SOME PROBLEMS OF POLAR GEOGRAPHY ^ 



By R. N. RuDMOSE Beown, D. Sc. 



Since the last meeting of the British Association at Leeds, 37 years 

 ago, the whole meaning of geography has changed. The purely 

 empirical stages of the collection of data have largely given way to the 

 higher stages of interpretation and explanation, and these in their 

 turn have called for reexamination of the facts by the use of more 

 accurate methods. An even greater change is the important place 

 which geography has won in education. Nothing could be more strik- 

 ing than this advance in a generation or two unless it was the former 

 neglect of the subject — one might say the entire omission of any 

 geographical teaching in any grade of education — an almost incred- 

 ible defect in the training of youth at a period of rapid imperial 

 growth and consolidation. The battle is not yet won, but even if 

 some of the universities of this country, which move but slowly, do 

 not give geography the place it merits, it has at least a foothold in 

 all. Geographical research and serious geographical publications 

 have also shown an increase in recent times, though the output in 

 this country is far too small. This, however, is neither the time nor 

 the place to dwell on the educational side of geography. I recall 

 these developments only because the present year has seen the passing 

 of one who will always be associated with geographical work during 

 the last half century, and especially the rise of geography to a 

 place of importance in the universities and the scientific world. Sii 

 John Scott Keltic was one of the pioneers of geographical education, 

 and as editor of the Geographical Journal and for many years re- 

 corder and secretary of section E took a leading part in the advance- 

 ment of exploration and the spread of sound geographical knowledge 

 and research. The present position of geography in this country is 

 largely a monument to his untiring labor, enthusiasm, and tact. 



Geographical thought of to-day shows a growing tendency to lay 

 more stress on the human interests of the subject that it did of old. 

 As far as this leads to a broadening of the outlook in what was for- 

 merly known as economic geography, with its somewhat narrow stand- 

 ards of the bourse and market place, the development is all to the 



1 Address of the president of the Section of Geography, British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Leeds, 1927. Reprinted by permission, with minor changes by the 

 author, from the report of the association for that year. 



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