The present‐day demand for geography

Within the last three or four decades the major economic interests of the country have shifted from an agricultural to an industrial basis, from a condition in which the exports were largely raw products to a condition in which a large part of the output of our forests, mines, and fields goes to many thousands of large-scale efficient factories. For decades the large amount of free and cheap fertile land delayed the development of manufactures, but after much delay we have at last come to be the greatest manufacturing country on the globe. An expansion in manufactures, a phenomenon of increasing population density, sooner or later calls for foreign markets. The large home market, furnished by a numerous, prosperous, and wealthy population, has until lately absorbed the vast bulk of our manufactured products. We at last have a surplus of output, and our country today is in a neck-to-neck race with the other great countries of the world for world markets. Having come late into the field of industry and trade, late in comparison with the leading countries of Western Europe, we have many handicaps to overcome. Our merchants and manufacturers must compete with old, well-organized foreign firms with a reputation for honest and fair dealing, experience in factory production, widespread machinery for international exchange, well-established markets, and experience in dealing with foreign people. For these reasons we are in a critical position, and need to muster all of our forces if we are to succeed. Success will be to that nation that knows best its resources, uses best its sources of power, and knows best the markets it wishes to cultivate. Our schools and colleges must come more and more to the assistance of the nation in solving these big problems. In England, France, and especially Germany, the schools have long been of inestimable assistance in advancing industry and commerce. What have they done in America, and what are they doing? In the South, where the economic activities are still largely associated with agriculture, only a few, even in educational circles, realize what changes have occurred in the country as a whole in our educational system, from the elementary school to the university, as a consequence of recent changes in our economic life and our social envi

Economic geography · Economics · Geography · Mathematics education · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · Psychology