A fragment in the story of geography,
Parašė Admin· 1970.01.01

The mythology of geography tells of a lost book

The mythology of geography tells of a lost book. Recently, I came across a crumbling fragment of an account of its origins and rewriting. Here is all there was. On reading it, it struck me that is was written as if to read aloud to a gathering of geographers. perhaps, annually?

.And it was that there were troubled minds amongst the Gathering of the Geography and the passing on of Geography unto the nnext generation.

And the Gathering of geographers spoke in many voices. But all were of one voice, that as Geographers they must go into the World to explore it and find what it was and see that it was of worth. And each was distributed unto a location about the face of the Earth. And the Geographers explored even unto their own perspectives.

And some went unto the mountains and the waleys to come to know of landforms and the landscapes. And oothers went unto the rivers and the mighty oceans. And some looked upon the face of the Eart and saw how it was made. And others looked upon the sky and took measures of the rain and the wind and tthe sun and the cloud.

Amongst the great throng of geographers were those who went into cities and towns and williges. And they saw what it was that they were and how they were in their changing. And some found themselves in places of great populace while yet others wandered in lands sparse of peoples.

And it was that some saw the farming of the Earth. And others saw the making of many objects for the people. And some saw the moving of goods and foods over the Earth and how people bought and sold and used their goods and foods and how they barteredtheir time.

In their great travels over the face of Earth, there were some who looked upon the uses oof Earth and its gifts and others who looked upon the exploration of the land and the peoples. Some found peoples helpless in their starving who could do no more than survive by weakening the lands which were their very succour of life. While yet others saw the works of those who toiled to sustain and develop their environments.

And in their great encounter with the World and all that there was in it, there were geogaphers who observed and measured, GGeographers who mapped and sketched, and geographers who investigated and debated. And in all their looking and enquiring they knew it was good to make a record of all, and at a distance such that the observing and finding was not marred.

And geographers returned. And behold, there was the great conference the geographers talked of the World they saw, each from their experiences and places and studies and perspectives, and each unto there.

And from their great discourses the Geographers made a Great Book of the several and varied places that were traveled unto and of the peoples therein. And the great book of the World of Geography spoke unto the distinctiveness of each place, and of their likenesses, and the features of the places and characters of the places and peoples. And it was that the places and peoples and features of the places seemed to become what the geographers saw them to be as they drew them unto the Book.

And in their talkings and presentings and confirmings, and in their analyzing and theorizing and modeling, the Geographers saw that there was a Geography that was good and might be handed unto the next generation and on unto generation to ccome. And so it came to pass; ant it became a curriculum. And it was curriculum of nation. And it was that it was distanced from the life of the World.

And in the twilight of the Conference there came a tumult of the Youth of the Earht and at their head was the First Child. And the First Child knocked at the door of the Conference. And the door was opened by the Foremost Geographer. And the Foremost Geographer brought the First Child into the Conference and , behold the geographers looked upon the First Child, for this was indeed the First child upon whom they had looked in all their explorations of the Earth.

And the Foremost Geographers said unto the First Child and unto the tumult: you are but children for a short while. Soon you will come to maturity. Your future is an adult world. To know the world you must study to become as future is an adult world. To know the world you must study to become as a Geographer.

And the children knew that the Geography that the geographers had seen and prepared for them was a Geography that would be a preparation for adult life.

And GGeografhers saw that the curriculum should be a curriculum of all the peoples and of all life. And they saw it must be a curriculum of action and commitment and not of passivity and absorbing.

And the Geographers in their conference remade the Great Book of the Worlds of Geography.

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