September 22, 1921] 



NATURE 



123 



as a whole. But no British university has 

 yet provided all that is requisite or desired. 

 Oxford and Cambridge, which have well-equipped 

 g-eographical laboratories, still lack professorial 

 chairs. Liverpool, maintaining a well-staffed 

 department of geography, and London, which, 

 between L'niversity College and the School of 

 Economics, provides all the staff and apparatus 

 required for teaching, have endowed chairs ; but 

 they direct the attention of the holders to applica- 

 tions of geography rather than to the pure science. 

 So also do the L'niversity of Manchester and the 

 L'niversity College of A\'ales, both of which main- 

 tain professors of geography. 



All the universities, with but one or two excej>- 

 tions, examine in the subject to a high standard, 

 that set by Cambridge being perhaps the highest 

 over the whole field of properly geographical 

 study. This latter university, also, has met the 

 second part of her obligation to geography by the 

 organisation of an honours course of instruction 

 and classified examination, which, if pursued 

 throughout a student's residence, is sufficient in 

 itself to secure graduation. At Cambridge, there- 

 fore, geography may be said to stand on a par 

 with any other self-contained final subject. 

 Neither in London nor in Manchester (I am not 

 quite sure about Liverpool, but believe its case to 

 be the same) is geography, in and by itself, all- 

 sufficient yet to secure graduation, though at 

 London the supplementary subject is so far sub- 

 ordinated to geography that the degree is taken as 

 in the latter subject. Oxford offers distinctly less 

 encouragement at present than any of the uni- 

 versities just mentioned. Her teaching and her 

 examination standard are as advanced as the best 

 of theirs, and the highest award which she gives 

 for proficiency in geography, her diploma " with 

 distinction," counts towards the B.A. degree as 

 two-thirds of the Avhole qualification ; but— and 

 here's the rub ! — the balance has to be made up 

 by proficiency in some other subject up to a pass, 

 not an honours, standard. Therefore the resultant 

 degree does not stand before the world as one 

 taken in honours ; and, although some candidates 

 are notified as distinguished and some not in the 

 geographical part of her examinations, the dis- 

 tinction is not advertised in the form to which the 

 public is accustomed — namely, an honours list 

 divided into classes. The net result is that an 



>xford diploma, however brilliantly won, com- 

 mands less recognition in the labour market than 

 would a class in an honours school or tripos. It 

 should, however, be mentioned — though an infre- 

 quent occurrence, not advertised bv a class list, 

 makes little impression on public opinion — that 

 special geographical research, embodied in a 

 thesis, can qualifv at Oxford for higher degrees 

 than the B.A. — viz. for the B.Litt. a,nd B.Sc— 

 without the support of other subjects. 



The reason of this equivocal status of geo- 

 graphy at Oxford is simply that, so far as the 

 actual faculties which control the courses for ordi- 

 nary graduation are concerned, geographv is, in 

 fact, an equivocal subject. Xo one faculty feels 

 NO. 2708, VOL. 108] 



that it can deal with the whole of it. The arts 

 faculties will not accept responsibility for the 

 elements of natural and mathematical science 

 which enter into its study and teaching — for ex- 

 ample, into the investigation of the causes of dis- 

 tribution, into the processes of surveying, into 

 cartography, and into many other of its functions. 

 Moreover, the traditional Oxford requirement of a 

 literary basis for arts studies is hard, if not im- 

 possible, to satisfy in geography. The faculty of 

 natural science, on the other hand, is equally loth 

 to be responsible for a subject which admits so 

 much of the arts element, especially into those 

 applications of its data which enter most often 

 into the instructional curriculum of adolescents — 

 for example, its applications to history and to 

 ethnology. 



\x this moment, then, there is an itnpasse at 

 Oxford similar to that (it is caused by the same 

 reason) which prevents the election of a geo- 

 grapher, as such, either to the Royal Society on 

 the one hand, or to the British .Academy on the 

 other. But ways out can be found if there be 

 good will towards geography, and such general 

 recognition of the necessity of bringing it into 

 closer relation with the established studies as was 

 implied by the examiners in the Oxford school of 

 Literae Humaniores last year, when, in an official 

 notice, they expressed th^ir sense of a lack of it 

 in the historical work with which they had to deal. 

 Faculties are comparatively modern organisations 

 at Oxford as at Cambridge for the control of 

 teaching and examining. Before them existed 

 boards of studies, appropriated to narrower sub- 

 jects ; and, indeed, such boards have been con- 

 stituted since faculties became the rule and side 

 by side with them. The board, which at first 

 controlled at Oxford the final honours school of 

 English, is an example and a valid precedent. 

 Cambridge has found it possible to organise a 

 mixed board of studies to manage a final school 

 of geography, the board being composed of repre- 

 sentatives of both the arts subjects and the 

 natural and mathematical sciences ; and this acts 

 apparently to the general satisfaction even in the 

 absence of a professor of the special subject for the 

 teaching and testing of which it was formed. Why, 

 then, should Oxford not do likewise? If Cam- 

 bridge has not waited for the endowment of a 

 professorial chair in geography, need Oxford 

 wait? I am well aware that, when at the latter 

 university the school of English came into exist- 

 ence, there were already two chairs appropriated 

 to its subject ; and I grant that Oxford will not 

 have the very best of all guarantees that a high 

 standard will be maintained in the instructional 

 courses and the examinations in geography until 

 there is a professor ad hoc. But guarantees suflfi- 

 cient for all practical purposes she could obtain 

 to-morrow by composing a board out of her exist- 

 ing teachers of geography and kindred sciences. 



For the last time, then, let me rehearse the too 

 familiar "vicious circle." The supply of good 

 students depends on a supply of good teachers : 

 the supply of good teachers depends on a supply 



