HUMAN GEOGRAPHY: 



FIRST PRINCIPLES AND SOME 



APPLICATIONS. 



ADDRESS TO SECTION E (gEOGBAPHy) BY 



MAEION I. NEWBIGIN, D.Sc. (Lend.), 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



In his address to this Section in Edinbui'gh last year, my predecessor, 

 Dr. Hogarth, devoted some time to a consideration of the position of 

 geography in the Universities of this country. He had no difficulty 

 in showing that, from various points of view, this position still leaves 

 much to be desired. My present concern, however, is not with the 

 actual facts, but with a deduction which naturally follows froni them. 

 If it be true that the Geographical Departments of the Universities are, 

 in most cases, insufficiently staffed and equipped, then it is surely clear 

 that, despite all the progress which has been made in recent years, we 

 have largely failed to convince the great mass of educated opinion of 

 the value of our subject ; for University chairs are only endowed, and 

 departments equipped, when those established in educational high places 

 realise the growing importance of the subject concerned. Usually, also, 

 before that realisation can take place there must be a driving force in 

 the shape of a body of enthusiasts, able and willing to convinc-e the 

 general public that the advance is necessary in the interests of the 

 community. 



Now, in the case of geography the body of enthusiasts does exist ; 

 where we have failed, as I think, is in making continued and determined 

 effoi'ts to convince others. The time seems to me to have come for a 

 determined missionary effort, a deliberate attempt to make clear to the 

 ordinary citizen that geography, in its modern aspects, ia a subject of 

 direct interest and value to him in his daily life. 



Ijet me take first a single minor example of the need for such a 

 policy. All those who have had anything to do with the arranging of 

 lecture programmes for geographical societies are aware how largely 

 accounts of exploration bulk in these. It may be said generally that 

 any Committee meeting for such a purpose turns first to a consideration 

 of what returned explorers are likely to be available at the time. More 

 than this, whether geographers in the technical sense are well repre- 

 sented on such bodies or not, there is a general consensus of opinion 

 that an explorer who has come through great dangers, or shown con- 

 spicuous personal courage, is, for a society which depends on public 

 support, a much more valuable lecturer than one who has merely done 

 careful and painstaking work, with no element of drama in it. 



This means that even that section of the public sufficiently interested 

 in geography to join a geographical society regards the subject as 



