256 ANTHROPOLOGY xvn 



the action of remedies, so it is absolutely necessary for the 

 statesman who would govern successfully not to look upon 

 human nature in the abstract and endeavour to apply 

 universal rules, but to consider the special moral, intellectual, 

 and social capabilities, wants, and aspirations of each particular 

 race with which he has to deal. A form of government under 

 which one race would live happily and prosperously may to 

 another be the cause of unendurable misery. All these 

 questions then should be carefully studied by those who have 

 any share in the government of people belonging to races alien 

 to themselves. A knowledge of their special characters and 

 relations to one another has a more practical object than the 

 mere satisfaction of scientific curiosity; it is a knowledge 

 upon which the happiness and prosperity or the reverse of 

 millions of our fellow-creatures may depend. The ignorance 

 often shown upon these subjects, even in so select an assembly 

 as the House of Commons, would be ludicrous if it were not 

 liable to lead to disastrous results. 



Now let us consider what, amid all the complex, diverse, 

 and costly machinery of education in this country, is being 

 done to satisfy the demands for such knowledge. We may 

 say at once, as regards all institutions for primary and secondary 

 education, absolutely nothing. The inhabitants of the various 

 regions of our own earth are treated with no more considera- 

 tion and interest in all such institutions than if they lived 

 on the moon or the planets. We must turn straight to the 

 higher intellectual centres in the hope of finding any anthro- 

 pological teaching. Here, at Oxford, if anywhere, we may 

 expect to find it, and here, first among the British Universities, 

 have we seen, since the year 1883, among the list of the sub- 

 jects taught the word " Anthropology," but the teacher, though 

 one of the most learned of men in the subject the country has 

 produced, still only bears the modest title of " Eeader." A 

 professorship of Anthropology does not exist at present in the 

 British Isles, and even here the subject, though recognised as 

 a " special," offers little field for distinction in the examinations 

 for degrees, and has therefore never been taken up in a 

 thorough manner by students. Dr. Tylor's lectures must, 

 however, have done much to have spread an intelligent 



