The same principle coordinates branches, or phases, of
geographical study which tend to become specialized and separate.
Mathematical or astronomical, physiographic, topographic,
political, commercial, geography, all make their claims. How are
they to be adjusted? By an external compromise that crowds in so
much of each? No other method is to be found unless it be
constantly borne in mind that the educational center of gravity
is in the cultural or humane aspects of the subject. From this
center, any material becomes relevant in so far as it is needed
to help appreciate the significance of human activities and
relations. The differences of civilization in cold and tropical
regions, the special inventions, industrial and political, of
peoples in the temperate regions, cannot be understood without
appeal to the earth as a member of the solar system. Economic
activities deeply influence social intercourse and political
organization on one side, and reflect physical conditions on the
other. The specializations of these topics are for the
specialists; their interaction concerns man as a being whose
experience is social.
To include nature study within geography doubtless seems forced;
verbally, it is. But in educational idea there is but one
reality, and it is pity that in practice we have two names: for
the diversity of names tends to conceal the identity of meaning.
Nature and the earth should be equivalent terms, and so should
earth study and nature study.
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