geography began to appear in 

American universities by the 1890s and the nature 

of geographical thinking transitioned from an 

analytical compliment to an academic field of 

study in its own right. As Douglass (1998) noted 

in his historical review of geographic pedagogy 

and literacy, “Geography … found itself torn 

between its past as an inquiry into the nature of 

the physical world and the new demands of 

developing empirical generalizations and even 

perhaps hypotheses and theories about spatial 

phenomena” (189). But there were other changes 

occurring still, and, in addition to the general 

creep of scientific inquiry, there was a 

simultaneous trend favoring the careful 

investigation of human, social phenomena.  

 The theoretical contributions of such 

figures as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer 

inspired the appeal of the establishment of new 

“social sciences” (Cremin, 1961; Kliebard 2004) 

As Douglass (1998) described the transition, “The 

decades immediately preceding the turn of the 

century were witness, particularly, to an intense 

interest in studying human behavior modeled on 

the forms of scientific inquiry that were 

increasingly coming to characterize research in 

the natural sciences” (53). Although geography as 

a formal discipline would gravitate somewhere in 

between the natural and social sciences for some 

time, its rise to prominence as an independent 

field of study was a significant development. 

Similarly, whereas American geography in 

decades past had been largely descriptive, “with 



38 
 

hundreds of what and where questions,” the new 

geography was concerned expressly with 

causality (Noble 1954, 257).  Combined with a 

range of similar adjustments taking place in the 

field of education, a new plan for geography 

study found its way into the American school. 

 

The local, the learner, and the community 

 The prominence that local settings 

attained in geography education writings at the 

turn of the twentieth century was significant. By 

at least the last decade of the nineteenth century, 

and well into the twentieth, scholars concerned 

with the reform of American geography education 

consistently initiated their reform plans within 

those familiar contexts in the immediate vicinity 

of the school. In 1894, in Home Geography for 

the Primary Grades, C. C. Long expressed the 

idea that in the earliest years of introduction to the 

field, students were to engage in local geographic 

study. “The first work, … ” he suggested, “is to 

study that small part of the earth‟s surface lying 

just at our doors” (Long 1894, 3). A similar 

localized theme was apparent in Charles 

McMurry‟s Special Method in Geography (1897), 

originally a sample course of study for the third 

and fourth grades, but by 1903, a complete 

elementary-level course of study. McMurry called 

for a number of visits to local gardens and farms 

and long the way, he imagined that there would 

likely be “ … opportunity for incidental 

observation of the open country, fields, woods, 

streams, hills, soils, roads, bridges, and various 

occupations and industries” (1904, 167). 

McMurry‟s plan also called for local map-

making, a practice which he explained with detail. 

In addition to local map-making, McMurry went 

on to describe the relevance of local history in 

geography work and cited “grandfather stories, 

family histories, leading men and families” (169) 

as worthy items of attention in the third-grade 

course. Practitioners might also include 

consideration of “Indian stories, … Historical 

relics, public buildings, monuments, and 

museums, … ” and other “Places of historic 

interest” (McMurry 1904, 170). McMurry‟s plan 

was absolutely localized, but also preparatory for 

an outward, global focus in later years of study. 

And he was not alone. The Oswego Normal 

Method, published in 1896 by Amos Farnham, 

demonstrated a similar localized approach to 

revise geography instruction. Citing the German 

scholar, Carl Ritter, Farnham stated his firm 

belief that “„The very first step in a knowledge of 

geography, is to know thoroughly the districts 

where we live‟” (1896, 26). In the case of fourth-

grade instruction at Oswego, local study implied 

geographical description of the city, including its 

bridges, buildings, parks, and key organizations. 

Oswego geography also called for an 

investigation of local industry, occupations, and 

the various nationalities of its inhabitants. As 

further evidence still, Home Geography (1903), 

authored by Ralph Tarr and Frank McMurry, 

represented a localized instructional aide 

specifically fitted to New York-based geography 

teachers and students. And yet again, in William 

Sutherland‟s The Teaching of Geography, 

published 1909, readers found a local emphasis. 

“A good preparation,” Sutherland wrote, “must 

include the ability to interpret geographical 

features in one‟s own environment. How often 

people are wholly oblivious to the interesting 

features of the neighborhood?” (1909, 132-133). 

