CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 221 
It would be an excellent thing if we could settle upon an Arbor Day and 
induce all our societies to get all their members to plant a tree on that day. It 
could be initiated perhaps better from this Conference than in any other way. 
Perhaps, instead of politics, I ought to have said party politics, for I used 
the word in its usual restricted sense as the art of forwarding the interests 
of a political party. 
Mr. Face then read the following paper upon 
Regional Surveys, 
At the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies held at New- 
castle-upon-Tyne last year, your President, Professor Lebour, chose for the 
title of his address ‘Co-operation.’ I might very appropriately preface my 
remarks on Regional Surveys by some quotations from that address, but I 
will reserve these until the end, when you will be better able to see that 
the regional survey provides the means for carrying into effect, systematically 
and in detail, Professor Lebour’s suggestions. The regional survey is in fact 
the materialisation of the spirit which animated his address, which itself gave 
voice to the spirit of the times in matters of local research, and indeed in 
matters of far wider interest. 
The same is equally true of your present President’s stimulating address. 
The subject of regional surveys is a very large one, and we must concentrate 
our attention on one or two aspects of it. I cannot do better than tell 
you of the regional survey activities of three societies with which I am 
connected, namely, the. Croydon Natural History and _ Scientific 
Society, the South-Kastern Union of Scientific Societies, and the Regional 
Survey Association. The two former are Corresponding Societies of this 
Association, and the third, which is a newer society, will probably shortly apply 
to be admitted as such. 
I will commence by describing the methods we have adopted in conducting 
the survey at Croydon; next I will give an account of the scheme for co-ordinat- 
ing all surveys in the South-Eastern Counties, which is being developed by the 
Regional Survey Committee of the South-Eastern Union; and finally say some 
thing of the activities of the Regional Survey Association, which exists for the 
purpose of promoting regional surveys throughout the British Isles. In so 
doing, I shall of necessity repeat to some extent what I have said in former 
papers, but I will avoid this evil as far as possible, and for the sake of 
brevity refer you especially to two of these papers, namely, ‘ Regional Surveys 
and Local Societies’* and ‘ Regional Surveys and Public Libraries,’* in which 
I have briefly traced the history of the movement and dealt with some points 
at greater length than is here possible. 
A regional survey may be described as the organised study of a region and 
its inhabitants, plant, animal, and human, from every aspect, and the correla- 
tion of all aspects so as to give a complete picture of the region, both in its 
past history and its present features, and from these to indicate its probable 
future development. Such a survey is a very comprehensive task, providing 
activity for every class of research student, and opening up problems of 
methodology and technique such as Committees of the British Association 
delight in solving. If Regional Survey is proper to one section of this Asso- 
ciation more than another it is the Geographical Section, but the equipment of 
the Regional Surveyor, or collectively of the Regional Survey Society, must 
include some knowledge of the subjects dealt with by every section. The 
Croydon Survey was the outcome of some suggestions made by myself in 
April 1912, in which the following reasons for undertaking it were advanced : 
‘The survey will give the society a concrete scheme of work which will last 
for many years and provide activities for every section. It will revive the life 
? Trans. §.E. Union of Scientific Societies, 1915, p. 21. | Pm 
? Read before the Library Association and Library Assistants’ Association, 
March 15, 1916; abstract in ‘The Library Assistant,’ May 1916. 
