Geographical Science in Education

Abstract

The geographical association enjoys to-day the hospitality of the Royal Geographical Society and so returns, in a real sense, to the family home. I need not recall in detail the relations of the two societies for the story has been told elsewhere. The great pioneer work done by the Royal Geographical Society in seeking to extend and improve the teaching of Geography led directly to the founding of the Geographical Association. Since then the explicitly professional and educational aspects of the subject have fallen largely to the charge of the younger body, which remains at one with its great parent society on the prime need for advancing geographical education. This subject is therefore very fitting to our joint consideration this evening. It has taken more than half a century of effort to secure a reasonable measure of recognition for Geography in this country and the battle is not yet wholly won. When in years to come the struggle is surveyed in retrospect, certain curious and significant features will become clear. The living idea for which Geography stands will be seen to have emerged as a sign of the times. The first world war had come and gone before there was any major advance in the Universities. The next two decades brought probationary recognition for the subject at one University after another in steady succession, followed in some cases by full recognition and by the creation of a chair in the subject. The period of the present war has seen further progress; to-day there is only one University in England and Wales without a chair of Geography, though the position in Scotland is notably less satisfactory. During the same period there has been continuous improvement and consolidation in the teaching of Geography in the schools. It is a pleasant duty to salute my colleagues, the sixth-form teachers, who have so successfully implanted enthusiasm for the subject in young, vigorous, and flexible minds. To them is chiefly due the fact that reluctant Courts, Senates, Vice-chancellors, and Deans have been forced to make provision for University Geography. It has been conceded in fact that if Geography is to be taught in the schools it must be learned in the Universities and the number of students coming forward has rendered Geo? graphy a subject of substantial size in the faculties of Arts, Science, and Economics. These are well-known facts on which I need not dwell. They might appear to justify satisfaction if not complacency with the present position. Yet neither in the schools nor in the Universities can we feel wholly satisfied. We represent an idea or a group of ideas which is slowly forcing its way to recog? nition but which remains unpopular, or at least unappreciated, and therefore unprivileged. Ignorant or perverse individuals lurking in the backwaters of the educational stream still suffice to retard and obstruct locally. It is the