These several examples, far from exhaustive, 

nonetheless provide a strong case for the notion 

that early geography educators were ever-mindful 

of the value that local study might offer to 

learners. Like its German precursor in 

Heimatskunde, the home geographical aspect of 

the new American geography was very much a 

localized practice.  



39 
 

The attention new geography reformers 

paid to local contexts was based oftentimes upon 

certain understandings about the needs of students 

and the nature of learning itself, a feature of 

geography reform which lends further credence to 

its position as a significant historical predecessor 

of modern place-based education. Geography 

educators typically emphasized local contexts in 

an effort to provide for students an experiential 

learning environment, one in which first-hand 

observation was central. As Long (1894) noted, 

for example, “It must not be forgotten … that 

actual observation by the pupil is necessary to 

seeing clearly and intelligently” (4). Rather than 

books and classroom work alone, Long wanted to 

supplement elementary geography with “short 

excursions in the neighborhood” and “out-of-door 

study” (1894, 3-4). W.M. Davis (1892), too, 

insisted on a form of instruction which offered “ 

… a sense of reality,” or, at the very least, 

something other than “barren recitation of 

geographical names” (426). Echoing Long‟s 

(1894) disdain for the reliance on the geography 

textbook, Davis wrote:  

 

Actual examples of geographical facts 

and relationships are to be seen on every 

hand. No teacher need be entirely 

dependent upon a text-book. When 

geographical facts are taught from text-

book alone they are bereft of their 

natural foundation and fail to develop 

that interest in the child that should be 

aroused and that can aroused if 

geography is based on personal 

observation. (1899, 230) 

 

And the same was true for many other writers of 

the day. Richard Dodge, for instance, spoke 

specifically about the value of the excursion and 

out-of-class study. “The children, if possible, and 

at any rate the teachers,” he insisted, “should be 

given the chance to study home geography, not 

from text-books, but from the only perfect 

geography reader – Nature herself” (Dodge 1896, 

155). Not unlike contemporary nature study 

writers, Dodge insisted that the textbook could 

hardly match the utility of the excursion where 

first-hand experience and observation became 

guiding educational principles and curricular 

determinants.  

In part a reflection of assumptions 

regarding the purposes of geography as a 

discipline, reform-minded writers in the field 

hoped to arrange curriculum and instruction 

around problem-solving and inquiry, a strong 

contrast to traditional school practice. Long 

(1894), as one illustration, urged practitioners to 

promote independent student investigations, the 

results of which might be shared in the classroom 

subsequently. Similarly, Davis (1899) expanded 

on themes of inquiry in his call for student 

investigations of the villages, towns, and cities 

nearby. His plan suggested a broader 

investigation to include causes and possible 

explanations of cause related to human 

settlement. “Through these observations and 

questions,” Davis wrote, “the human element of 

geographical study is prominently brought 

forward, as it should be” (1899, 231). In very 

direct ways, Davis‟s reform plan incorporated 

observational work around both the physical and 

the human-cultural dimensions of geography in 

the education of young learners, all of which he 

initiated locally and geared toward an 

understanding of causality. Dodge (1898), too, 

was keen on the notion that geography study 

should move beyond the retention of factual 

knowledge and into a more organic understanding 

of broad geographical principles. Dodge 

explained: 

We must aim to give a certain amount of 

information, but we should aim above 



40 
 

all, to give the ability to gather 

information; in other words, we should 

develop the knowledge of principles 

through the knowledge of facts … We 

must in our early work study facts not 

singly and in a separated manner, but in 

their relations in time and space so as to 

lead the child to appreciate that there are 

one or more underlying truths which 

make explanation of the fact easy; then 

we can generalize. (1898, 16) 

 

In sum, Dodge appreciated a student 

consciousness of the interconnectedness of 

geographical information far more than the mere 

memorization of factual content alone. In doing 

so, he reasoned, “ … we develop in the child the 

ability to discover and apply principles, we give 

him the power to gain knowledge, and not merely 

unrelated items of knowledge” (Dodge 1898, 16). 

Like many of his contemporaries, Dodge called 

for reasoning over remembering in seeking to 

reform geography education. 

