ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces with somewhat disparaging comments on the limited perception of the "geographical factor" in standard works of comparative educational study. Vernon Mallinson's major contribution to the standard literature of Comparative Education was first published in 1957. In common with many developing countries, regional education data in Costa Rica is difficult to obtain or inadequate in nature for studies leading to possibilities of rural and community development. From a brief initial comment on the capacity of a geography of education to include traditional geographical factors; spatial variations; education as a geographical factor, the author applies such perspectives to an analysis of the character of educational development in colonial Massachusetts. At a similar dimension of scale, and certainly more susceptible of comparative analysis, would be attempts to unravel the dynamic involvement of the educational component of what geographers term a "regional complex".
