112 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



Here too, as in the Mediterranean lands, there is the less need to give 

 illustrations in detail, since the last twenty years have completely 

 remodelled our equipment for handling these regions and periods in every 

 degree of elementary and more advanced treatment. The main results 

 of modern Biblical and Oriental scholarship, of geographical exploration 

 in the Nearer East and of excavation on ancient sites, are as nearly 

 common property as the production of popular handbooks can make any 

 form of scholarship. And, thanks mainly to the value rightly assigned 

 to these studies in American education, the literature accessible in English 

 is now of as high quality as in any other language. It is no longer 

 honest to plead ignorance of German as an excuse for shirking a public 

 duty. Further, since our own country has incurred the obligations of 

 its mandates for Babylonia and Palestine, in addition to its responsibility 

 for the security and well-being of Egypt, we cannot plead that the 

 geography of these regions lies outside the scope of political duty, or the 

 daily needs of every one of us. We may not want to understand those 

 countries or their peoples ; but as things stand, we neglect those studies 

 at our peril : and, at least, let us provide for our children. 



There is another reason why the human geography of the Nearer 

 East and the Mediterranean region has especial value in education, both 

 as a separate study and to illustrate by comparison that of the homeland. 

 Though the Western Mediterranean has an exceptionally pleasant climate 

 for nearly half the year, and the Eastern for several months, large parts 

 of the Near East are less fortunate, and some districts have a regime of 

 Continental severity. Resources in soil and minerals are even more 

 scantily distributed ; natural communications are difficult by land, the 

 Mediterranean sailing season is restricted, and the rarity of perennial streams 

 precludes inland navigation such as Central and North-Western Europe 

 enjoy : it was as natural marvels that Nile and Euphrates were famous. 

 Up to a certain point, and in certain highly specialised directions, cultures 

 could and did mature in such regimes. Beyond this point, however, the 

 attempt to do more imperilled what was won already : the margin of 

 safety was never large, and the greater risks were the least well ascertained. 

 External enemies came and went ; fainine, local if not general, was never 

 far off. In other words, Man and Nature in these regimes were very closely 

 matched. Where Nature was locally more bountiful, as in Egypt, or 

 Ionia, or Campania, or when regional conditions were more favourable 

 for a while, as seems to have happened in the centuries from about 900 to 

 250 B.C., and again from about 900 to 1400 a.d., memorable advances in 

 well-being were made and maintained for a while in face of relapse into 

 austerity. Each however was achieved, like our own industrialism, at 

 a terrible cost in ' wasting ' assets, timber and soil in the ancient world, 

 fuel and other minerals in the modern, more hopelessly irreplaceable still. 

 Here is a ' lesson of history ' only too likely to be overlooked, if it is 

 not reinforced as a geography lessun. 



Present Discontents. 



I am well aware that the correlation which I have proposed will be 

 regarded as something of a revolution in the teaching of ' classical 

 subjects,' and also that there are historical reasons for the methods 



