ABSTRACT
The 1880s were an important time in the development of geography as a secondary school and university subject. In 1886, the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) commissioned the Keltic Report, the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society in Reference to the Improvement of Geographical Education. A second key publication was Halford Mackinder’s ‘On the scope and methods of geography’ (1887), published in the RGS’s journal, in which he sought to resolve the great schism between geography’s physical and political components. Both publications made it clear that geography would not establish itself in universities and secondary schools unless it acquired the status of a genuine academic discipline, which meant forsaking its previous image as a mere repository of world knowledge.
