DISCIPLINARY VALUE OF GEOGRAPHY 231 



of which must come upon the stage at the proper time, play its part in 

 the most effective manner, and then retire in favor of the next player. 

 Yet while thus bringing forth the objective elements of the problem as 

 clearly as possible, it is still entirely permissible for the speaker occa- 

 sionally to speak for himself, in short interludes, as it were, and thus 

 to interject some interesting personal story regarding the discovery of 

 important facts ; or to tell of the surprise and delight that he felt at the 

 moment when a happy invention sprang unexpectedly into his mind ; or 

 to describe the excitement that he experienced when, on returning to the 

 field in order to determine whether previously unnoticed facts really 

 occurred as the deduced consequences of a certain hypothesis had led 

 him to expect they should, he found one item after another at its ap- 

 pointed place and in its predicted form. But all this personal part 

 should be played simply, without " heroics," so that the attention of the 

 hearers shall not be too much withdrawn from the problem under dis- 

 cussion, or from the conclusion which it reaches. 



The Systematic Method. — This method is adapted to the presenta- 

 tion of groups of allied facts in a classified order, according to their 

 kind, and independent of where they occur; it is thus contrasted with 

 regional presentation, which treats all the things that occur in a single 

 district or region, whatever their kind. Attention is given in systematic 

 presentation to the likenesses and differences of allied objects, these 

 likenesses and differences being described either in an empirical or in 

 an explanatory manner. If explanatory descriptions are adopted, the 

 explanations on which they are based should have been previously estab- 

 lished by induction or by analysis, and here used as already demon- 

 strated and familiar, so that attention shall be now directed to the classi- 

 fication of the things that are explained, and not to the proof of their 

 explanation : thus, however geological the analytical investigations of a 

 student of geography may have been for a time, their truly geographical 

 object is now set forth. Hence systematic presentation is of a grade 

 that follows inductive and analytical presentation and precedes 

 regional. 



The kinds of things appropriate for presentation in classified order 

 by the systematic method may be any group of forms, possessing asso- 

 ciated similarities or related differences in structure, in process of 

 carving, or in stage of development, and hence in form. They may 

 be large features like plateaus and mountains or small details like 

 river or valley meanders; but in either case they should be arranged 

 according to the accepted principles of scientific classification, and the 

 plan of classification should be explicitly announced. It is here im- 

 portant to recognize that the explanatory treatment of land forms by 

 the aid of deduction enables one to complete the systematic classification 

 of many forms, that would be very imperfectly treated if a purely em- 



