FAULT - Maphead - page 33

varieties of Pokémon than real native species in their area. Meanwhile, most measures of
outdoor activity —camping, fishing, hiking, visits to national parks and forests—are stead-
ily declining by about 1 percent a year. The boomers are still going outside, say park
rangers and pollsters, but not their kids and grandkids. Never having been given free rein
to explore an area and then find their way home, these kids' responses to real-world navig-
ation range somewhere between discomfort and abject terror. A Harvard Magazine article
on the 2009 freshman class related the story of a new student who ventured into Boston by
subway but panicked at adowntown intersection. Not sure whether toturnleft orright, she
called—who else?—her father in Chicago, who supplied the answer.
Andthey'll passtheir geographical ineptness ontotheir children. Arecent studyat Eng-
land's Hertfordshire University found that British moms now refuse to let their children
explore the countryside because they themselves feel so clueless about geography. “None
of the mothers I spoke to could read a map,” said the study's author. “They did not know
how to make up circular walks or work out where it might be safe to go cycling.” If, as
Peirce Lewis claimed, a love of place is what turns young people on to geography, then the
discipline is in trouble. We're becoming a society not of topophiles but of topophobes.
Butmaybethedisciplineofgeographywouldbeintroubleanyway.Forcenturies,itwas
considered one of the pillars of a good liberal education, as illustrated by the philosopher
EdmundBurke'sfamousobservation, “ Geographyisanearthlysubject ,butaheavenlysci-
ence.” No poetry or history “can be read with profit . . . without the helpe and knowledge
of this most Noble Science,” Wye Salton-stall enthused in the preface to his 1653 English
translation of Mercator's atlas. But today, only one of U.S. News & World Report 's ten
top-ranked U.S. colleges even has a geography department. (There's still an eight-person
“committee” at the University of Chicago.) This trend dates back to 1948, when Harvard
presidentJamesConantproclaimed,“ Geographyisnotauniversitysubject! ” andabolished
his department. Most other campuses followed in short order.
The decline of geography in academia is easy to understand: we live in an age of ever-
increasing specialization, and geography is a generalist's discipline. Imagine the poor geo-
grapher trying to explain to someone at a campus cocktail party (or even to an unsympath-
etic administrator) exactly what it is he or she studies.
“'Geography' is Greek for 'writing about the Earth.' We study the Earth.”
“Right, like geologists.”
“Well, yes, but we're interested in the whole world, not just the rocky bits. Geographers
also study oceans, lakes, the water cycle . . .”
“So it's like oceanography or hydrology.”
“And the atmosphere.”
“Meteorology, climatology . . .”
“It'sbroaderthanjustphysicalgeography.We'realsointerestedinhowhumansrelateto
their planet.”