614 REPORT—1904. 
will be taken to secure a competent staff to cover the whole field of our science, 
and especially to train young University men for practical work in the field. We 
have every reason to expect that the results will prove satisfactory. 
‘The Geographical Association of Teachers, of which Mr. Mackinder and 
Dr. Herbertson are active members, is doing much to enlighten teachers with 
regard to the capabilities of the subject, to raise its standard, and to introduce 
improved methods of teaching. An interesting and useful conference was held 
last winter at the Chelsea Polytechnic, under its auspices, and in connection with 
the Conference there was an excellent exhibition of appliances used in teaching 
geography, the usefulness of which was increased by sending it to various 
provincial centres.’ 
In primary schools many teachers are furnishing excellent instruction, and are 
instructing themselves in the handbooks provided by our friends Dr, Mill and 
Mr. Chisholm and others. In the higher branches of education the problems of 
scientific geography are studied, and teachers are encouraged to develop the 
geographical aspects of other subjects, such as archeology, history, commerce, 
colonisation on the one hand, botany and natural history on the other. We have 
moved forwards and upwards, but do not let us flatter ourselves that we have as 
yet reached any considerable eminence. Probably many more of our countrymen 
can read a map in this generation than could in the last. A small percentage, I am 
glad to notice, are not hopelessly bewildered even by contour lines. 
We are learning our geographical alphabet. In time we may, as a nation, be 
able to read and to understand what we read. We shall recognise that ability to 
use a map and judge ground is a considerable safeguard against waste of life 
and disasters in war, and that an acquaintance with the features of the earth’s 
surface and geographical distribution is an invaluable help to a nation in the 
commercial rivalries and struggles of peace. 
When the question of establishing Geography at Oxford was being discussed, 
Dr. Jowett (who had himself somewhere in the fifties suggested the erection of a 
Geographical Chair) asked me if I believed Geography could be taught so ‘as to 
make men think.’ We should, I believe, ‘think imperially’ to more purpose if we 
also took pains ‘to think geographically.’ But I will not detain you and use up my 
time by going in any detail into the progress of Geography. I might find myself 
only repeating what others have said better. Andas to one important branch, 
perhaps the most important branch, geographical education, on which I addressed 
this Section at Birmingham some fifteen years ago, I feel myself debarred by the 
fact that the Association has now a Section specially devoted to Education. 
I have determined on the whole, therefore, to run the risk of wearying some 
of my listeners by inviting your attention to the place in Geography of the 
natural objects which have had for me through life the greatest and most enduring 
attraction. I propose to talk about mountains, their place in Nature, and their 
influence, both spiritual and material, on mankind, 
We have all of us seen hills, or what we call hills, from the monstrous pro- 
tuberances of the Andes and the Himalaya to such puny pimples as lie about the 
edges of your fens. Next to a waterfall, the first natural object (according to my 
own experience) to impress itself on a child’s mind is a hill, some spot from which 
he can enlarge his horizon, Hills, and still more mountains, attract the human 
imagination and curiosity. The child soon asks, ‘Tell me, how were mountains 
made ?’ a question easier to ask than to answer, which occupied the lifetime of the 
father of mountain science, De Saussure. But there are mountains and mountains. 
Of all natural objects the most impressive is a vast snowy peak rising as a white 
island above the waves of green hills—a fragment of the arctic world left behind 
to commemorate its past predominance—and bearing on its broad shoulders a 
garland of the Alpine flora that has been destroyed on the lower ground by the 
rising tide of heat and drought that succeeded the last glacial epoch. Mid- 
summer snows, whether seen from the slopes of the Jura or the plains of 
Lombardy, above the waves of the Euxine or through the glades of the 
tropical forests of Sikhim, stir men’s imaginations and rouse their curiosity. 
Before, however, we turn to consider some of the physical aspects of mountains, 
