Fairbanks] GEOGRAPHY AND NATURE-STUDY 175 



can be considered scientific which does not attempt to discover the 

 laws of these changes, to discover the laws of cause and effect 

 under which all phenomena follow each other in orderly suc- 

 cession. 



Geography, then, is comprehensive, dealing not only with the 

 earth-relationships of facts as they are now open to observation, 

 but in seeking causes and consequences in an attempt to arrive at 

 a rational conception of them, reaches back into the past and for- 

 ward into the future. 



Geography has its special standpoint and problems of its own 

 to solve, just as have geology and biology; and because it neces- 

 sarily draws upon these sciences for a portion of its materials, 

 we must not look upon this fact as weakening its individuality. 

 Physical geography is not geology in disguise, for although in the 

 study of the meaning and origin of earth forms it deals with a 

 part of the same materials as geology, yet it has a very different 

 end in view. 



Geography as thus defined is a science and worthy of the 

 prolonged investigations of the advanced student, while in its 

 non-technical elementary stage, it is of all studies in the curriculum, 

 the most important as giving an outlook over the world, and a 

 general view of the phenomena with which the life of every one 

 is intimately bound up. 



Historically, geography formed the starting point of many 

 of the sciences. Its content was at first ill-defined and it em- 

 braced much that was mythological and legendary. From this 

 undifferentiated beginning one science after another has grown 

 up and gone on its independent way, while at the same time the 

 real problems of geography, as well as its scope, have become 

 more clearly defined. 



The child in his mental growth goes through in epitome the 

 history of the race. He is first interested in folk-tales and nature 

 myths and in getting answers to the meaning of things about 

 him. Then he wants to know about people and things in other 

 parts of the world, and finally undertakes with definite purpose 

 to widen and deepen his knowledge and to establish principles of 

 universal application. 



Geography proper begins in the elementary school with an 

 attempt to grasp the obvious relations exhibited by the earth, 

 the sky, water and the living things in the local environment. As 



