August 4, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



129 



dispensable to progress, but their analytical 

 discussions should be completed before regional 

 description is begun; their results should be 

 standardized and systematized before they can 

 be properly used in regional description; and 

 when the results are employed in their stand- 

 ardized and systematized form, the analysis 

 upon which the standardization and systema- 

 tization are based should not be repeated. Ex- 

 planatory description in a regional essay should 

 be used without any analytical demonstration. 

 The Difficulty of Regional Description 

 Finally, when regional description is at- 

 tempted, it is too often inespert in that it fails 

 in the prime object of such description; name- 

 ly, to give a vivid account of all the geograph- 

 ical elements of a region in their natural and 

 interdependent combinations. Some such arti- 

 cles are faulty in a way that shows clearly 

 enough how undeveloped the art of geograph- 

 ical presentation stUl is; for they leave their 

 readers to work out, by the aid of such maps 

 as they may possess, various details of location 

 which the author himself ought to have made 

 clear once for all, by map, diagram or other- 

 wise. Many other such articles are faulty in 

 attempting to define the location of physical 

 features or boundaries in terms of the location 

 of small towns or villages, the names of which 

 are not only unknown to all readers, but un- 

 discoverable even in good atlases! Very few 

 such articles present at the outset a simple ac- 

 count of the whole region and of its subdivi- 

 sions in such manner that, whenever any local 

 feature is later mentioned, it may be at once 

 and very easily located in terms of the intro- 

 ductory account; and as a result geographical 

 descriptions are often so obscure and difficult 

 to follow that even geogi'aphers turn aside from 

 them, discouraged. It is as if the investigator 

 felt indifferent to the labor that his readers 

 must undergo before they can learn what he 

 has done, without realizing that such indiffer- 

 ence costs him a loss of influence. 



Geogbaphees and Travellers 

 One of the reasons for these various defi- 

 ciencies in the present status of geography de- 

 serves explicit mention: it is that the authors 

 of articles published in the geographical peri- 

 odicals of the leading geographical societies of 



the world are in a regrettable number of in- 

 stances, not trained and disciplined geogi-aph- 

 ers, but simply intelligent and observant trav- 

 elers. It would seem that such persons, on 

 visiting and returning from a little travelled 

 region, were thereupon popularly classed as 

 geographers, whatever they were before their 

 travels began; and this idea is given support 

 by the character of the membership of many 

 geographical societies, because such member- 

 ship is made up largely of generously-minded 

 persons who, whether they have travelled or 

 not, are glad to support the work of the so- 

 cieties in which they are enrolled. That they 

 should do so is most gratifying, but that they 

 should be regarded as geographers because of 

 so doing is disappointing. 



To return to astronomy for an illustration, 

 do you suppose that the Astronomical Society 

 of America is made up of intelligent persons 

 who like to look at the nocturnal sky and recog- 

 nize the constellations, and of persons who, 

 whether they like to look at the sky or not, 

 have pleasure in contributing to the cost of 

 publishing an astronomical journal? Not at 

 all; that society is made up of qualified as- 

 tronomers; no others need apply. But so far 

 as I know only one of the many geographical 

 societies in the world limits its members to 

 geographers; and altho its requirements for 

 membership are not severe and altho diligent 

 search has been made to discover as many 

 qualified members as possible, that society has 

 not yet succeeded in discovering 200 persons 

 fit to be members in its country of over 100,- 

 000,000 population. 



Whatever the cause of the characteristic im- 

 perfections in regional presentation to-day, it 

 is manifest that improvements can be made 

 only by persistent conscious effort. A large 

 share of the attention of research professors 

 in a Graduate School of Geography must be 

 directed to making that effort successful. 

 Means and Men 



It is an easy matter to outline the constitu- 

 tion of a Graduate School of Geography, as 

 I have just done. It is a more serious matter 

 to establish such a school. Obstacles of two 

 kinds stand in the way. Those of one kind are 

 merely difficulties; those of the other kind are 