And lastly, an element of the new 

geography education was based in the progressive 

educational notion that student motivation and 

interest were often outgrowths of familiar 

contexts. The bigger plan, as Long (1894) noted, 

was “ … not to impart information,” but rather 

“to awaken and stimulate interest” (5). 

McMurry‟s (1897) use of the geographical “type” 

supported a similar conclusion about the 

connection of interest through localized study, 

observation, and inquiry. McMurry intended the 

use of local “types” as partial remedy for an 

otherwise bland tradition of abstraction in the 

school. “ … [T]here is a powerful realism,” he 

explained, “in this kind of study which gives a 

healthy tonic effect. The worst criticism that can 

be brought to bear upon our present teaching of 

geography is that it is abstract and unreal. It is 

formal and dry” (1897, 187). Observation and 

study of those many familiar “types” available 

locally McMurry believed to be curative. 

Motivations to highlight familiarity and interest 

evidenced in McMurry‟s work were not fleeting 

and continued to appear in the writings of 

geography educators well into the first two 

decades of the twentieth century. As one of 

numerous indications of that trend, Chamberlain 

suggested in 1907 that the field-trip relieved “ … 

the difficulty experienced in placing geography 

among the life-interests of the child” (70). In 

combination with pictures, stereoscopic images, 

school museums, and personal travel, to name but 

a few of the other sources of inspiration identified 

by Chamberlain, the field-trip provided valuable 

first-hand experiences for students, valuable in 

the sense that he regarded direct observation as a 

most vital component of learning. The ultimate 

purpose, of course, was to garner the interests of 

the student towards geographic learning, or, as 

Chamberlain phrased it, “to enlist [the pupil‟s] 

conscious and purposeful participation in its 

study” (1907, 72). Though his views were widely 

shared among contemporaries seeking reform 

within the field of geography education, 

Chamberlain‟s effort to outline a learner-centered 

rationale, one which emphasized first-hand 

observation, inquiry, and the lived experiences of 

the learner, was among the most explicit. 

The community responsiveness function 

in the writing surrounding the new geography was 

arguably less pronounced than other characteristic 

features of the field. There were, however, 

indications that scholars recognized the 

potentially valuable role that geography study 

played in the solution of social problems. While 

this study identified few scholars who wrote 

about the direct ways in which students might 

engage in the improvement of the local 

community, there was nonetheless a general 

appreciation for the citizenship education function 



41 
 

that the study of geography potentially provided. 

In some instances, that appreciation was reflected 

in the desire to promote an appreciation for the 

interconnectedness of peoples and places locally 

and throughout the world. Sutherland (1909), as 

one illustration, addressed the relationship 

between the school and the learner‟s home 

community in a discussion of what he deemed the 

“social phase” of geography education. His social 

phase contained much of what contemporary 

observers might term human geography, a feature 

of geography education which Sutherland 

suggested might be developed by practitioners 

and students throughout the learning process. As 

a part of this social investigation, he promoted the 

establishment of a deep knowledge of the 

interconnectedness of one‟s home area to other 

peoples and places. “When we study the methods 

by which ourselves and our neighbors are fed, and 

clothed,” Sutherland remarked, “the idea of doing 

for others, of being socially helpful, again appeals 

to us. So butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker, 

each in his own way, renders some social service 

… ” (1909, 49). Embedded in the passage was a 

call for what might be regarded as a type of 

responsiveness to community. Through an 

investigation of peoples and places near and far, 

Sutherland seemed to suggest, however 

implicitly, that a sentiment of social duty might 

be fostered in young learners through the study of 

geography. He explained further:  

 

The pupil may come to see that no 

individual or community can, 

independently of other individuals or 

communities, live as well or produce as 

much, as is possible through the 

reciprocal helpfulness of exchange. Such 

an outlook, it would seem, will make the 

future citizen more rationale in his 

industrial pursuits, and more democratic 

in the exercise of his civil rights. 

(Sutherland 1909, 104) 

 

Social geography under Sutherland, then, 

promoted a form of citizenship education which 

emphasized the importance of interconnectedness 

in democratic life.  

