476 
NATURE 
[ Sept. 16, 1886 
and independence. Ter best instructors on the matter have told | 
her that such is her interest, and she believes them. Interven- 
tion, therefore, becomes necessary ; negotiations ensue ; and the 
whole question revolves itself into a partition of territory and 
demarcation of boundary—in other words, the question becomes 
one of geography—what I should call, for reasons to be explained 
hereafter—Political Geography. Who, if not the ruling states- 
man, should know the true principle on which to deal with a 
large settlement of this nature—one, it may be, involving ethno- 
logical, commercial, humanitarian, quite as much as territorial, 
considerations ? Who, if not the agent on the spot, should know 
the details to regulate the application of the principle? But the 
statesman should be in full possession of his agent’s details, and 
be capable of appreciating them not only from the latest reports 
supplied, but from a certain insight into the matter obtained 
from early study. He should have been coached in that com- 
prehensive kind of geography which would have embraced the 
particular information required. Under present arrangements 
it is not so. The geography taught at schools is too simple or 
too scientific—too complex or too superficial ; in any case it is 
not the geography which would benefit the Cabinet Minister in 
solving a territorial difficulty any more than would those ‘ in- 
genuz artes” which have so strong a civilising influence on the 
natural man. Experience in classics may forestall the faulty 
quotation and false quantity, but fail to suspend the false move 
on the political board. And it need not be said that, while the 
first, in point of fact, affects the speaker only, the last concerns 
the happiness of the million. 
We now reach the second consideration : the mode of impart- 
ing a knowledge of geography so as to render it at once practical 
and engaging; and I may be pardoned if I dwell upon this 
somewhat lengthily, for it involves the gist of the whole question 
before us. It is always easier to detect a flaw than to find a 
remedy, and in the present case the flaw is generally admitted 
by experts. There may be differences of opinion on its character 
and extent, but apparently there are none on its existence. I 
shall have to recur to the first, but would ask leave to dismiss 
the last as established. We are told on excellent authority that 
in our own country the elements of success in geography are 
wanting, and the conclusion has been practically accepted by the 
representative Society of this branch of knowledge. The remedy 
has been suggested, and in a certain sense partially applied, but 
a great deal more remains to be done, and the many views 
entertained and expressed by competent men on the claims and 
requirements of geography in England render necessary a short 
review of what may be called the ‘‘ situation,” including notice 
of work achieved in the direction of reform. . . . 
Of late years the Royal Geographical Society, in pursuance of 
its originally expressed aims and obiects, and strong in the ex- 
perience of.a long and prospercus career, has endeavoured to 
arouse the rising generation to a sense of their shortcomings as 
regards the particular science in the promotion of which it has 
its own vazson d’étre. It granted prizes to such public schools 
as chose to compete for them, and after sixteen years’ trial dis- 
continued the grant, owing to unsatisfactory results. It opened 
correspondence with schools and colleges, and made other judi- 
cious and laudable attempts to evoke sympathy and support. 
But all its proceedings have been as it were preliminary, and 
may be considered rather as foundation-stenes of a temple of 
success than the outer walls or any visible part of the building 
itself. A more recent attempt to reach the masses was the 
Exhibition of Educational Appliances. Objects used in geo- 
graphical instruction at home and abroad were collected and 
arranged in galleries hired for the occasion, and the public were 
invited to inspect them, At the same time appropriate lectures 
were periodically delivered, by competent and experienced men, 
to the visitors, many of whom were not merely interested ama- 
teurs, but persons actually engaged in school teaching. Attention 
was called to the fact that the Exhibition was purely educational ; 
that there were in it specimens of German, Austrian, and Swiss 
maps, executed with a finish and detail unusual in our school 
maps at home; but that as the Society’s inquiry embraced 
Universities as well as schools, part of the appliances exhibited 
were used in Continental Universities, though in reality some of 
the finest maps shown were found also in the higher schools of 
Germany and Austria. Besides maps, there were in the collec- 
tion globes, models, and text-books, the presentations not being 
confined to countries visited by the inspector, to whom the task 
of collection had been intrusted, but from others also; and 
these were further supplemented by contributions from British 
publishers. 
