122 



NATURE 



[September 22, 192 1 



graphy has long become a mother. She has con- 

 ceived and borne astronomy, chemistry, botany, 

 zoology, and many more children, of whom about 

 the youngest is geology. They have all exist- 

 ences separate from hers and stand on their own 

 feet, but they preserve a filial connection with her 

 and depend still on their mother science for a 

 certain common service, while taking off her hands 

 other services she once performed. Restricting 

 the scope of her activities, they have set her free 

 to develop new ones. In doing this she will con- 

 ceive again and again and bear yet other children 

 during the century to follow — meteorology, 

 climatology, oceanography, ethnology, anthrop- 

 ology, and more. Again, and still more narrowly, 

 this new brood will limit the rnother's scope; but 

 ever and ever fecund, she will find fresh activities 

 in the vast field of earth knowledge, and once and 

 again conceive anew. The latest child that she 

 has borne and seen stand erect is geodesy ; and 

 she has not done with conceiving. 



Ever losing sections of her original field and 

 functions, ever adding new sections to them, geo- 

 graphy can scarcely help suggesting doubts to 

 others and even to herself. There must always be 

 a certain indefiniteness about a field on the edges 

 of which fresh specialisms are for ever developing 

 towards a point at which they will break away to 

 grow alone into new sciences. The mother holds 

 on awhile to the child, sharing its activities, loth 

 to let go, perhaps even a little jealous of its grow- 

 ing independence. It has not been easy to say at 

 any given moment where geography's functions 

 have ended and those of, say, geology or 

 ethnology have begun. Moreover, it is inevit- 

 ably asked about this fissiparous science from 

 which function after function has detached itself 

 to lead a life apart — what, if the process con- 

 tinues, as it shows every sign of doing, will 

 be left to geography ? Will it not be split 

 up among divers specialisms, and become in time 

 a venerable memory? It is a natural, perhaps a 

 necessary, question. But what is wholly unneces- 

 sary is that any answer should be returned which 

 implies a doubt that geography has a field of 

 research and study essentially hers yesterday, 

 to-day, and to-morrow ; still less one which implies 

 any suspicion that, because of her constant par- 

 turition of specialisms geography is. or is likely 

 to be in any future that can be foreseen, moribund. 



Since geography, as I understand it, is a 

 necessary factor in the study of all sciences, and 

 must be applied to all if their students are to 

 apprehend rightly the distribution of their own 

 material, it is a necessary element in all education. 

 Unless, oh one hand, its proper study be sup- 

 ported by such means as the State, the universi- 

 ties, and the great scientific societies control, and, 

 on the other, its application to the instruction of 

 youth be encouraged by the same bodies, the 

 general scientific standard in these islands will 

 suffer ; our system of education will lack an instru- 

 ment of the highest utility for both the inculca- 

 tion of indispensable knowledge and the training 

 of adolescent intelligence ; and a vicious circle will 

 NO. 2708, VOL. 108] 



be set up, trained teachers being lacking in quan- 

 tity and quality adequate to train pupils to a high 

 enough standard to produce out of their number 

 sufficient trained teachers to carry on the torch. 



The present policy of the English Board of Edu- 

 cation, as expressed in its practice, encourages a 

 four-years' break in the geographical training of 

 the young, the break occurring between the ages 

 of fourteen and eighteen, the best years of 

 adolescent receptivity. If students are to be 

 strangers to specifically geographical instruction 

 during all that period any geographical bent 

 given to their minds before the age of fourteen is 

 more than likely to have disappeared by the time 

 they come to eighteen years. The habit of think- 

 ing geographically — that is, of considering group 

 distribution — cannot have been formed ; and the 

 students, not having learned the real nature of the 

 science applied, will not possess the groundwork 

 necessary for the apprehension of the higher 

 applications of geography. Moreover, as Sir 

 Halford Mackinder has rightly argued, an inevit- 

 able consequence of this policy is that the chief 

 prizes and awards offered at the end qf school- 

 time are not to be gained by proficiency in oleo- 

 graphy. Therefore, few students are likely to 

 enter the university with direct encouragement to 

 resume a subject dropped long before at the end 

 of the primary period of their education. 



It is not, of course, the business of schools, 

 primary and secondary, to train specialists. 

 Therefore one does not ask that pure geographical 

 science should have more than a small share of 

 the compulsory curriculum^ — only that it have 

 some share. If this is assured, then its applica- 

 tions, which on account of their highly educative 

 influence deserve an equally compulsory but larger 

 place in the curriculum, can be used to full advan- 

 tage. The meaning and value of the geographical 

 ingredient in mixed studies will stand a good 

 chance of being understood, and of exciting the 

 lively interest of young students. In any case, 

 only so will the universities be likely to receive 

 year by year students sufficiently grounded to 

 make good use of higher geographical courses, 

 and well enough disposed to geogranhy to pursue 

 it as a higher study and become in their turn 

 competent teachers. 



The obligation upon the universities is the same 

 in kind, but qualitatively greater. They have to 

 provide not only the highest teaching, both in the 

 pure science and its applications, but also such 

 encouragements as will induce students of capa- 

 citv to devote their period of residence to this 

 subject. The first part of this obligatory pro- 

 vision has been recognised and met in varying 

 degrees by nearly all British universities during 

 the past quarter of a century. A valuable report 

 compiled recently by that veteran champion. Sir 

 John Keltic, shows that, in regard to geography, 

 endowment of professorial chairs, allocations of 

 stipends to readers, lecturers, and tutors, supply 

 of apparatus for research and instruction and 

 organisation of " honours " examinations, have 

 made remarkable progress in our university world 



