ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the main lessons from the makers of modern geography. First, it is clear that geography overlaps with other disciplines. Second, in spite of its common ground with other sciences, as Carl Ritter pointed out one hundred years ago, geography must always keep clear its own goals. Geography is fundamentally the regional or chorological science of the surface of the earth. Third, this wide concept of geography as a chorological science, with its varied aspects on a footing of equality, is too wide for effective cultivation at the research level in all its aspects by one small group of scholars. The field of geomorphology may be regarded as a distinct discipline, closely allied to geology. The profession of geography faces both a pedagogical and a research challenge. Certain geographers, as Pinchemel points out, who are concerned about the rift in geography, seek to strengthen the mainstream as a single-focussed discipline with a scientific basis.
