GEOGRAPHIC PROGRESS KELTIE. 517 



is a graphy and not a logy. It is remarkable if geography is the one 

 thing in the universe that can not be dealt with on scientific methods, 

 producing a body of knowledge as systematically arranged as that 

 included under geology, meteorology, astronomy, or engineering, 

 and other sections of the British Association. Personally it does not 

 irk me whether geogi-aphy is admitted to be a science or not. It is 

 a department of inA^estigation which deals with a field untouched by 

 any other department — the earth as the home of humanity. Like 

 other departments of inquiry, it can collect its facts and draw its 

 inferences on scientific methods, with results which in many cases 

 could be cited in the geographical output of Germany, and happily, 

 as I have stated in a few instances, in our own country — of the first 

 importance toward the solution of problems intimately associated 

 with human life and activity. To quote from the annivereary ad- 

 dress, in 1892, of the late Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, president of 

 the Royal Geographical Society: 



AVhethor it is taiiglit oi' not taught in schools and universities, geogi'aphy 

 must in the nature of things rule the territory in whicli the sciences relating 

 to organic life, from history down to the structure of the humblest animate 

 thing, meet the sciences which have to do with inorganic nature. Call it a 

 graphy or a logy or a Kunde or what you please, it remains the body of 

 knowledge which has to do with the theater of the activity of man and all 

 things that have life. We may stunt and injure the activity of the next 

 generation by refusing to teach it, but eventually it must obtain the position 

 which the greatest of living systematic botanists, Hooker, claimed for it in 

 1886. " It must permeate," he said, " the whole of education to the termination 

 of the university career, every subject taught having a geographical aspect." 



With such authorities as these on our side we have no need to be 

 ashamed of the work our science has performed in the past and is 

 capable of performing in the future. In this country we are com- 

 paratively new to the work; only feeling our way, as it were; only 

 trying to find out exactly wdiat are the conditions under which our 

 line of research will produce the best results, what are the limits 

 within which we must work. It is true that geography is the mother 

 of all the sciences, and though her numerous children have long 

 ago set up for themselves, still she has more or less intimate relations 

 Avith ipany of them. All the same, she must not be too grasping; 

 she ought to form a clear idea of what she has a right to, what are the 

 limits of her field of operations. To vary the simile, the geographers 

 in this country have been moving into a much more spacious man- 

 sion ; we have hardly had time to put our house in order ; we may 

 find when we do so that we have not room for all the furniture that 

 some of our friends would like to squeeze into it. Anything like 

 overcrowding is unnecessary and would be embarrassing. Ellsworth 

 Huntington, one of the most active and most original of our younger 

 geographers, * * * has the fullest belief in the influence of 

 73839°— SM 1916 34 



