520 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



teacher, geography became a reasoning subject requiring individual 

 work by the students and sound knowledge by the teacher as much as 

 any other subject taught on scientific principles. Too much atten- 

 tion was perhaps paid at the outset to the working of practical prob- 

 lems and exercises, but this has now righted itself, and the human 

 note is not forgotten while the scientific method of arriving at it is 

 followed. What is more important than anything else is that the 

 standard of work in geography is steadily rising. The subject is be- 

 ing treated more and more on a regional basis, and the work is con- 

 sequently gaining in intelligence. 



The program for instruction for elementary schools has been 

 greatl}^ improved on the best lines, and where teachers have been 

 adequately trained to deal with it intelligently the results are a great 

 advance on what passed for geography 30 years ago. But in the 

 case of the younger pupils, I fear it is difficult to get them to do little 

 more than to read narratives. In the upper classes of these schools, 

 however, more systematic work is prescribed in the official pro- 

 gram, and I believe the whole tendency is toward an improvement 

 upon the methods and outlook of previous years. The inspectors of the 

 board of education consider that geograjDhy is now on a much better 

 footing than it was, and is often intelligently taught. Much depends 

 upon the training wdiich students in training colleges receive before 

 they are turned out to carry on the work of education. 



In certain institutions facilities are provided for training college 

 students going through a course of instruction in geography, with 

 opportunities of actual practice in schools. I am not sure that this 

 method is quite satisfactory ; it would be well if all training colleges 

 were as fully equipped for geographical work as they are in other 

 departments. In no class of school can geography be satisfactorily 

 taught on modern lines unless the teachers are as seriously trained 

 in that as they are in grammar, arithmetic, or any other essential 

 parts of their course. In certain training colleges the subject is in 

 charge of geographical specialists. This ought to be the case in all 

 training colleges, as well as in the universities from which the sup- 

 ply of teachers for secondary and higher schools are drawn. But 

 if the progress is as marked in the next quarter of a century as it has 

 been in the past, there can be little doubt that the existing deficien- 

 cies will be removed, and geographical education will be on as satis- 

 factory a footing in Britain as it is in Germany. 



But time forbids me to go further. I hope I Ifave succeeded in 

 showing that during the last 30 years geography has grown in 

 stature and in strength in this country ; that, in fact, it has reached 

 man's estate, and that both in education and in research it is trying 

 to do a man's work. It has still much to learn that can only come by 



