PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION E. 105- 



every turn. Too often have we acted both in public and private 

 relationships without knowing what was at the back of the black 

 man's mind, with the result that we have had misunderstandings 

 which have increased the Natives' suspicions of our actions and 

 motives. 



There is a lamentable supply of studies of race psychologv, 

 largely due to the difficulty in getting a sufficiently accurate know- 

 ledge of the language of the subject, and to the impossibility of 

 estimating the changes which test material undergoes when trans- 

 lated into another language. The physiological differences between 

 white and black which have been recently announced would seem 

 to indicate that we are on the eve of an advance in our knowledge 

 of the subject, but the psychologist has been so often baulked in 

 his investigations on this line that he is more inclined to wish his 

 brother scientist well in his researches and wait. Correlation 

 between physical traits and mental characteristics has in the past 

 been found to be wanting, and the variations in physiological 

 characteristics between races have been almost always equalled by 

 variations between different individuals of the same race, so that 

 the psychologist feels that the relationship between mind and brain 

 is still such a terra incognita that he prefers to proceed with his 

 researches on the lines of dynamic psychology, and to gauge men- 

 tality by its reactions to objective situations, while waiting for the 

 anatomist, physiologist, craniologist, and other workers on the 

 substance of the brain to furnish him with their conclusions and 

 suggestions. 



From those who hold that the mind of the Native is as dif- 

 ferent from that of "the European as is the colour of his skin, to 

 those who see no difference between Native and European as far 

 as mentality is concerned there are all shades of opinion. The 

 best substantiated opinion, and it is little more than an opinion, 

 is that differences between the mentality of Europeans and Natives 

 are those of degree and not of kind, the peculiar characteristic of 

 Native mentality being its immaturity. The more stimulating 

 environment of the European has produced a less sluggish mind, 

 less conservative, and more able to foretell the consequences of 

 courses of action. Comparisons with the progressive Europeans 

 who have come to this country, whose very presence here is evidence 

 of a certain amount of enterprise and initiative on the part of 

 themselves or their ancestors, is hardly fair to the Natives, but 

 comparisons with the peasant classes in Europe or with the poor 

 white class in this country, who have lived in a similar unstimulat- 

 ing environment would make us see fewer differences between 

 Europeans and Natives than we do at present. Periodical out- 

 breaks of animalness, both public and personal, among Europeans 

 should remind us that we are not so far removed from our original 

 nature as we would like to believe, while the many examples 01 

 prolonged and intensive study, of self-denial, and of willingness 

 to suffer for a cause among the Natives prove that the Native can, 

 when he thinks it worth his while, rise to the higher levels. The 

 probability is that while most Europeans are superior to the average 



