Thought for the Day

 From Bill Mead's 'Towards a Commonplace Geography'

"Geography furnishes entertainment for the young and gay and is a pleasing companion for the old and studious... [it] excites the admiration, interests the passions, entertains the fancy, eradicates prejudice and enlarges the faculties of the soul."

From the Introduction to G A Baldwyn's 'System of Geography' (dated 1797)

Quote of the Day

"Whether it is taught or not taught in Schools and Universities, Geography must in the nature of things rule the territory in which the sciences relating to organic life from history down to the structure of the humblest animate thing, meet the sciences which have to do with inorganic nature.... It remains the body of knowledge which has to do with the theatre of the activity of man, and all things that have life."

Anniversary address of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, 1892

President of the Royal Geographical Society

Presidential Quote of the Day

"...the true geographer is the lover of the earth. He should feel to the earth something of that exquisite and strong feeling which the son begins to feel towards his mother as he grows up and passes out of the age of careless, unintelligent, even though strong, emotion towards her, into the stage of intelligent and sympathetic comprehension of all that he has owed her from the beginning of his life to the present moment. The emotion is even stronger than before, but it is now guided by knowledge."

Sir William M Ramsay, President 1918

Presidential Quote of the Day

"There are few joys greater than the intellectual joy of suddenly seeing the co-relation of things which were formerly detached"

Halford MacKinder 'The Development of Geographical Teaching through Nature Study' (Geographical Teacher, Vol 2.)