TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 747 



Geographical Institute. Since 1869 the Royal Geographical Society has made 

 repeated efforts to alter the situation, and it would be an error not to recognise that 

 we are on the upward gradient. The Society's policy has been embodied chiefly in 

 four measures — the offer of medals to the great public schools ; the ajjpointment of 

 an inspector to report on foreign geographical teaching : the foundation of lecturer- 

 ships in the universities, and the institution of a system of training for explorers. 

 After sixteen years of trial the medals were discontinued on the ground that they 

 affected only a few schools, and even in those schools only a few pupils. Out of a 

 total of 62 medals awarded, no iewer than 30 fell to two schools ; a noteworthy fact, 

 as indicating at once the power and the rarity of skilled and enthusiastic geo- 

 graphical teaching. The most significant result of Mr. Keltie's report, and of the 

 exhibition of specimens collected by him and now deposited with the Teachers" 

 Guild in Gower Street, has been a general improvement in school text-books and 

 maps, as seen particularly in some of the better elementary schools and training 

 colleges. The university lecturerships have been effective only at Oxford for a suf- 

 ficient time to judge of results. There, a considerable class of historical students 

 attend lectures in geography twice a week, but are not likely to give the time 

 necessary for more thorough study without the stimulus of examination. None 

 the less, students who have heard lectures are gradually spreading geographical 

 ideas, and the mere existence of the lecturerships is a valuable admission that the 

 study is one of University rank. The classes for explorers have been conspicuously 

 successful, and are probably the best of their kind in the world. But here we are 

 dealing with those arts of observation in which, as already remarked. Englishmen 

 excel. 



With the example of Germany before us, with partial success to encourage 

 us, with the interest aroused by the recent Geographical Congress to aid us, and 

 with the reorganisation of secondary teaching impending, is not this the ripe oppor- 

 tunity for another, and it may be final effort, to make geography effective in 

 English education? I do not deny that there maybe several good roads to success, 

 but I cannot help feeling that our most immediate need is a certain amount of 

 centralisation. This is so for two reasons. First, because we English geographers 

 require, above all things, a tradition. We varj' so widely in our views, and our 

 examiners examine so differentlj-, that teachers are at a loss whether to keep to 

 the old methods or venture on the new. The old classical education still main- 

 tains its supremacy, mainly because through strong tradition it is workable without 

 artificial syllabus ; it is an organism rather than a machine. German geography, 

 despite its modern growth, has a tradition, for Germans are all sons in geography 

 of the ancestral group — Humboldt, Ritter, Berhaus, and Perthes. Secondly, we 

 need a worthy object lesson, which is attainable under existing circumstances only 

 by the concentration of funds, and by the co-operation of several leaders. 

 For no single lecturer, such as the Universities at present maintain, can deal 

 adequately with all aspects of geography. An historical or classical student listens 

 to a dozen different teachers at Oxford or Cambridge. Berlin and Vienna have 

 each of them two professors of geography, besides Docenten. Moreover, a German 

 student may pass from university to university, and thus correct the limitations 

 of his teachers. Yet nothing short of a con.siderable object lesson in England 

 will bring general conviction as to the value and possibilities of geography. Nor 

 need we (ear that when centralisation has done its work, independent and local 

 initiative will not vary the general tradition. Furthermore, the centralisation should 

 not be complete. The work in progress at the Universities must not be abandoned. 

 It will :steadily gain importance in proportion as the central body does the work 

 for which it is designed. 



Clearly, if the policy of centralisation be agreed to, there is only one site for the 

 central school. It must be in London, under the immediate inspiration of that 

 Royal Geographical Society, whose past services to the cause would be a guarantee 

 of support during the early effTorts. But geographers must associate with 

 themselves experts in education, if they are to avoid certain rocks which have 

 knocked many a hole into the geographical projects of the past, and if public 

 bodies and private individuals are to be moved to financial generosity. The beginning 



