412 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1932 



LACK OF OEGANIZED INVESTIGATION OF THE RISE OF MAN 



The study of the first of these three periods is the task of natural 

 science, especially of the geologists and the paleontologists. This 

 prehuman period is being vigorously investigated in all the great 

 centers of science of the world, such as the American Museum of 

 Natural History in New York, under the able leadership of Henry 

 Fairfield Osborn. It is needless to state that the third of these 

 periods — the Age of Historic Man, so commonly identified in gen- 

 eral terms with European history — is being studied in exhaustive 

 researches by highly trained specialists, the historians of Europe 

 and America. It is a remarkable fact that the Rise of Man, the 

 middle period of the three which I have mentioned, is nowhere 

 represented by a systematically organized corps of investigators 

 operating on a large and general plan with all its subordinate parts 

 carefully correlated. This Rise of Man, which brought about human 

 supremacy on our globe, this conquest of civilization, a period cover- 

 ing at least several hundred thousand years, constitutes, as I have 

 elsewhere affirmed, the greatest event in the history of the universe 

 in so far as it is known to us. But strange to say, there has existed 

 heretofore no body of scientific investigators organized especially for 

 the study of that tremendous transformation which I am calling the 

 Rise of Man. 



THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE ORGANIZED TO STUDY THE RISE OF MAN 



Thirteen years ago, before the National Academy was housed in 

 its present beautiful home — that is, in April, 1919 — I had the honor 

 of delivering the last course of the William EUery Hale lectures 

 before this distinguished body. These courses of lectures, as you 

 will recall, had been planned by our illustrious colleague. Dr. George 

 E. Hale, for the purpose of tracing evolutionary development begin- 

 ning with the constitution of matter, which was presented in the first 

 course of lectures by Sir Ernest Rutherford. He was followed by 

 a group of distinguished natural scientists who traced the develop- 

 ment through ever higher forms up to the appearance of man. Feel- 

 ing very insignificant by contrast with these eminent natural scien- 

 tists who preceded him, the embarrassed humanist who is now ad- 

 dressing you endeavored to sketch the culminating events of this 

 age-long development in the final course of Hale lectures on the 

 Origins of Civilization. In preparing the materials for that course 

 of lectures I was, as I had been for years, painfully aware of the 

 lack of any large and comprehensively organized agency for investi- 

 gating the Rise of Man. Working individually and alone, with but 

 slight institutional support, we orientalists have long stood with 

 the geologists and paleontologists at one elbow and the historians at 



