738 KEPOKT— 1895. 



Section E.— GEOGRAPHY. 

 Pkesident of the Section — II. J. Mackinder, M.A., F.R.G.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



This is a memorable year for English students of geography. We have enter- 

 tained in London for the first time a great gathering of our foreign colleagues, and 

 have presented to the British public the unfamiliar spectacle of a geographical 

 meeting, in which scholars and professors were as prominent as explorers. As a 

 nation we may justly claim that for several generations we have been fore- 

 most in the work of the pioneer ; nor need we view with dissatisfaction our contri- 

 butions to precise survey, to hydrography, to climatology, and to biogeographj-. 

 It is rather on the synthetic and philosopbical, and therefoi'e on the educational, 

 side of our subject that we fall so markedly below the foreign and especially the 

 German standard, and it is for this reason that we may regard the Sixth Inter- 

 national Congress as a noteworthy object lesson for English geographers and 

 teachers. The time seems, moreover, to have been ripe for some such stimulating 

 influence. To indicate a few signs only of rising courage among our geographers, 

 and of sympathy on the part ot the public, I would draw your attention to the 

 institution of afternoon meetings in Savile Row for the discussion of technical 

 questions, to the success of the new Geographical Journal, notwithstanding its 

 geographical as opposed to merely ' adventuring ' flavour, to the recent formation 

 of a geographical association of Public Schoolmasters, and to the demand for 

 addresses on the teaching of geography on the part of the local branches of the 

 Teachers" Guild. Facts are reminding us once more that the lapse of a certain 

 time is essential to the rooting of a new idea, and we may thank the geographical 

 veterans of 1869 for sowing seed the fruit of which we are now harvesting. That 

 I am not alone in ray interpretation of present tendencies is clear from the 

 emphatic opinion of the President of the Royal Geographical Society expressed 

 in his last annual address, that 'the time is approaching for a reconsideration 

 of the educational policy of the Society.' It would almost seem that we are 

 nearmg a development of geographical education not unhke that which nine years 

 ago followed on the publication of Mr. Keltic's valuable Report. At that time 

 two of my predecessors in this chair, Sir Frederick Goldsmid and Sir Charles 

 Warren, thought it not unfit to make education the chief theme of their addresses, 

 and encouraged by their example I venture, under present circumstances, to call 

 your attention once more to that subject. Since 1886 and 1887, however, much 

 has happened, and we no longer need to discuss the more elementary teaching 

 of geography. I propose, therefore, to treat of comparative and philosophical 

 geography in relation especially to secondary and university education, and it 

 seems to me that an historical rather than an a priori discussion gives best promise 

 of result. 



