GEOGRAPHY

OF

Middlesex County;

FOR YOUNG CHILDREN;

EMBRACING

1. A short Topographical and Historical Sketch of every
Town.

2. A general View of the County, and the Employments
of the People.

3. A Glossary, explaining the Geographical and other Diffi-
cult Terms.

Gordon

athorne

BY JAMES G. CARTER AND WILLIAM H. BROOKS.

WITH A NEW MAP OF THE COUNTY.

"Children are very early capable of describing the places, moun-
tains, and rivers, which pass under their inspection."

CAMBRIDGE:

HILLIARD AND BROWN.
1830.

1513113.1.5

HARVARD

COLLEGE
LIBRARY

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:

DISTRICT CLERK'S OFFICE.

Be it remembered, that on the twenty-fifth day of May, A. D. 1830, and in the fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, James G. Carter and William H. Brooks, of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as authors, in the words following, to wit:

"A Geography of Middlesex County; for Young Children; embracing, 1. A short Topographical and Historical Sketch of every Town. 2. A general View of the County, and the Employments of the People. 3. A Glossary, explaining the Geographical and other Difficult Terms. By James G. Carter and William H. Brooks. With a new Map of the County. Children are very early capable of describing the places, mountains, and rivers, which pass under their inspection.""

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned " and also to an act, entitled, "An act supplementary to an act, entitled, 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned'; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

To parents and guardians of children in the County of Middlesex this geographical and historical account of that populous district of Massachusetts is presented, in the belief that it is adapted to promote there the interests of early education. Assuming the principle, that "we need to know most of the places which are nearest to us," and that the amount of our knowledge of the various parts of the earth's surface should be graduated, other things boing equal, by their distance from us, it is proposed that geographical education be conducted with a view to this result. At a very tender age, therefore, as soon as the young mind has power enough to understand the ideas conveyed to us by the terms hill, valley, plain, and stream, the child should begin the study of geography, and begin it with his own town. Having fully acquainted himself with the geography of his own town, he should proceed to the remaining towns of his own county, and growing less and less particular as he advances, pass from towns to counties, and then in order, to states, countries, and continents. The pupil should also examine on a map the situation of every place of which he may be learning an account, and, for the sake of still greater precision in his knowledge and for a useful mental discipline, should draw the shape of each.

Beginning, therefore, with their own town, children will be gratified with learning a description of what it contains, and will even be led to think what other information they

can add to the account themselves. And without doubt they will feel a strong curiosity to know whether the streams, hills, and fertile valleys of their own town belong also to the towns adjoining, and to compare the employments of the respective inhabitants of the two places, their public institutions, and their importance as shown by their population. Especially will their interest be roused (the remark springs from long and various experience) on finding themselves able to sketch with neatness the shape of their own towns and other towns in their immediate neighbourhood, to trace out the courses of streams and roads, and to mark the actual positition of churches, factories, hills, and ponds. The child's interest in the study, being thus auspiciously excited, will not fail to be sustained in his progress through the county, if he have tolerably faithful and judicious instruction. By the time he has completed this thorough survey of his own county he will have gained an amount of information, which is not only not now acquired by children, but is very rarely possessed even by men, respecting what it most nearly concerns him to be familiar with, viz. the portion of his own country immediately around him. He will have had his memory exercised, as it ought always to be, in strict alliance with the understanding. He will have begun in due season to try his judgment, and to educate it to activity and accuracy by its numerous trials, in estimating the proportions of lines and comparing the importance of towns. He will also have obtained unconsciously an important control over his power of attention. These fruits of the study are predicted with confidence, because in repeated instances they have already been produced.