E. Ehrlich Smith outlined a plan in 1921 

to connect conservation to geography and offered 

a second illustration of the community 

responsiveness function embedded within the new 

geography. In his view, geography study might 

ultimately confer a direct benefit on society by 

promoting in students an awareness of principles 

surrounding environmental stewardship. The 

primary understanding to be gained, Smith 

concluded, was that “ … in order to supply the 

needs of the world, men must use the resources 

about them in the most economical way; that they 

must increase production by means of 

conservation; and that, by wise consumption, they 

must make the wealth of the world „go around‟ to 

all” (Smith 1921, 27). Although he wrote little 

about the role of students of geography in the 

process of identifying and enacting solutions for 

local conservation problems, an investigation of 

social relationships was nonetheless of central 

importance in Smith‟s geography. Contained 

within Smith‟s plan was a direct consideration of 

the process through which geography study in the 

school might intersect with the needs of the 

community, global though it may have been. 

Written in 1925, Harold Rugg and John 

Hockett‟s recommendations for geography reform 

offered further commentary on the connection 

between the student and the community. Rugg 

and Hockett insisted that the perceived lack of 

knowledge of American students in geography 

was in many ways problematic. More important 

than factual content knowledge was the 

anticipated ability of students to address the 



42 
 

problems they might face as adult citizens in a 

democratic society. “We know,” they lamented, 

“that – excepting a few who will be compelled by 

practical needs later to learn the basic facts- the 

great majority will be barren of information, 

thoroughly stupid, in fact, when faced with the 

need of exercising intelligence about 

contemporary problems” (Rugg and Hockett 

1925, 2). Hardly an endorsement of the efficacy 

of American geography education, the problem, 

as they viewed it, was the failure to develop 

capable citizens. While readers could observe 

many of the central themes in the 

recommendations offered by Rugg and Hockett in 

the work of others contributing to the reform of 

geography education in decades prior, the close 

attention to social action was arguably somewhat 

unique. Rugg and Hockett called for direct civic 

action on the part of the student and in their 

words, “constructively but critically, students will 

be influenced to put their ideas sanely into action” 

(16). With regard to the relationship between the 

school and the community, then, Rugg and 

Hockett‟s plan for geography study was perhaps 

more immediate and direct than that of other 

geography-related writers of the era. The essential 

educational problem was one of “producing a 

generation of informed, thinking, socially-

disposed citizens” and Rugg and Hockett‟s desire, 

“ … that the masses of people shall be both well 

informed and keenly interested in the carrying on 

of their community affairs” (8) is a theme 

characteristic in much modern place-based 

educational writing. Although they did not 

belabor the point, the value that Rugg and 

Hockett attached to “studies of local needs” 

(1925, 92) revealed a belief in the potential 

educational utility of local study and reinforced, 

to some degree, a commitment to fostering in 

students a desire to participate in and improve the 

community. In the context of an historical review 

of place-based education, the relationship 

between the school and the improvement of the 

local community is an important consideration, 

and although geography reformers in the early 

twentieth century arguably emphasized direct 

community improvement only sporadically, the 

attention to the relationship between the school 

and citizenship education was significant. 

Coupled with the emphasis on the local and the 

learner, the new geography represented an 

important historical precedent for place-based 

pedagogy, one that has largely escaped 

consideration from modern placed-based 

educators. 

 

Discussion 

As noted at the outset, this study was 

framed in part around the proclamation that 

“…curriculum history is more than useful; it is 

essential for improving the character of 

curriculum reform efforts” (Tanner 1982, 410). 

The discussion below represents an effort to 

provide explicit commentary on the manner in 

which this study might inform contemporary 

practice. In other words, clarification of the 

historical developments above provides a 

synthetic appraisal that might serve to inform 

solutions to similar educational problems attached 

to the contemporary field, not to mention provide 

foundations for continued historical investigation. 

The discussion is selective and focuses primarily 

on issues surrounding academic formalism, 

curriculum articulation, local/global connections, 

and teacher education. 

 

A response to academic formalism  

 From the theories and models evaluated 

above, it appears that, in many instances, a return 

to the local developed in response to the 

perceived formalism of mainstream curriculum 

and practice. A theme echoed throughout both 



43 
 

nature study and new geography reforms was the 

notion that exclusive attention to the textbook, to 

tests, and to recitations had overwhelmed the 

most important function of the school – to 

educate. Symbolism over learning was the charge 

and a renewed emphasis on observation, problem-

solving, and inquiry represented sound 

alternatives. “Nature, not books,” was the mantra 

for many and a reconsideration of the educative 

value of first-hand experiences just beyond the 

school door gained wide appeal.  

