558 ETHNOLOGY 



may be, if the motive for their performance is different we must 

 not regard them as identical. The masters of the comparative 

 method are fully alive to this danger, but it is one into which the 

 enthusiastic beginner is apt to fall, and all the more readily as it 

 is very difficult to ascertain the true motives for a given custom, 

 and, too often, the performance itself has been very imperfectly 

 recorded. 



So far I have considered what may be regarded as those aspects 

 of ethnology which add to the sum of human knowledge; but we 

 may safely urge that part of the business of ethnology is to provide 

 data which can be utilized by the practical politician, and possibly 

 at no very distant period this fact will be clearly recognized by 

 those who aspire to a career in affairs, as well as by the faculties 

 of those institutions where men are trained for public life. But, 

 I would again assert, the practical application of ethnological data 

 to current statecraft is not the province of the ethnologist. 



"To the aspirant for honors in the diplomatic service," says Dr. 

 Frank Russell, 1 "anthropology offers an admirable training. He 

 learns the significance of the racial factor in national welfare; the 

 measure and condition of progress; the principles of ethnologic 

 jurisprudence; and also the characteristics of the particular people 

 among whom his duties lead him. 



"For the legislator, anthropology must become a necessary pre- 

 paration. America has problems whose solution calls for the widest 

 knowledge of races and cultures. Such knowledge, free from po- 

 litical bias and hereditary prejudice, can best be gained by the 

 study of the science of man. 



" Anthropology prepares the lawmaker and the jurist for the 

 task of coping with crime. Criminal anthropology has explained 

 the character and causes of criminality and degeneracy, and led 

 to revolutionary changes in the methods of crime prevention." 



As Dr. Brinton has pointed out, the branch of anthropology, 

 which has for its field the investigation of the general mental traits 

 of various peoples, for which the Germans have proposed the name 

 Characterology (Karacterologie) , "is that which offers a positive 

 basis for legislation, politics, and education, as applied to a given 

 ethnic group; and it is only through its careful study and appli- 

 cation that the best results of these can be attained, and not by 

 the indiscriminate enforcement of general prescriptions, as has 

 hitherto been the custom of governments. " 2 Most civilized 

 nations have living within their borders groups of people who 

 differ in race, language, custom, and religion from the bulk of the 



1 F. Russell, "Know, then, thyself," Journal of American F oik-Lore Society , 

 1902; Science, 1902, p. 570. 



2 D. G. Brinton, toe. cit. 



