;3o 



NATURE 



[November io, 192 i 



question of vital importance upon which it seems 

 scarcely possible that there could be two opinions. 

 It is significant that many of those who have 

 insisted upon the importance of such training and 

 given the proposal their strongest support have 

 themselves been successful administrators. They 

 point out that not only are sympathy and under- 

 standing essential in dealing with a primitive or 

 alien population, but also that in acquiring such 

 sympathy and knowledge by a long and sometimes 

 painful experience an official must be guilty of 

 many mistakes which a little training in anthropo- 

 logical method and outlook might have averted. It 

 must be remembered that the trainmg advocated is 

 intended, not to turn out specialists in anthropo- 

 logical research, but to give the future official 

 such a knowledge of primitive beliefs, institutions, 

 and modes of thought as will enable him to acquire 

 in a reasonably short space of time a sympathetic 

 knowledge of the people with whom he has to deal, 

 as well as make it possible for him to appreciate 

 the bearing of the psychological and sociological 

 factors which go to make up their culture as a 

 whole. 



Dr. Rivers, in the course of the discussion at 

 Edinburgh, directed attention to a fact of extreme 

 importance which is often overlooked. He pointed 

 out that on the introduction of a civilised adminis- 

 tration certain native customs are bound to be 

 eliminated, but that it is necessary that such 

 customs should be understood in all their bear- 

 ings. Otherwise, owing to the interrelation of 

 the constituent elements of a culture, the whole 

 life of a people may be changed. It was to this 

 that he attributed largely the dying out of certain 

 backward peoples. The cause was psychological 

 rather than material— they lost all interest in life. 

 Anthropologists are familiar with more than one 

 instance in which an ill-considered suppression of 

 a native custom has had a grave effect on social 

 structure, as, for instance, in South Africa, where 

 interference with the "bride-price" affected the 

 legitimacy of all native marriages. On the other 

 hand, the attempt which is now being made in that 

 Dominion to assist the social development of the 

 native is based entirely upon a gradual and sym- 

 pathetic adaptation of native institutions to con- 

 ditions imposed by contact with a civilised com- 

 munity. 



Happily the recognition of the bearing of these 



facts upon the preliminary training of the official 



is increasing. The training for the Sudan service 



instituted at Oxford and Cambridge at the request 



NO. 2715, VOL. 108] 



of Sir Reginald W'ingate, when Sirdar, has, un- 

 fortunately, come to an end, but in other cases 

 a short course of training is required. For in- 

 stance, officers intended for the West African 

 service are now being trained at London Uni- 

 versity. This requirement should be extended, 

 and the institution of additional training centres 

 should receive every encouragement. Nor 

 should the needs of others than officials be over- 

 looked. Facilities for anthropological study should 

 be available for missionaries and traders in par- 

 ticular. Many missionaries, it is true, have 

 availed themselves of the opportunities offered at 

 Cambridge. Such a course of training should be 

 regarded as an essential part of the missionary- 

 equipment. 



The value of a knowledge of anthropolog} 

 as a commercial asset has not received adequate 

 attention, though it is no less important for 

 the trader than for the official. In view 

 of the well-known conservative turn of mind 

 of a primitive people, as well as the strength ot 

 their religious beliefs, in affecting their use of any 

 given article, it is indeed surprising that so little 

 attention is given to a study of cultural conditions 

 as an antecedent to trading enterprise. A cast- 

 often quoted is that of India, where the Germans 

 before the war, by supplying canvas hold-alls in 

 deference to native religious feeling, drove the 

 leather article supplied by our manufacturers out 

 of the market. 



While the tendency of the discussion at Edin- 

 burgh showed that there was a general agreement 

 as to the necessity for administrative officials tc 

 be trained in anthropology, it also emphasisec 

 the need for a central body to deal with the co-ordi 

 nation and preparation of the material for sucl 

 studies. The institution of such a central bureat 

 is a question which was raised at a British AssO' 

 elation meeting so long ago as 1895, and haS 

 been discussed on several later occasions. In 

 1908 the Royal Anthropological Institute, when 

 Sir William Rldgeway w^as president, urged 

 upon the Government the necessity for a central 

 bureau and asked for a subsidy to enable it to 

 carry out the work. Up to the present these 

 efforts have not been successful. 



It is scarcely necessary to dwell at length upon 

 the functions which such a central bureau for 

 anthropology should perform. The various teach- 

 ing centres being concerned mainly with instruc- 

 tion and only incidentally with organisation, the 

 collection and collation of data and their publica- 



