ON GEOGRAPHY TEACHING. 325 
‘The continuous study of the home gives the best possible training not only 
in geographical thought but also in geographical method. The record ot 
observations, besides turnishing the basis for synthetic study, gives the training 
in map and chart interpretation—the reading of the geographical alphabet— 
upon which the study of other regions must be based. 
Necessarily the regional study of the world will be less intensive than that 
of the home, but the character ot the study remains the same. Mere description 
develops into an analysis and synthesis of the major components with the view 
of establishing their relationships, and for those studies the pupil must learn 
to use maps and diagrams and to understand how they are made. From the 
study of the major regions it is possible to establish certain worid-generalisations 
which may be regarded as the highest aim of geographical study. 
_It is well to notice that man with his power to transmit the results of experi- 
ence and knowledge is becoming increasingly a factor which makes for change 
and consequent readjustment. ‘The application of science to modify the con- 
ditions of lite constitutes, along with the production of charts and maps and 
their manipulation, the closest bond between the fields of geographical and 
scientific studies. 
Thus far, geography has been defined as the study of the earth’s surface as 
it is. Description of regions as they are develops into an analysis and synthesis 
of the components w-th a view to establish reasons for the special and peculiar 
relationships, and essential to this study are the reading and interpretation of 
maps. But the present is the outcome of the past, and though much that has 
been is displaced by that which is, certain events continue their influence 
markedly into the present and must be regarded as concomitant factors. Such, 
for example, is the upfolding of the Pennines which has resulted in the special 
relationship of the northern coalfields of England and their connecting routes, 
and has influenced present occupations through the effect of the uplift on such 
other components as climate, drainage, &c. ‘Lhe effects of the West African 
slave trade of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries operate to-day 
in the geography both of the United States and of West Africa. Indeed, for 
almost all regions the effects of certain outstanding events of the past continue 
to operate, and must be considered by the geographer. 
As applications of modern science connote the affinity of geography with the 
sciences, so this bringing forward of the past to help in the interpretation of 
the present connotes links between geography and historical studies, including 
geology and archeology. It should be noted that this is not historical geography, 
but pure geography in which present conditions are considered as fully as possible 
in order to appreciate the reasons why a region is as it is. 
Historical geography may be defined as a sequence of geographies to which 
the conception of historical development is applied. At any period of the past 
each place had its ‘geography,’ defined as the balance or resultant of forces 
then operating. So might be reconstructed, for example, the geography of Britain 
in the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the periods of the Romans, Saxons, Normans, 
&c., until we arrive at our own times. By a process of evolution the passage 
of these ‘ geographies’ one into the next gives that combination of geographical 
and historical processes which is the subject-matter of historical geography. 
Geography, as ordinarily understood, deals with the world of to-day, pro- 
ceeding from the description of a region by map, chart, or words to an investiga- 
tion into those causes of which the present geographical ‘form’ or ‘shape’ of 
the region may be regarded as the result. Some, indeed most, of these causes 
have their origin in the past, and this is specially true of man and his work. 
Moreover, because man is able to transmit his knowledge and experience from 
generation to generation and from one group to another, the importance of the 
human factor in any region is steadily and rapidly increasing. Wor this reason, 
geography, especially as interpreted and limited for the purposes of school work, 
Occupies a special position in the study of human conditions at present obtaining 
= the various parts of the earth and the tendency of the changes taking place 
therein.” 
2 For a scientific statement on the content of geography see the forthcoming 
Geographical Essays by Sir Halford J. Mackinder. 
