A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED 
STATES 
BY 
Marcus Baker 
THE ANNUAL PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
DELIVERED 
April 2, 1898 
Men and women occupied with the small and special de¬ 
tails of a large and complex work are not well situated for 
understanding the scope of the large work to which they con¬ 
tribute. The shop girl in Waterbury who spends her days 
and years in cutting threads on tiny screws may have very 
limited knowledge and erroneous opinions about the watch 
industry. The trained arithmetician who spends his months 
and years in adjusting triangulation or verifying computa¬ 
tions does not thereby acquire valuable opinions as to the 
scope and conduct of a great national survey. In our day 
many, if not all, branches of human knowledge and activity 
are widening. As they widen they are specialized. The 
student of nature, the practitioner of medicine or law, the 
artisan, each is prone to contract the size of his field of ac¬ 
tivity, and to study more profoundly some small part of the < 
large subject. Even the farms grow smaller and are better 
cultivated than formerly. Such subdivision of the field of 
study and activity into special and smaller fields has for 
a century at least progressed steadily, and the world has 
gained thereby. Many have become profoundly learned or 
highly skilled in some small subject. You will recall the 
story of the German professor who near the close of a long 
32—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 13 * (223) 