It is perhaps not altogether surprising that 

place-based reform literature has proliferated in 

the past two decades. The past twenty years in 

American education have been marked by 

accelerated efforts at the state and federal levels 

to raise academic achievement through testing 

regimes and standardized curricula. In a climate 

utterly dominated by the strictures of No Child 

Left Behind and its legislative accoutrements, and 

given the instructional and curricular fixity that 

such policies generally produce, the localized, 

student-centered, and experiential nature of place-

based education stands in fairly stark contrast. 

This twenty-first century response to academic 

formalism has arguably taken on a new intensity, 

yet it is not altogether new.  

Importantly, engagement with 

developments in nature study and the new 

geography reveal that critiques of academic 

formalism, of testing mechanisms, and of 

standardization, have not necessarily guaranteed 

the adoption or success of place-based 

educational reforms historically. Mainstream 

traditions were more easily critiqued than they 

were transformed. One valuable lesson that 

modern place-based educators might build upon 

in the pursuit of contemporary reform is the need 

for wide public support. As Wilbur S. Jackman 

noted more than a century ago in his advocacy for 

nature study, “It is of great importance to enlist 

and cultivate the interest of the parents in field 

work” (1894, 10).  Given the unorthodox nature 

of nature study and its non-traditional fieldwork 

component, Jackman recommended that 

advocates embark on campaigns that might 

“disarm their prejudices” (10). Alongside 

critiques of mainstream academic practice, 

proponents of reform were nonetheless sensitive 

to the need for wider public acceptance. 

Contemporary place-based educators might build 

upon the lessons of past reformers and the 

mechanisms developed to elicit parental, 

administrative, and public support for the 

installation of practices that might otherwise be 

regarded as unorthodox and threaten to dismantle 

school and curricular change. It does not seem as 

though merely localizing the curricula was in any 

way a guarantee for community acceptance. 

 

Curriculum articulation 

 Exploration of nature study and the new 

geography demonstrated that although localized 

reforms often arose in opposition to academic 

formalism, that contextual feature did not serve to 

replace commitments to thoughtful, integrated, 

curricular and instructional plans. Instead, this 

study highlighted the fact that place-based 

approaches have sometimes manifested as 

articulated courses of study. In both nature study 

and geography education, advocates worked to 

develop extended courses of study with the intent 

to avoid overlap and presumably the waste of 

instructional time. In the case of the new 

geography, in particular, efforts to develop an 

articulated plan led to the continuation of what 

educators have since labeled as a curriculum of 

“expanding horizons,” a generalized plan for 

geography study across the grades. In McMurry‟s 

Special Method in Geography (1897), readers 

found a localized and graded course outlined in 

detail and The Oswego Normal Method (1896) 



44 
 

offered a secondary illustration. While this study 

reviewed texts between the approximate years of 

1890 and 1920, further review of similar 

programs such as Paul Hanna‟s expanding 

communities may point further to the longevity of 

an articulated, initially local, approach to 

geography education. With nature study, too, 

idiosyncratic, localized curricula existed in 

tandem with articulated curricula. As two 

examples, Hodge‟s Nature Study and Life (1903) 

and Holtz‟s Nature Study (1908) each outlined 

sample courses of study through the eighth-grade. 

With those several illustrations in mind, historical 

practices of place-based education often managed 

to navigate between the overly rigid academic 

program and the complete lack of curricular 

structure. At the same time that nature study plans 

could express “ … endless variation in the details 

and in the little applications” (Bailey 1909, 10-

11) room for a well thought out and transferable 

plan was nonetheless possible (and encouraged).   

