74 Mackinder : The Advancement of Geographical Science. 



do not coincide with natural geographical units or groups of 

 units. You have the same thing in France, where the natural 

 * pays,' such as Caux, Bray, Bresse, Bauce, Sologne, and so 

 forth, bear distinctive names more frequently perhaps than in 

 this country. Economy of effort should, in the case of certain 

 counties at any rate, prompt an exchange of territory with 

 adjoining counties. In Hampshire, for instance, the little 

 strip of the Weald along the eastern border of the county could 

 not be understood apart from the much larger Wealden areas 

 of Surrey and vSussex, and the study of it might therefore very 

 reasonably be separated from the great chalk plateau of Hamp- 

 shire and Wiltshire. In other words, your societies might divide 

 the land into countries analogous to the ' countries ' hunted 

 by the various packs of hounds, the Quorn, the Craven, and the 

 rest of them. 



Finally, I would suggest that any local Society which saw 

 its way to organising and carrying through such a thorough 

 and comprehensive survey as to lead to a geographical syn- 

 thesis of all the aspects, physical and humane, of local know- 

 ledge would blend itself with the local life and establish itself 

 securely among the local institutions. On all hands it is now 

 agreed that education in such subjects as geography and history 

 should be based on the study of the home district. What finer 

 work for the efforts of a local Society than to produce a text- 

 book for the local schools which shall rouse and satisfy interest 

 in the surrounding countryside, and in the local monuments, 

 generate local patriotism, and establish an outlook into the 

 larger world on a concrete foundation rather than on the sands 

 of mere learning ? Such a text-book might also be correlated 

 with the local museum arranged for visual instruction, and so 

 classified as to prompt systematic thought. Of course I am 

 not here advocating the incorporation into such an educational 

 system of the occasional special collections, which have more 

 than a local value and are visited by scholars from a 

 distance. 



The outcome of it all seems to me to be this : that while 

 we can advance knowledge only by being specialists, yet we 

 do require that in each important Society there should be one 

 or more whose speciality consists in the correlation for the 

 locality of all the other specialities ; and, in my opinion, this 

 correlation can best be accomplished on a geographical basis 

 and by geographical methods. 



Naturalist, 



