Page:Graphic methods for presenting facts (1914).djvu/42

 relative importance of the materials listed. It frequently happens that the second or third item on a list may have only one-tenth the importance of the first item. Because the three names are given one after the other, the pupil is quite likely to consider the three items of equal importance, just as three persons may be of different height, yet of about the same importance. The graphic method judiciously applied to school geography and to general commercial geography would make a tremendous difference in the student's grasp of the subject.

Tarr and McMurray's New Geographies

Fig. 19. The Six Leading Cotton-producing Countries in 1910

This arrangement is a bad one to place before school children. The eye cannot fit one square into another on an area basis so as to get the correct ratio

Fig. 19 is a typical example taken from a geography book in which the attempt was made to use the graphic method. The introduction of the picture of the bale of cotton in Fig. 19 is justifiable. There is, however, no justification for placing the picture inside of one of the series of squares. The picture detracts from the size of the square. Graphic comparisons, wherever possible, should be made in one dimension only. In such a case as this, one-dimension presentation is perfectly feasible by the use of bars of different lengths. The pupil would find it an almost hopeless task to fit one side of the block for Brazil into one side of the block for the United States and then square the resulting ratio in order to learn that the United States produces, roughly, thirty times as much cotton as Brazil. Bars in one dimension only would show the comparison accurately. Under any circumstances, the use of the squares of Fig. 19 with the center line through the centers of the squares gives an extremely poor arrangement.

Dodge's Advanced Geography

Fig. 20. The World's Production of Cotton in 1905 in Millions of Pounds

The above illustration together with the title is shown exactly as given in a recent geography book. Charts like this greatly assist the pupil in getting the correct relative importance of the different things studied. Note the scale at the top of the chart