25 MAY 1912, Page 3

At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on

Monday afternoon Lord Curzon, the President, said that the Government had increased the grant to the Society from £500 to £1,250. The fund for new buildings bad now reached £33,000. The teaching of geography at Oxford and Cambridge had become more and more practical, but it was still " a long way in the rear of Germany." It was to be regretted that Captain Amundsen bad not taken the world into his confidence in deciding to change his plans and make a hurried journey to the South Pole, but that did not prevent Englishmen either from admiring his feat or from recognizing that Captain Scott's highly scientific undertaking was, after all, of just as much value as though Captain Amundsen had not forestalled him at the Pole. At the dinner in the evening Lord Curzon praised geography as a sister of all the most important arts and sciences. Mr. Asquith humorously professed himself a Philistine, and said that perhaps we knew too much about the globe. He looked forward, however, to the time when he could study geography in the seclusion of some trim-built yacht.