German Geographers and German Geography 329 



it to know the different numbers which 

 represent the population of two states 

 without knowing to what they are due ? 

 You ma5^ repl}^ ' ' The principal thing is 

 to know the facts. The farmer and the 

 merchant little care for causes, provided 

 that the}^ know where to find the largest 

 number of customers. ' ' Such an answer 

 would be that of a tradesman, not of a 

 scientist. Moreover, even the business 

 man might gain by studying the causes 

 of the variations of the market. Now, 

 if such advantage is gained by this 

 method even for practical interests, must 

 it not be of far greater consequence for 

 pure science ? For science does not con- 

 fine itself to the wants of the day; it 

 pays equal attention to all the various 

 problems, and thus, of course, obtains 

 far more general and more trustworthy 

 results. It was this question that Ritter 

 first took up most energetically. That 

 which makes geography a science, and 

 penetrates the work of Humboldt as it 

 did that of Varenius, shines out with 

 perfect precision, in the words of Ritter, 

 without consideration of any special 

 ends." 



PURPOSE OF GEOGRAPHY 



He who studies or teaches geography 

 merely to acquire such a knowledge of 

 geographical facts as is needed for trav- 

 eling, or for the reading of newspapers, 

 or for business enterprise, resembles the 

 jeweler who knows all the qualities of 

 the precious stones in his store. He is 

 as little a geographer as you would call 

 such a jeweler a mineralogist ; but as 

 surely as there is a way of knowing 

 stones which constitutes a science called 

 mineralogy, is there a way of knowing 

 rivers, mountains, and dwelling-places 

 which deser^j-es the name of scientific 

 geography. It is the way in which the 

 study is carried on that makes the dif- 

 ference. Geography has its value in 

 itself, and must be studied through 

 itself, and for the sake of itself, not for 

 secondary purposes. If practical ad- 



vantage is also gained out of it, so much 

 the better ; but it is not the leading 

 purpose. 



GERMAN ACTIVITY IN GEOGRAPHY 



This is the Credo of German geog- 

 raphy, as represented at twenty univer- 

 sities, many of which possess quite a 

 staff of professors, ordinary and extra- 

 ordinary, private docents, and assistants 

 in geography, together with a complete 

 geographical apparatus of books, peri- 

 odicals, maps, globes, pictures, photo- 

 graphs, lantern-slides, and the so-called 

 " Geographisches Seminar" or insti- 

 tute, where practical courses are also 

 given. In a territory considerably less 

 than that of Texas, Germany has more 

 than twenty geographical societies, who 

 do valuable work in local or general 

 geography, and send out travelers by 

 means of special funds. They publish 

 scientific reports every year, and besides 

 these a dozen geographic periodicals are 

 published by divers editors, some of 

 which are only equaled by the publica- 

 tions of the Royal Geographical Society 

 of London. Geography is taught not 

 only in primary schools, but in the 

 ' ' Gymnasium ' ' and high schools for 

 from five to seven years, and there is 

 now an agitation to give it a still wider 

 extent in these schools, and to have it 

 taught from beginning to end by teach- 

 ers specially trained in the subject at the 

 University ; for geography is in the uni- 

 versity studies a subject in which one 

 can obtain a Ph. D. degree after three 

 or more years' study on the university 

 plan, and by the presentation of a thesis 

 on a geographical subject which con- 

 tains positive results of original scientific 

 research. This is the present state of 

 the movement started by Karl Ritter 

 and his school. 



BERGHAUS 



The pioneer of the new ideas was 

 Heinrich Berghaus, Humboldt's friend. 



