E.— GEOGRAPHY. Do 



pnrnarily coiicei'iied willi exploration, leading to the descriiuiou of 

 unknown or little-known regions of the earth. Even so, its interest 

 requires stimulation by the personal factor. Tf this be the attitude of a 

 somewhat si)ecialised public, what is that of the world outside? 



I do not think there can be nuicli doubt) as to the answer. In so 

 far as that public is highly specialised and consists of students either 

 of those separate sciences from which geography obtains much of its 

 material, or of such subjects as history in its different branches, ih 

 tends in many cases to regard geography with tolerant contempt. Of 

 the unspecialised public it may be said generally that the subject in its 

 modern d(?veIopments has scarcely com.e within its range of vision. Its 

 older members, especially, are for the most part convinced that they 

 learnt ' geography ' at school, as they learnt reading, writing, and arith- 

 metic there, and that, since mountains and I'ivers, capes and bays and 

 the rest remain where they were, tlicre is little left to be studied or 

 investigatetl. 



It seems to me, therefore, that the most clamant need at the present 

 time is a continuous attempt to make it plain toi th.e community at 

 large that the main interest of geography is not in its facts as such — for 

 if geography ceased to exist the geologists, meteorologists, botanists, 

 zoologists, and so forth would continue to collect most of these. Eather 

 does it lie in the way in which the geographer studies these facts in 

 their relations to each other and to the life of man. Further, whatever 

 place the study of the human response to the surface phenomena of 

 the earth should take in the subject considered as a whole — and the 

 topic was fully discussed by Dr. Hogarth last year — there can be no 

 doubt that it is the aspect which makes the widest appeal. When, 

 for example, we can take the sheets of a good atlas of physical geography 

 and show that the facts represented there can be made to yield deduc- 

 tions of great interest and value to everyone, then we are going far to 

 persuade the members of the public of the importance of geography ; 

 and not until they are so persuaded can we hope that the subject will 

 obtain in the higher institutions of learning the position to which we 

 believe it is entitled. 



Now, I am well aware that such deductions have been and are being 

 drawn liy geographers, both at liome and abroad. But their conclusions 

 have so far reached only a very limited audience. It has seemed to 

 me that an Address to this Section gives an opportunity of discussing 

 certain interesting points of view which do not seem to have been 

 fully treated hitherto. In so far, however, as I am addressing an 

 audience of geographers in the technical sense, I wish it to be clearly 

 imderstood that what I have to say is to be regarded less as a con- 

 tribution to geographical science than as an attempt to carry out that 

 forward policy which seems to me essential at the moment. Even if I 

 fail to carry you with me throughout, I may at least hope to stimulate 

 some of you to promote the aim already set forth by other and better 

 methods. 



For the reason already given I propose to take certain points in 

 regard to the human response to surface phenomena for special 

 consideration. Now, it is a somewhat curious fact that, although 

 1922 1 



