ABSTRACT
The accepted sphere of Geography is the description of the earth, and, in education, this must be held to mean, most of all, the earth as the home of men and women and children. The plural form is very necessary here, for if we use the abstract term “man ” we inevitably think of men as judged by one standard, and that too often merely our own, instead of as diverse by heritage and opportunity, with a diversity to be cherished as contributing to the spiritual wealth of humanity. Geography thus set forth becomes the educational instrument that is most specially concerned with the interpretation of the modern world. It will show how men of different heritages find different problems in the same environment, and attempt to solve these in different ways, strikingly illustrated when we contrast the work of the aborigines and the white settlers in Australia, or the attitude of Americans and Orientals in, let us say, California, or the relations of the industrial worker and the rural labourer to the land around our British towns. It will also show how each environment presents characteristic problems and opportunities to its people, how the predicable alternation of a fair sufficiency of sun and rain has encouraged settled life and civilization from far-off times in certain lands, while in some others, without the long dry warm season, wet forest had to be conquered ere settled life could grow beyond a rudimentary beginning. And it will go further and show how various the settled life can be within the limits of these two typical environments. But it will not be content to treat
175 of the influence of the environment upon human efforts ; to stop there would be to encourage a very inadequate philosophy of life. We are not merely the creatures of our immediate environments. Geography must look back into the past, and show us how in many parts of the world, and nowhere more than in our own, ages of effort have modified the environment. The wet forest has been conquered and cut, cut only too completely in many parts, and where oak or beech, or both, grew naturally, it has become possible to grow wheat unless the slopes are too steep, or the soil too thin. But, where the pine forest was the natural covering, cultivation has rarely been encouraged, for the pine is a sign to us of poor soil conditions for the activity of roots in drawing up moisture for the leaves to transpire, and the pine leaves are built for the severest economy in this respect.
