GEOGRAPHY 



2422 



GEOGRAPHY 



from all parts of the country, and does a splen- 

 did work in making geography popular through 

 its annual lecture course and its widely-read 

 publication, the National Geographic Mag- 

 azine. The magazine makes a specialty of de- 

 scribing and illustrating by actual photographs 

 not only newly-discovered territory, but any 

 part of the world where interesting things are 

 happening. This makes it extremely fascinat- 

 ing and helpful to boys and girls at school and 

 to adults who desire to be well informed on 

 timely topics. In tone and membership this 



society is much less technical than the Amer- 

 ican Geographical Society. Both organizations 

 occupy fine buildings of their own and possess 

 valuable collections of ancient and modern 

 works on geographical subjects. (See illustra- 

 tion on preceding page.) 



In some of the larger cities local geographical 

 societies have been formed, those of Chicago, 

 Baltimore and Philadelphia being particularly 

 active and successful. The total number of 

 such associations throughout the world is over 

 a thousand. G.H.G. 



EOGRAPHY, jeog'rafi, is one of the 

 most interesting of all the sciences, not only 

 because it has so many phases, but because 

 it touches human life at so many points. In 

 fact, it may be called one of the few uni- 

 versal subjects. A man may live all his life 

 without studying even such common subjects 

 as spelling and grammar, for instance, but he 

 cannot grow up without constant contact with 

 geography. The tiny baby just learning to 

 walk is accumulating geographic knowledge 

 learning which chairs are so far apart that an 

 unaided journey between them is impossible; 

 which tables are so placed that they offer aid 

 to a little voyager who has set out on too 

 long a- journey. The older child learns more 

 where the corner candy-store is; where the 

 fascinating ditch flows, down which toy fleets 

 may be sailed; which side of the house has 

 the pleasantest breeze on a hot summer after- 

 noon. To be sure, the child does not think of 

 all this as geography he is simply fitting him- 

 self to his surroundings; but it is a type of the 

 formal geography which he will study in school 

 when he gets older. 



What Geography Is. Writings about the 

 earth that is what geography really is; for 

 geo comes from a Greek word meaning earth, 

 and graphy, from the word to unite. It takes 

 but little account of what the earth was in the 

 past, save as bygone conditions influence 

 world facts to-day; it pays no attention to 

 the manner in which life, whether plant or 



animal, came to be on the earth; it does not 

 directly concern itself with the stars and the 

 planets; yet it is closely related to geology, 

 to biology and to astronomy, the sciences 

 which make the topics mentioned above their 

 special field, and to other sciences as well. It 

 treats of the form of the earth, the distribution 

 of water and land, the height of mountains and 

 the depth of seas, the distribution of plants 

 and animals, the qualities which fit or unfit 

 a region to be the home of man, and the rea- 

 sons, so far as may be known, why things are 

 as they are on the earth's surface. The his- 

 tory of Greece, for instance, does not naturally 

 seem to be a part of geography; but when 

 it is understood that the history of Greece 

 resulted largely from the geography of the 

 little country; that a number of little inde- 

 pendent states grew up rather than one large 

 state because of the mountain barriers, then 

 it may be seen how very closely the history 

 and geography of some countries are connected. 

 Indeed, one cannot fully understand the history 

 of any country without a knowledge of its 

 geography, for not only the economic develop- 

 ment and the relation to other nations, but 

 the national characteristics of the people, are 

 influenced profoundly by conditions of soil, 

 topography and climate. 



It may thus be seen that geography is a 

 very wide subject, with phases which are cer- 

 tain to delight any student. One student feels 

 the romance of maps, those apparently simple 



