ANTHROPOLOGY 597 



pological and linguistic research. The journal, Africa, published 

 quarterly by the institute, is devoted mainly to a better under- 

 standing of those aspects of native society making for social co- 

 hesion, the economics of communal life, the ways in which African 

 society is being affected by the invasion of western ideas and 

 economic forces, and the resulting changes in African institutions 

 and behaviour. From 1931 to 1936 the institute has awarded 

 thirteen full-time fellowships for research in Africa and a number 

 of grants to enable workers to complete research already begun; 

 under this scheme studies have been made in Sierra Leone, the 

 Gold Coast, Nigeria, Ruanda-Urundi, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, 

 Pondoland, the Transvaal, Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, 

 Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan, and Algeria, and as a result thir- 

 teen volumes on African subjects have been published. As a 

 secondary means of achieving its aim, the institute has awarded a 

 number of studentships to administrative officers, educationalists 

 and missionaries, who had already experience in Africa, to study 

 anthropology in London. The Rockefeller Foundation has also 

 materially assisted African anthropology by the grant of fellowships 

 for field work. Similar assistance to the science has been rendered 

 by the Leverhulme Trust. 



In recent years a number of geographers, headed by Professor 

 Roxby and Professor Ogilvie, have stressed the importance of the 

 material background or environment in the study of anthropology, 

 and have pointed out that many published anthropological studies 

 of the past do not take full cognizance of this background. Seeing 

 that Africa offered a unique field for an inquiry into this subject, 

 and that many officials and other residents in the colonial depen- 

 dencies were already familiar with the data required, a committee 

 of the British Association was formed to study the human geo- 

 graphy of intertropical Africa. Its work has been discussed in 

 Chapter XI, p. 304. 



The study of material culture as a branch of anthropology has 

 tended to attract less attention in recent years. Nevertheless, 

 anthropological studies cannot afford to neglect material cul- 

 ture, since in any improvements which are to be imposed on the 

 African's material position in the world, an understanding of his 

 relationship to a particular environment is all important; and this 



