616 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



the land ; the movements of air and water, and the distribution of plant associations, 

 animals, and man ; the chief facts of modern political and economic geography, 

 considered in relation to the influence of physical features. Candidates are 

 also required to be familiar with the principles of map-making by plane table, 

 prismatic compass, and clinometer, with the representation of relief, and with the 

 orientation, readiug, and measurement of maps. Equally thorough and exhaustive 

 are the various topics included under the other heads of examination. Both in 

 ancient and modern historical geography the subject has to be considered in rela- 

 tion to the influence of physical features. The standard adopted at Oxford is as 

 high as that which exists at any university in Germany. The establishment of a 

 school at Cambridge being recent, one cannot yet speak as positively of its success 

 as in the case of Oxford. But Cambridge has gone a step further than Oxford in 

 placing geography as a subject in the examination for its B.A. degree; and while 

 that may be regarded as a simple pass, the student may also enter for the exami- 

 nation for the diploma in geography, the standard of which is no less high than 

 that at Oxford, while the ground covered is essentially the same. In both univer- 

 sities the training in cartography and surveying is thorough, and it is to be hoped 

 that such students as propose to foUow either a military or a colonial career will 

 take advantage of the opportunity thus presented. The example of Oxford and 

 Cambridge has been followed elsewhere, though to a lesser extent. In the Uni- 

 versity of London there is a board of geographical studies, and the subject holds 

 a substantial place in the University examination, and is a compulsory subject for 

 a degree in economics. There are chairs or lectureships of geography at Victoria 

 University, Manchester, at the University of Liverpool, and at the University of 

 Birmingham. Steps are being taken to establish a chair at the University of 

 Edinburgh ; while other institutions of a similar kind would be glad to follow the 

 example of the great universities if only their funds permitted. In the elementai-y 

 schools the programme is nearly all that can be desired, the one thing needed here, 

 as elsewhere, being a sufficiency of teachers who have been thoroughly trained in 

 the subject. In the secondary schools progress has been somewhat more slow ; but 

 there has been a steady advance in recent years, and a step recently taken by the Board 

 of Education, in issuing a very satisfactory syllabus for the teaching of geography, 

 is certain to give a strong '^impetus to the subject. In the London School of 

 Economics, under the directorship of Mr. Mackinder, which is attended annually 

 by over a thousand students, geographical teaching holds a place of the first rank. 

 The publishers have kept pace with this great revolution in the schools, so that 

 to-day there is no difficulty whatever for anyone, from the elementary school up 

 to the university, in obtaining a text-book, or an atlas, or special maps suitable 

 for his requirements. The country has been, indeed, almost flooded with cheap 

 atlases issued in parts, some of them of a highly creditable quality, while the 

 slides of photographs taken by explorers are sold by the thousand for educational 

 and lecture purposes. 



The main cause of this remarkable growth of interest in geography amongst 

 our educated classes dates back to about three years after the last Meeting of the 

 Association at York. In 1884, Germany, which in the middle of the century had 

 been still said to rule the air (while France ruled the land and Britain the sea), 

 and which in later years had been absorbed in the process of unification by blood 

 and iron, suddenly launched out as a world Power and gave the signal for the 

 partition of Africa. England and France, in both of which countries a few men 

 had been carefully preparing, during several years, for this inevitable partition, 

 hastened to join in the international race, and the spirit of colonial expansion, long 

 dormant, reawakened, and reached out to all parts of the earth where settled govern- 

 ment did not forbid advance. We, who have lived through the last quarter of a 

 century, are apt to underestimate the revolution through which we have passed, 

 for a true analogy to which we must go back to the Elizabethan age. The im- 

 jtulse given by this movement to the study of geography can hardly be overesti- 

 mated. War has been called the best teacher of geography, and certainly Napo- 

 leon, the highest exponent of the art of war, was as ardent a student of geography 

 as he was of mathematics ; but it now appears that empire-building is an even 



