Yamasaki Naomasa was a professor of Tokyo Higher Normal School and Tokyo Imperial University. He established the study of Geography of Japan prewar times (before WW II), and then had an effect on geography teaching in junior high school prewar times. Because he insisted on treating the theory of man-land relationship in geography teaching and world geography textbooks. The theory of man-land relationship is defined as the geographical methodology, which correlate physical and human geography. Needless to say, this theory is one of the important concepts in geography.
But his insistence was not clearly reflected in the textbooks he wrote. We can only find enumerating descriptions and meticulous accounts in his textbooks in lack of above methodology and concept.
It would appear that a cause of these facts was connected with Geomorphology he studied specially. Generally speaking, geomorphology is defined as the study of not connecting physical and human geography in a positive way.
On the other hand, Ogawa Takuji -a professor of Kyoto Imperial University-played an active role in Human Geography of the same age with Yamasaki. Ogawa said “we considered the relationship between physical and human phenomenon in human geography” In fact, Ogawa wrote textbooks on the basis of the theory of man-land relationship.
Consequently, it would appear that the difference of scholarship may account for the study of geography teaching prewar times in Japan. In other words, due to these characters of scholarship which had a tendency of segmentalization and singularization, affected geomorphology, education furthermore. Conclusively we can see the description in geography textbooks without correlating physical and human geography.
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