The Importance of Geography. 201 
twenty-one German universities have professors of geography, 
with annual salaries running as high as two thousand dollars. 
Now the tendency to separate history and geography is general, 
and this latter science is not only compulsory in Germany, but is 
recognized as of equal value to history, natural science, physics 
and chemistry. 
Geography has assumed similar importance in France, Bel- 
gium and Italy. The last-named country, besides imposing pro- 
ficiency therein as essential to the degree of Ph. D., has estab- 
lished twelve professorships at its great seats of learning. The 
conservative universities of Great Britain, viewing modern ten- 
dencies with distrust, slowly yielded to the inevitable, and while 
Cambridge decided some ten years since that, among other uni- 
versities, teachers to be appointed there should be one in geog- 
raphy, yet it is only within a few years that Cambridge and 
Oxford have formally appointed geographic readers or lecturers. 
Formerly the field of geography was unsluly restricted by 
associating it with geology or history—a practice happily waning. 
Now the pendulum swings to the other extreme, and there is on 
the part of some enthusiasts a tendency to unduly extend its 
limit so as to encroach on the domain of other branches of sci- 
ence. The separate sciences necessarily overlap, and no sharp 
line of division can be drawn that will find universal acceptation. 
In my opinion, geographic science should be restricted to the 
surface of the earth, with its superincumbent or attached objects 
and attendant atmospheric phenomena, which are to be consid- 
ered, both in their interrelations with the earth and with each 
other. The evolution of the earth’s surface pertains to geology, 
but the distribution over the surface of the earth of inorganic mat- 
ter, whether in the shape of agricultural soils or other forms, with 
industrial possibilities, pertains to geography. Similarly the 
distribution of existing faunas and floras is geographic as far as 
these in any way affect mankind, while their classification and 
detailed study are botanical, biological or zodlogical. In like 
manner other physical sciences either touch or overlap that of 
geography, the same class of data pertaining to different branches, 
according to its interrelation with man or its bearing on non- 
geographic sciences. 
There is no question that geography, when properly taught, is 
not only a discipline for the mind, but it also furnishes its stu- 
dents with a body of information both interesting and valuable. 
