in the Catalogue: "The first part of the course deals with the elements of the physical environment and the influences which these elements exert upon the life and activities of man." McMurry reorganized the course in land utilization, and it was given again. James taught a new course, Climates of the World, which formed the natural beginning of the development of another important phase in the geographical work at the University, for climate was coming to be recognized as the very base of a systematic approach to the study of geography.
The year 1925 marks a critical point in the development of geography in the United States, for in that year Professor Sauer published a kind of inaugural dissertation at the University of California, "The Morphology of Landscape." This article furnished a point of departure for many younger geographers, who were beginning to revolt against the rigid dogma of what has been called the "influence school." After that date there were important changes marking the acceptance of the new orientation, both in the general field of geographical study and within the department. At the University of Michigan Sauer had laid the foundation for much of the University's further development of geographical instruction, and at the University of California he issued a challenge to geographers in the United States which was not without weight in shaping the development of the study of geography in the department which had formerly claimed him.
Stanley Dalton Dodge (Chicago '22, Ph.D. ibid. '26) joined the staff of the department as an instructor in 1925. The word "influence" was omitted from the formal announcement of the introductory course. McMurry, who advanced to the full professorship in that year, revived the course on the geography of Michigan and inaugurated one on the geography of North America. James, then an assistant professor, offered Tropical Geography, a course which was soon dropped.
The content of the introductory course reflected the effect of Sauer's article, "The Morphology of Landscape," upon the "geographical philosophy" of the department, the course description in the Catalogue of 1926-27 reading in part as follows: "This course deals with the character and distribution of the elements of geographic landscape." The study of "landscape" was spreading in the department, for in the same year Hall introduced the Geography of Asia, and Dodge, the Geography of Europe. A list of related courses in botany, business administration, economics, forestry, and geology in the Catalogue of the same year indicated that the Department of Geography was beginning to discover affinities with other departments. It seems to have been difficult to settle on a formula for the introductory course, for in the following year the announcement was worded anew: "This course provides an elementary knowledge and understanding of the areal distribution of man and his material works, and of the habitats wherein these works were evolved."
The difficulty in formulating a description of the content and purposes of the elementary course led the department to review the entire history of geography as a formal subject, from 600 B.C. to the present, and the course, History of Geography, by Dodge, was begun in 1928. In the next year he offered the Distribution of Population for the first time, laying the foundations for the fuller study of some of the "human" aspects of geography. Ideas germinating in the department were further advanced when, in 1931, Hall began a course named Settlement (the basis for much of the subsequent work in human geography) and James introduced the short-lived course, Urban Geography.
