Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/761

 SCIENCE AND CITIZENSHIP 745

still faster. The explorations in the open air, alternating with research in library and study and map-room, will very soon whet an insatiable appetite for an understanding of the ever-changing phenomena of his region. The pleasures of observation, which, unlike other sensual pleasures, do not pall with usage, are them- selves succeeded by the still keener pleasure and intenser joy of generalization and interpretation. In brief, the outlook on the visible phenomena of one's region itself evokes and inspires a craving for insight into the larger world, into which our own region extends on all sides by insensible gradation, and to which it is felt to be linked by innumerable bonds. It is just here, where the margin of his own region melts into that of the sur- rounding world, that the student requires, and may readily utilize, the full resources of the whole science of geography. His previous reading will have been of the best geological and geographical accounts of his own region, and the comparison of these with what he has seen with his own eyes. This preliminary study will have insensibly familiarized him with the technical phrases and formulae which are necessary for getting into touch with his brother-geographers elsewhere over the globe, and utilizing the observations, the thought, the interpretation of these, as well as the accumulated writings of their forerunners, in the concerted effort of the whole past and present race of geographers to visualize and to understand what passes on the surface of the globe.

XVIII. To realize the magnitude of what might be called the geographical group in Britain, we must add to the 4,150 mem- bers of the society located in London the members of various local societies, such as those in Manchester and Liverpool, and also the considerable number of unattached map-makers and geographical observers and writers. And again to these have to be added the corresponding group in Scotland, of which the Royal Scottish Geographical Society is the nucleus, with its 1,100 members, its monthly Journal and other publications issued from its headquarters in Edinburgh; there being associated societies in Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee. And, furthermore, every capital in Europe, and many of the larger of the provincial towns,