Mather Defends Geography As Council Studies Problem

Kirtley F. Mather, professor of Geology, termed Human Geography "one of the most significant fields for study in modern life," yesterday, as student protests over the recent demise of Geography crystallized into action on College and graduate levels.

"I had hoped for expansion rather than contraction" in Geography, Professor Mather declared. "No department of geology and geography can fulfill the responsibilities implicit in its name, unless it has an adequate and competent staff of men skilled in the now well-developed sciences of Economic Geography and Regional Geography."

Undergraduate indignation over what one student called a "high-handed" move by the University incited the Student Council last night to set up a five-man sub-committee to "study" the problem. Names of the committee members will be released today, the Council stated.

Grad Council to Consider

Meanwhile, graduate students have joined the "Save Geography" movement with a similar result. Peter II. Nash 1G declared yesterday that the Graduate Council's Executive Committee will look into the question at a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Nash, currently a student in regional planning, taught geography at the University of Wisconsin before coming to Cambridge.

Professor Mather reported that he had "learned with great regret that because of financial limitations it would be impossible to continue, instruction and research in Human Geography at Harvard on the present level."

Three Men to Go

In 1949 the appointments of three of the four geographers in the Department of Geology and Geography will terminate, according to the terms of a faculty decision last month.

Eight Sophomores and first term Juniors will have to find new fields of concentration as a result of the move.