8 ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH OUTSIDE AMERICA. 



a change, but the complete extinction of knowledge in many other places, and 

 the problem presents itself whether it is not most important to save this 

 rapidly vanishing knowledge, even although its collection may be laborious 

 and apparently unfruitful as compared with the rich harvest of other regions. 

 We have to choose between knowledge seemingly less valuable and certainly 

 less extensive, but on the point of extinction, and knowledge abundant and 

 full of interest, for the collection of which a good range of years seems to 

 remain, so that the need is less urgent and immediate. 



There is one feature of external influence upon human culture, which is 

 of great importance in considering this relative urgency of different fields of 

 anthropological inquiry. There can be no doubt of the existence of a prin- 

 ciple at work which makes external influence far less destructive among a 

 people with a relatively high culture than among those whose culture is very 

 rude or barbarous. In such a country as India more than two centuries of 

 western influence have had but little real effect upon the essential features 

 of the culture of the people. The social organization, the language, and the 

 religion are almost unaffected, and it is chiefly in material matters that any 

 decided changes are to be found. 



In such a region as the islands of the Pacific, on the other hand, external 

 influence far less in amount and carried by far fewer people has had an 

 infinitely greater effect in a much shorter time, an effect so great indeed 

 that often we have not to discover what traces of external influence there are 

 in native thought and custom; we have rather to inquire what relics of this 

 thought and custom still remain. This difference, according to the scale 

 of culture upon which western influence has been exerted, is a factor of 

 great importance when we are considering the relative degree of urgency of 

 different fields for anthropological inquiry. 



Before I begin an attempt to compare the urgency of the need for investi- 

 gation in different parts of the world and the existing means by which this 

 need is being met, I must say something about the different kinds of agency 

 by which ethnographical work is now being carried out, considering the 

 special advantages and disadvantages which pertain to each. 



If it be conceded that the special need of the present time is for intensive 

 rather than survey work, it would seem at first sight that the most suitable 

 people to undertake it are those whose life-work brings them into intimate 

 relations with the cultures it is wnshed to understand more fuUy, viz., the 

 oflficial and the missionary. The advantage possessed by these residents is 

 that they usually know the native language and are often on terms with 

 the people which enable them to command their loyal and affectionate 

 service, while the very nature of their work brings them into close relation 

 with subjects of the greatest ethnological interest. In spite of these advan- 

 tages, the amount of work we owe to the two groups of persons is disappoint- 

 ing both in extent and in scientific value, and it will throw some light on the 

 problem before us to consider to what causes this is due. 



