PRESENT PROBLEMS OF GEOGRAPHY 667 



treating such speculations as if they were truths. The methods of 

 journalism, even of the best journalism, are to be absolutely dis- 

 couraged in science. The new is not necessarily truer or better than 

 the old simply because it is new, and we must remember that time 

 alone tests theories. It is a danger to become too popular. The 

 scientific study of geography should be carried on with as many 

 safeguards of routine verification, and patient repetition, and it may 

 be within as high a fence of technical terminology, as, say, physi- 

 ology, if the proper results are to be obtained. Unfortunately, the 

 idea is prevalent that geography is an easy subject, capable of be- 

 ing expounded and exhausted in a few popular lectures. I regret 

 to see the growing tendency amongst teachers of geography to de- 

 precate the acquisition of facts, to shorten and "simplify" all chains 

 of reasoning, to generalize over the heads of clamant exceptions, and 

 even to use figures, not as the ultimate expression of exact know- 

 ledge, but merely as illustrations of relative magnitude. I quite 

 allow that all this may be legitimate and laudable in the early stages 

 of elementary education, but it should never pass beyond, and 

 every vestige of such a system of evading difficulties should be 

 purged from the mind of the aspirant to research. 



The facts available for the advancement of geographical science 

 are neither so well known nor so easily accessible as they should be. 

 Much has been done towards the indexing of the current literature 

 of all sciences, and geography is peculiarly fortunate in possessing 

 the exhaustive annual volumes of the Bibliotheca Geographica, pub- 

 lished by the Berlin Geographical Society, the carefully selected 

 annual bibliography of the Annales de Geographic, the critical and 

 systematic chronicles of the Geographische Jahrbuch, and the punc- 

 tual monthly lists and reviews of the Geographical Journal and 

 Petermanns Mitteilungen, not to speak of the work of the Interna- 

 tional Catalogue of Scientific Literature. A great desideratum is 

 an increase in the number of critical bibliographies of special sub- 

 jects and particular regions, prepared so carefully as to relieve the 

 student from the necessity of looking up any paper without being 

 sure that it is the one he requires to consult, and to save him from 

 the weary labor of groping through many volumes for fragmentary 

 clues. In addition to the sources of information usually catalogued 

 in one or other of the publications cited, there exist in every country 

 numbers of Government Reports and quantities of periodical sta- 

 tistics too valuable to deserve their usual fate of being compiled, 

 printed, stored away, and forgotten. There is scope for a great deal 

 of hard but very useful and permanently valuable work, in throw- 

 ing all these open to working geographers by providing analytical 

 indexes. This would make it easier to discuss current Government 

 statistics with the highest degree of precision, and to compare past 



