MAPS FOR THE KINDERGARTEN Stn,—May a map-draughtsman be permitted to
express his gratitude to Strix for his obser- vations on the notions entertained by some newspaper editors as to the kind of map their readers will be capable of understanding? What he aptly describes as 'the kindergarten method of presentation,' which litters the sur- face of a map with little tanks and planes, legends in large caps., and 'arrows the size of lugworms' (and which would, one guesses, include some female heads and limbs if the editor could think of any excuse for dragging them in), is surely based on a grotesque—and insulting — underrating of the ordinary reader's intelligence. Strix is certainly right when, with characteristic ironic under- statement, he permits himself to wonder whether all these extraneous additions really make the map, or the situation, easier to understand. The fact is, of course, that to scores of thousands of ordinary folk accus- tomed to using maps—motorists, for example, or men who have done army service—the 'kindergarten' treatment makes a map value- less, not to say comic. Can it be that, in this particular matter, it is the editors themselves who suffer from a sort of retarded mental development?—Yours faithfully,
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