October 14, 1922] 



NA TURE 



5i9 



fronting the anthropologist and the administrator in 

 India are of such extreme complexity that it needs a 

 very considerable amount of combined action and 

 research even to lay down the method and the lines 

 along which future inquiries should be made. Such a 

 school of thought, such a nucleus around which further 

 research may be grouped, does not yet exist ; the 

 materials out of which it can be formed can scarcely 

 yet be found. Yet until such a nucleus has been 

 created, and has gathered around it a devoted band of 

 researi hers, no true understanding will be found of the 

 problems which daily confront both peoples, and the 

 East and the West will remain apart, subject to mutual 

 recriminations, the natural outcome of mutual mis- 

 understanding. 



One solution only do I see to this dilemma. For 

 many years past there have been institutions at Athens 

 and Rome, where carefully chosen students have spent 

 several years studving the ancient and modern con- 

 ditions of those cities and their people. By this means 

 a group of Englishmen have returned to this country 

 well informed, not only as to the ancient but the 

 modern conditions of Greece and Italy. Besides this 

 we have had in each of the capitals of those two States 

 an institution which has acted as a centre or focus of 

 research into the civilisation of those countries. Al- 

 though the main objects in both cases have been the 

 true understanding of the cultures of the distant past, 

 the constant intercourse ot students of both nation- 

 alities working for a common end has resulted in a 

 better understanding on the part of each of the aims 

 and ideals of the other. I have no hesitation in saying 

 that the existence of the British Schools at Athens and 

 Rome has been of enormous value in bringing about 

 and preserving friendly relations between the people of 

 this country and those ot Greece and Italy. 



1 cannot help feeling that a similar institution in 

 India, served by a sympathetic and well-trained staff, 

 to which carefully selected university men might go 

 for a few years of post-graduate study, would go far 

 towards removing many of the misunderstandings 

 which are causing friction between the British and 

 Indian peoples. Such a British School in India, if it 

 is to be a success, should not be a Government institu- 

 tion, but should be founded and endowed by private 

 benefactors of both nationalities. It would be a centre 

 around which would gather all anthropological work 

 in the peninsula, while it would enable the British 

 students to arrive at a truer understanding of Indian 

 ideals and help Indians to grasp more fully the relations 

 subsisting between the Indian and European civilisa- 

 tions. 



Lastly, we come to the European Region, extending 

 southward to the Sahara, and eastwards to Meso- 

 potamia. Throughout this region the racial basis of 

 the population is similar, though the proportion of the 

 elements varies. Also throughout the region there has 

 been, from the earliest davs, free communication and 

 no great barriers to trade and migration. 



Until the last fifteen hundred years the civilisation 

 of this area was fairly uniform, though its highest and 

 earliest developments were in the south-east, while the 

 northern zones lagged behind and were on the outer 

 fringe. Nevertheless it formed from palaeolithic times 

 one cultural region, and this became more marked and 



NO. 2763, VOL. I 10] 



homogeneous during the days of the Roman Empire. 

 Two forces from without destroyed that mighty empire 

 and divided the region into two halves ; and as each 

 of these forces adopted different religious views, the 

 European cultural region became divided into two. 

 We have, therefore, to treat the European cultural 

 region as two, the civilisations of Islam and Christen- 

 dom. 



Though the separation of these two halves is relativelv 

 recent, their ideals have grown divergent, while the 

 inhabitants of both zones are no nearer to a true under- 

 standing of one another. Political difficulties in the 

 Near East are the natural result of such misunder- 

 standings, and the remedy here is to achieve a truer 

 appreciation of other points of view. A more thorough 

 knowledge of the anthropological iactors of the case 

 seems to be a necessary preliminary to such mutual 

 understanding, and since the League of Nations and 

 the Versailles Treaty have seen fit to add to our responsi- 

 bilities in this area, it is an urgent necessity that some 

 of our anthropologists should pay closer attention to 

 the problems of the Near East. 



And now with regard to Christendom. Are we to 

 consider that our duties as anthropologists end with 

 alien cultures ? Is Christendom so united that mis- 

 understandings cannot arise within its borders ? At 

 the close of a great war we can scarcely claim that there 

 is no room for our studies. 



There has been a tendency hitherto to regard anthro- 

 pology as a science dealing with backward peoples, and 

 it has been felt that to apply its principles to neighbour- 

 ing peoples might be looked upon as an insult. If. 

 however, we agree that all mankind are fit material 

 for the anthropologist's investigations, we need have 

 no hesitation in studying their material culture, social 

 organisation, and religious beliefs, just as already, for 

 practical purposes, we study their languages. There 

 is not a country in Europe in which we may not find 

 features of an anthropological nature which separate 

 its population from the inhabitants of other areas. It 

 is these differences which come to the front when trouble 

 is brewing, and these are the factors which we need to 

 understand if we are to avoid giving offence in moments 

 of national irritation. Constant travel by people alive 

 to the importance of such inquiries will in time so 

 influence the public opinion of many of the nations of 

 Europe that misunderstandings will be less frequent, 

 and national sensitiveness less prone to take offence at 

 words and actions which are not intended to provoke. 



But it is not only foreign countries and their in- 

 habitants which the anthropologist needs to study. In 

 every country there are different strata in the popula- 

 tion which have different customs and a different out- 

 look. The British Isles are no exception to this rule ; 

 history records the successive arrivals of Romans, 

 Saxons. Danes, and Normans, and the study of pre- 

 historic remains shows us that these invasions have been 

 preceded by a greater number in earlier days. Just as 

 the physical type of the Briton is far from uniform, so are 

 his mental outlook and his ideals and beliefs. Quite 

 apart from the differences observable in the different 

 countries which compose our group of islands, we find 

 also that the population insensibly divides itself into 

 classes, differing but slightly except in name from what 

 we know in India as castes. These classes in the British 



