MY SUBJECT tonight is 'Geography, Education and Research', subjects which have been central to the Society's purpose throughout its history. I shall speak of the way in which the RGS mobilized its resources in the nineteenth century to persuade the universities of the worth of the subject as an academic discipline; of the way in which, after slow beginnings, academic geography has flourished and prospered; and of the dominant figures in our history to whom we owe these developments. I wish to consider what geography meant to these pioneers, both in terms of education as well as of research, and to emphasize the importance of their views as a basis for what we need to do in the very changed circumstances of today.