GEOGRAPHY While under the capable leadership of Dr. H. R. Mill, the late Sir John Scott Keltie, the late Prof. Herbertson, the Rt. Hon. Sir Half ord Mackinder and others, the study of geography in Great Britain has attained to a distinctness of aim, an individual ity of method, and a coherence of content which have entitled the subject to be regarded as an important element in the education of future citizens. But it follows that geography has its full edu cational value only when it is so taught as to represent faithfully in the classroom the spirit and character of the corresponding movement in the wider intellectual world. This means that school geography is not, as it was 3o years ago, the mere learning of geographical data and results, but a training in the geographer's characteristic methods and principles of interpretation, and an assimiliation of his characteristic point of view.
It is now generally agreed that school geography is mainly concerned with the study of the adjustment of the life, the activi ties and the distribution of man to the conditions of his environ ment. In studying any particular area the paramount task at all stages of the teaching is to examine the present "adjustment" as carefully and accurately as possible, a difficult task whose importance is even now hardly realised. In the more advanced stages of teaching the interpretation of the present "adjustment" sends the student to other subjects—History, Geology, Climato logy, etc.—whose results are taken and used by the teacher for his own special purposes. Nor can the geography of a region be understood unless its relations with other regions, both near and far away, are studied. Most of these geographical distributions and adjustments, as well as internal and external regional relation ships, are capable of both graphic and verbal portraiture. The mapping of geographical material in the geographer's characteris tic way, and the development of the art of verbal description are matters of great importance to the modern teacher.
Geography has an invaluable contribution to make to the equip ment of the educated citizen of to-day, for its study brings to one focus, naturally and without forced correlation, the three elements found constantly recurring in home and world problems : the personality and potentialities of a district or region; the charac teristics, needs and outlook of its inhabitants; and the nature, needs, and results of their work. These three elements will be recognized as the "place," "folk," "work" of Professor Patrick Geddes. Good geography teaching is constantly dealing with the relations and interactions of these three, and with their synthesis, and this inevitably develops in its students extremely valuable habits of mind.
Modern geographical teaching has been criticized on the ground that it deals too much with broad generalizations and too little with an accurate knowledge of particular examples. It is said that before the introduction of the new methods pupils did at least know the whereabouts of places on the map and that they amassed facts concerning the limited areas then studied in school. The world is a big place, it contains many countries, while the time devoted to geographical study in schools is short. Nevertheless, it should be the aim of the teacher to give that broad study of the world which modern conditions demand, and side by side with this, so to arrange the syllabus that at each stage some im portant areas or problems are studied as fully as possible within the limits of the time allowed and the stage of advancement of the pupils. Fortunately the general acceptance of the regional treatment of geography assists both objects. Extensive and inten sive studies should proceed side by side.
(L. BR.)