490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
manding influence. With its membership far beyond a half mil- 
lion, its large funds and its brilliantly illustrated magazine, it brings 
geographic information to the attention of perhaps some millions 
of people each year. In addition it has subsidized and directed ex- 
ploratory research in several parts of the world, including Alaska, 
South America, and the Polar regions. 
In the period named the American Geographical Society has 
twice removed to new homes to fit its expanding work. Its library 
has been rapidly built up, its map collection enlarged, and its pub- 
lications extended and enriched. It has become a center of geo- 
eraphic influence for the Western Hemisphere and has adopted 
elaborate plans for its future work. On a less extended scale similar 
progress has been made by the geographic societies of Philadelphia 
and Chicago. 
In 1904 the Association of American Geographers formally began 
its work with a program of papers given at its meeting in Phila- 
delphia. Here was founded, it is believed, the only geographic 
society in the world which adheres to standards of expert member- 
ship. Its objects have combined research and educational advance, 
and much of the new interest in geographic subjects, in the whole 
range of geographic education, is due either directly or indirectly to 
its activities. 
The membership of this association is little more than 100, but it 
includes most of the professional geographers of America, their affili- 
ations in various degrees relating them to the geographic aspects of 
geology, the biological sciences, climatology, and agriculture on the 
one hand, and to history, economics, sociology, and statistical studies 
on the other. 
Out of this association has developed, since 1914, the National 
Council of Geography Teachers, which has now organized State 
councils in a majority of the States and is an effective force in pro- 
moting geographic advancement in the elementary and secondary 
schools of the entire country. 
Coordinated with the National Council is the publication known 
as the Journal of Geography. This periodical, founded by Prof. 
Richard E. Dodge at Columbia University, in 1897, and taken over at 
a later period by Prof. R. H. Whitbeck, of the University of Wiscon- 
sin, has recently been published by the American Geographical 
Society of New York under the editorship of Director Isaiah Bow- 
man. For several years it has been affliliated with the National 
Council, and it is soon to become their specific organ under the 
direction of Prof. George J. Miller, of Mankato, Minn., the secre- 
tary of the council. For 23 years this journal has been a powerful 
force in American geographic teaching. 
