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Geography and Travel. 1046: John Newbery?, Geography Made familiar and easy to Young Gentlemen and Ladies

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John Newbery first published his 'Circle of the Sciences' in 1745-46. There were several changes to the consituent volumes of the series, and the order that they were listed in, but by the third edition of 1769, from which this volume comes, there were seven volumes, of which this was the sixth. The others were i. Grammar, ii. Arithmetic, iii. Rhetoric, iv. Poetry, v. Logic and vii. Chronology. Newbery himself signed the dedication of this sixth volume to the Marquis of Blandford, perhaps indicating that he had a hand in writing it, but any certain attribution of authorship is impossible.

The preface makes reference to several authorities, John Locke and Isaac Watts among them, who had asserted that geography was a necessary subject for the full education of any child. This preface goes further, extolling the study of geography as conducing to both entertainment and instruction. The intended readers are figured as both boys and girls, Watts being quoted on his opinion that this science can be useful to both sexes, girls being able to mingle it with their needlework (pp.vii-viii).

The first section of Newbery's book presents definitions, taxonomising the physical geography of the world. Questions follow, drawing the pupil into the text. The second section takes a gazetteer form, going through various countries and regions in turn, citing their most notable geographical, historical, governmental and agricultural characteristics. All of this is set out in the form of questions and answers. The volume closes with a table of longitude and latitude. This was essentially the same form and content that geography text-books would take for following fifty years.