A Student’s Guide to Map Making: J. Parlier’s 1905 and 1907 Cartographic Manuals

ABSTRACT In 1905, Jacques Parlier, a former artillery captain in the French army, published the first of two Méthode(s) de cartographie, cartes à main levée et de mémoire tracés rapides to teach French students how to draw maps. Parlier had become convinced of the centrality of geographical knowledge to French national security and interests. His manuals brought geographical and cartographical literacy to a generation of students in France. This paper examines those manuals, specifically in terms of how they were designed to present the cartographic craft to school-aged children, a new market for this discipline. Parlier’s strategy involved simplifying continents and countries to appear as geometrical forms and going on to focus on their physical attributes, such as rivers, mountains and coasts, thus encouraging teachers to lecture less and students to draw more.