DISCIPLINARY VALUE OF GEOGRAPHY 233 



advanced of all methods, and its proper accomplishment demands 

 training in all the simpler ones. Evidently, systematic studies, whether 

 empirical or explanatory, are the essential precursors of well-planned 

 regional studies, for it is by means of systematic studies that a student 

 determines how competent is his treatment and how complete is his 

 equipment; and furthermore it must be in terms already established 

 that the features of any selected region are to be described. Let no one, 

 therefore, imdertake regional description until he has decided for him- 

 self upon the kind of description and of classification that he proposes to 

 employ in describing the forms of his selected region, or indeed of any 

 other region : and nothing is so helpful in making and justifying such a 

 decision, as the experience of presenting orally a systematic scheme of 

 classification to a sympathetic but critical audience. 



The Regional Method. — Eegional presentation of geographical prob- 

 lems may be regarded as the climax towards which all other methods 

 advance : for regional description is the goal of geographical effort. The 

 results of a brief excursion in the field or a rapid journey of exploration 

 may be fittingly presented in narrative form, in which the observed 

 facts, along with personal incidents, are told in the order in which they 

 were noted. Results following from the study of problems which in- 

 volve the selection of related forms from various fields may be 

 presented inductively, if they are relatively simple, and analytically, 

 if they are complex. Many kinds of things, wherever found, may 

 be shown to have orderly relations by systematic presentation, and the 

 classes of things thus established may be filled with graded examples 

 by deduction, thus greatly extending the equipment of the geographer 

 for further work. But after all this, there still remains the descrip- 

 tion of various land forms in the peculiar associations that they assimie 

 in nature, when they are found together in a given region: and the 

 method of presenting such a description may therefore be called 

 regional. 



Eegional presentation may be treated empirically, if so desired; or 

 partly empirically, partly in terms of accidental, unintentional, tra- 

 ditional explanation; but for serious scientific work no method is so 

 helpful or so accordant with the evolutionary philosophy which in the 

 last half century has come to dominate so many fields of scientific study, 

 as intentional, thoroughgoing, correlated, explanatory treatment. Evi- 

 dently, no comprehensive treatment of this kind can be applied to best 

 advantage in regional presentation, until the student has had practical 

 experience with the various simpler methods of presentation already 

 considered ; hence the importance of orderly practise in various methods 

 of presentation, as here repeatedly advised. 



Both the empirical and the explanatory presentation of a regional 

 problem should be attempted, in order to give the student a proper 

 basis for choice between the more antiquated and the more modem 



