A PHILOSOPHY OF GEOGRAPHY 587 



A PHILOSOPHY OF GEOGEAPHY 



Bx Professor WALTER EDWARD McCOURT 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



IN the minds of many persons to-day it might seem necessary to 

 apologize for holding to a " philosophy of geography/' that study 

 often remembered from school days with either utter dislike or disin- 

 terest ; for in early years it was a bugbear to carry about the " big 

 geography " in between the covers of which were gathered the colored 

 maps of the various countries, with descriptions of those countries and 

 their boimdaries, products, exports, imports, rivers — a real Baedeker 

 of the earth. Even later most of us were hurried along, not given 

 time to catch our breath or have our wonders satisfied ; and to-day, per- 

 haps, there are still some who wonder at the college professor's giving 

 serious thought to a subject of which they learned all there was to be 

 learned during the years of schooling. 



But such remembrances are probably becoming fewer, for in the 

 minds of many thinkers to-day there is no doubt that the science of 

 geography is one which furnishes much food for thought and much 

 opportunity for research. Not only in the works of many of the older 

 thinkers and philosophers, but also in the pages of various current 

 periodicals and in some of the excellent modern histories, may one 

 see something of the attitude which endeavors to view many human 

 activities in their relation to the geographic stage. From making the 

 study of geography dwindle into a mere recital of fact — with what 

 hours of dullness or dryness ! — it may be of interest or profit to some- 

 what fully give to geography a place beyond that of a mere catalogue of 

 distribution, and to enrich its apparent field by glancing at some of its 

 interesting causes and tremendous effects. 



As was suggested, the mental image called forth by the word geog- 

 raphy would doubtless be to many a mass of disconnected details, deal- 

 ing chiefly with the idea of localization and definition and the remem- 

 brance of things in themselves uninteresting. An island was a mass of 

 land entirely surrounded by water. An isthmus was a neck connecting 

 two large areas of land. Why the island existed, or how it came about 

 were " hideous secrets." Why two bodies were connected by a con- 

 striction may have been a mystery, and one was never led to solve it. 

 " What was the capital of Missouri ?" " For what product was Iowa 

 famous ?" " What crop comes from the northern plains ?" " Name ten 

 large cities of America." No one thought of enlightening the, perhaps. 