The result of this new departure—if the term be allowable— 
was pronounced very satisfactory, and at the close of the Exhibi- 
tion, or in the spring of the present year, the Council considered 
what would be the next best step to take in furtherance of their 
desire to raise the character of geographical study. At a later 
date, on the recommendation of their Educational Committee, 
they resolved on addressing the Universities to the effect that 
chairs or readerships be instituted similar to those which were 
at that time filled in Germany by Carl Ritter at Berlin and 
Profs. Peschel and Richthofen at Leipzig. In carrying out the 
resolution alternative schemes were submitted. The Council 
would appoint, under approval of the University authorities, a 
lecturer or reader in geography, paid out of the Society’s funds, 
he being accorded a fitting local status ; or each University might 
join with the Council in the matter of payment, and a reader be 
appointed by a committee on which the Society should be 
represented. ... 
It will thus be seen that special efforts have been made and 
continue to be made to popularise a science which has never, so 
far as can be ascertained, held its proper place in the educational 
programme of our schools or Universities. _We must not, how- 
ever, lose sight of one important consideration. More remains 
to be done than to institute a chair, a professorship, a reader- 
ship. It must be clearly understood on what general lines of 
study we are about to proceed. Is geography to be taught in its 
full, comprehensive sense, as something involving a knowledge, 
more or less, of mathematics and astronomy, of ancient and 
modern history, of ethnology, zoology, botany, geology, of men 
and manners, laws of nations, modes of government, statistics 
and politics, something requiring in the disciple a quick ear, a 
searching eye, an appreciation of scenery and outer subjects as 
well as physical aspects of country, a power of picturesque but 
an adherence to accurate description? If so—and I believe I 
have only stated the qualifications of the travelled and finished 
geographer—would it not be well to inquire whether the com- 
ponent parts of the science should not be reconsidered, and a 
subdivision effected which would make it easier to deal with than 
geography as now understood, under the terms physical, poli- 
tical, and perhaps commercial? . . . 
Not six months ago I wrote as follows :—‘‘ We are authorita- 
tively told that, at one of our greatest public schools, which may 
be fairly taken as representative of its class, there is no systematic 
teaching of geography at all, but ‘that in the history lessons, as 
well as in the classical lessons, a certain amount of geography is 
introduced incidentally.” Again, if we look at the Universities 
abroad, it has been found the custom, until quite lately, both in 
France and Germany, to combine the chairs of geography and 
history under one professor. Now the ‘incidental’ character of 
geographical instruction is a tacit declaration of its unimportance, 
which every day’s experience shows to be without warrant; and 
its combination with history may be an expedient to render it 
less distasteful than it appears as a separate study. Buta useful 
hint may be taken from the Continental practice, and a partial | 
fusion of two departments effected, which would commend itself 
to common-sense, and, to judge from the recorded opinions of 
certain of our educational experts, might not be objected to by 
head masters in England collectively. Let us, then, endeavour 
to extract from the lessons of conventional geography that part 
which is inseparable from the study of nations and people, and 
place it under a new and more appropriate head. In this view, 
so-called ‘political geography,’ stripped of its purely scientific — 
belongings, would be taught in connection with history, and 
made an essential ingredient in the early training of British 
statesmen, whose after-reputation should be more or less the 
outcome of a University career, the grounding of a public or 
grammar school, or private tuition. It is dithcult to reconcile 
the amalgamation of what may be considered ‘scientific’ ge- 
graphy with history. One is as thoroughly apart from the other 
as geology is from astronomy.” 
The meaning of the verbal combination ‘‘ political geography ” 
requires some kind of: analysis. Conventionally, and in an 
educational sense, it is the description of the political or arbitrary 
divisions and limits of empires, kingdoms, and States ; their in- 
habitants, towns, natural productions, agriculture, manufactures, 
and commerce, as well as laws, modes of government, and social 
organisation—everything being viewed with reference to the 
artificial divisions and works made by man. Accepting this in- 
terpretation of its objects, who can hesitate to admit its palpable 
and immediate relation to history? The mathematical science 
which investigates the physical character of territory and terri- 
torial boundaries is in this case but a secondary requirement, and 
ae 
a ee een 
ao OEE 1 6 
