RELATION OF GEOGRAPHY TO THE SCIENCES 53 



may so characterize them. It is worthy of note that Professor Norton 

 says of this predominant influence in present-day so-called geographic 

 thought that the "professors of physical geography belong, notwith- 

 standing, to the brotherhood of the hammer." It is but natural that 

 the leader in this school, Prefessor W. M. Davis, should, in his admi- 

 rable treatise on land forms, unconsciously realize the narrowness of the 

 physical side of geography alone by pointing out the application of the 

 science to the life of plants and animals and of man, thus placing 

 himself among the first of his cult to appreciate that geography is 

 something more than geomorphology. 



The true place of geography has now been indicated, though few 

 geographers have been or will be sp,..pomprehen6ive of grasp and so 

 broad in culture as to compass the whole subject and favor no 

 specialty. Dr. Wm. T. Harris, United States commissioner of educa- 

 tion, best indicated the full scope of geography as a science when he 

 wrote: " Geography unites the study of the natural elements, land 

 and water, climate and productions, with the study of man's present 

 conquest and use of the same." Professor Tozer, in the statement 

 previously quoted, characterized geography in similar terms. The Com- 

 mittee of Fifteen also indicated in their report the important position 

 of geography among the sciences when they referred to it as one of 

 the most important of all branches taught in the common schools, "a 

 composite science or conglomerate of several sciences united with 

 several arts." This last phrase clearly indicates that geography is an 

 intermediary science — that its true functions are to correlate the 

 sciences — physical, natural, commercial, historical, and mathematical — 

 with the arts. It is indeed true that one of the interests in the many- 

 sided science of geography is lost if the student limits his investiga- 

 tions to the surface of the earth and its envelopes of air and water, 

 and fails to consider the human side — the relation of man to his 

 habitat, and its reaction upon him, as shown in the social and political 

 history of the race. As Humboldt has expressed it, "the unity of a 

 physical description of the world is no other than that found also in 

 the study of history." Both are exact sciences, dealing not in doubt- 

 ful premises nor dependent on unproved theories, but founded on facts 

 empirically determined. 



As recently pointed out by Dr. Martha Krug Genthe, "the geog- 

 raphy of plants or animals is, then, as different from descriptive 

 botany and zoology as the geological knowledge of the earth is from 



