212 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
were annually appointed by the Society. The medal in the first year was won by the present Provost of Glasgow University, Dr. Donald Macalister ; that in the second by George Grey Butler, son of my brother-in-law, and for many years Chief Examiner of the Education Office. The medals were continued for some years, but they were said to do incidental harm by tempting the masters of schools of the second rank to divert their best scholars to geography in order to gain eclat for the school, thereby interfering with their career in the more generally recognised and bread-winning studies of ordinary education.
The medals were therefore discontinued, and the efforts of the Society were directed to the Universities. I helped in this at first, but Mr. Brodrick and Mr. Douglas Freshfield and others took the matter more thoroughly in hand. After a little while, Mr. MacKinder, now Head of the Department of Economics of the University of London, applied for and gained the post of " Reader " in Geography in the University of Oxford, and he rapidly improved the quality of geographical teaching. General, afterwards Sir Richard Strachey, then President of the Royal Geographical Society, inaugurated the introduction of geography into the University of Cambridge by four lectures. I believe the subject has now gained a firm footing in both Universities. To say the least of it, a thorough knowledge of classical lands, such as can be conveyed by first-rate maps, models, and diagrams, must be helpful to classical students.