  Without becoming standardized, historical 

place-based methodologies often represented sets 

of standard practices nonetheless. Insect study, 

local geography study, the field excursion, school 

garden work, and specimen catalogues all became 

relatively standard practices in the place-based 

reform initiatives surrounding nature study and 

the new geography. So while the practices of 

historical place-based reforms often assumed 

standard forms, thus gaining some measure of 

appeal and refinement, curricular flexibility and 

localized practice remained intact. Although 

many historical illustrations of place-based theory 

and practice represented assaults on formalism, 

most reforms were not presented as complete 

curricular departures. Whether large or small, 

place-based educational strategies generally 

maintained certain elements of the traditional 

academic curriculum at the same time that certain 

mainstream practices were challenged. Of no 

small significance, then, historical examples 

highlight possibilities. In particular, where the 

goal is to expand modern place-based practice, 

what contemporary practitioners might build upon 

is the possibility of balancing the sometimes 

idiosyncratic nature of localized teaching and 

learning without completely dismissing the need 

for certain standards of practice, instructional 

refinement, or curriculum articulation. Localized 

curriculum and instruction are not necessarily 

antithetical to the creation of robust and widely 

applicable educational programs. 

 

Teacher education 

 Although it was certainly not true in all 

instances, the place-based antecedents highlighted 

here achieved a great measure of success in the 

sense that the principles and practices advocated 

gained relatively wide institutional and 

professional support. One area where that support 

was especially pronounced was with regard to the 

attention that reformers paid to the training of 

teachers. The number of texts and descriptions 

associated with nature study and the new 

geography geared exclusively toward teachers 

was noteworthy. The presence of normal school 

courses designed around localized, observational 

study was also significant, an indication of the 

support that each of those reform movements 

enjoyed, if not a cause as well.  

 Oddly enough, while there are numerous 

examples of place-based education in practice 

today, very little in the way of teacher training 

has emerged in the past two decades. Dubel and 

Sobel‟s Place-Based Teacher Education, 

published 2008, and Todd‟s Place-based 

Learning in Teacher Education, published in 

2007, represent two counterexamples. Suffice it 

to say, the domain remains underdeveloped. The 

handful of available illustrations in the literature 

have not indicated any real momentum for 



45 
 

change. While many of the themes represented in 

place-based educational approaches likely receive 

attention in teacher education programs (e.g., 

experientialism, community responsiveness, etc.), 

it seems clear that the contemporary movement 

has hardly succeeded in developing a presence 

within the critically important domain of teacher 

education. Given the apparently robust normal 

school support historically, the issue likely 

warrants attention from modern proponents 

seeking to expand support and opportunities to 

wider audiences. On a similar note, lessons 

gained through this historical study suggest that 

the lack of availability of place-based educational 

resources (e.g., texts, description of methods, etc.) 

that are locally relevant is peculiar and arguably 

thwarts expansion to some extent.  

 

Conclusion 

Together, nature study and the new 

geography illustrated curricular models 

thoroughly consistent with modern place-based 

educational ideals in ways that were perhaps more 

comprehensive than even modern proponents of 

the approach have achieved. Despite what appears 

to be a rich historical legacy of theory and 

practice, modern place-based educators have 

largely neglected substantive investigations into 

the nature study movement and geography 

education and the present discussion hopefully 

stands as a partial corrective. Of course, historical 

investigations such as this one only scratch the 

surface and continued research will surely reveal 

further insights. Explorations into other twentieth-

century developments such as the Country Life 

Movement, camping and outdoor education, and 

community education will add to the developing 

portrait, as will pre-twentieth century curricular 

developments both domestic and international. 

With the characteristic emphasis on the local, the 

learner, and the community, place-based 

education contains within it components arguably 

essential to the educative process. As the 

historical portrait of the approach develops 

further, educators will be better positioned to 

account for the apparent ubiquity of place-based 

pedagogies. Why is it the case that educators 

throughout the centuries have endeavored time 

after time to situate local contexts at the heart of 

so many of their plans for educational reform? 

Answers to that important question are various 

and are likely to be found somewhere in between 

an understanding of the efficacy of place-based 

education as a curricular reform plan, the cause 

and challenge of educational reform itself, and the 

capacity of educational scholars to recognize and 

build upon the experiences of their forbearers. 

 

Notes 
1
 It is not entirely clear where the phrase 

“new geography” originated or in what 

context. Spencer Trotter of Swarthmore 

College incorporated the phrase by at least 

1894. “New geography” is used here to 

refer to a whole body of reforms 

surrounding American geography 

education at the turn of the twentieth 

century. 

 

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