144 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [7 :6— Sept., 1911 



some fifteen years ago, that geography was held in the German 

 higher institutions of learning to be a subject deserving of 

 separate university chairs and courses. Shortly after that our 

 own universities began to take up the subject. First, I think, 

 came commercial geography. Now it is hard to say what has 

 not come in. The general impression which I gathered from 

 reading the program of the Baltimore meeting and from the 

 papers which I heard there was that the field of geography in- 

 cludes the greater part of human knowledge, and perhaps the 

 greater part of what is now human ignorance ; and that biology, 

 botany, zoology, geology, history, economics, and I know not how 

 many other subjects, have surrendered their independent stand- 

 ing and are now no more than side shows to the main educa- 

 tional performance run by the geographers. 



Very likely you know that the geographers make much of 

 what they call "geographic controls." Human history and human 

 institutions, they point out, are largely the result of environ- 

 mental influences. The locations of great cities are, of course, 

 determined by natural causes ; the alternation of growing and 

 non-growing seasons, with the subsequent need for a stored food 

 supply, has doubtless played an important part in the develop- 

 ment of property rights. To the study of these geographic con- 

 trols of man geographic science is now giving a great amount of 

 attention. 



But there is a geographic control by man as well as a geo- 

 graphic control of man. Human life causes geographic phe- 

 nomena as well as displays them. When wolves are driven from 

 their native habitat, or erosion from a great mountain region 

 is accelerated, or soil fertility is reduced, or an improved variety 

 of wheat is bred, man becomes the control. 



In the past man's conquest of nature — in other words, man's 

 advance in material civilization — has been mainly that of the in- 

 dividual seeking his own betterment through the excercise of 

 intelligence to make nature serve his own ends. But a still 

 larger exercise of intelligence is possible if men will seek to 

 shape their collective action along the lines that will make the 

 earth most habitable and most responsive to human needs. 

 Here is the same underlying idea which Professor Hodge's 

 pamphlet presents. You will see now why I think "civic 

 geography" a better term than his. 



Already several of our universities are giving courses in 

 conservation. At Yale such a course is given by one of the 



