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SectioxX H.— anthropology. 



Pkesidexx of the Section — Lieut.-General Pitt-Riteks, D.C.L., F.R.S., 



F.G.S., F.S.A. 



TnUIlSBAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 

 The President delivered the following Address: — 



Having been much occupied up to within the last week in my own special branch 

 of anthropology, and in bringing out the second volume of my excavations in Dor- 

 setshire, which I wished to have ready for those who are interested in the subject on 

 the occasion of this meeting, I regret that I have been unable to prepare an address 

 upon a general subject, as I could have wished to do, and am compelled to 

 limit my remarks to matters on which I have been recently engaged. Also, I wish 

 to make a few observations on the means to be taken to promulgate anthropological 

 knowledge and render it available for the education of the masses. 



Taking the last-mentioned subject first, I will commence with anthropological 

 museums, to which I have given attention for many years. In my judgment, an 

 institution that is dedicated to the Muses should be something more than a store, 

 it should have some backbone in it. It should be in itself a means of conveying 

 knowledge, and not a mere repository of objects from which knowledge can be cuUed 

 by those who know where to look for it. A national museum, created and main- 

 tained at the public expense, should be available for public instruction, and not 

 solely a place of reference for savants. 



I do not deny the necessity that exists for museum stores for the use of students, 

 but I maintain that, side by side with such stores, there should in these days exist 

 museums instructively arranged for the benefit of those who have no time to study, 

 and for whom the practical results of anthropological and other scientific investi- 

 gations are quite as important as for savants. 



The one great feature which it is desirable to emphasise in connection with the 

 exhibition of archaeological and ethnological specimens is evolution. To impress 

 upon the mind the continiuty and historical sequence of the arts of life, is, with- 

 out doubt, one of the most important lessons to be inculcated. It is only of late 

 years that the development of social institutions has at all entered into the design 

 of educational histories. And the arts of life, so far as I am aware, have never 

 formed part of any educational series. Yet as a study of evolution they are the 

 most important of all, because in them the connecting links between the various 

 phases of development can be better displayed. 



The relative value of any subject for this purpose is not in proportion to the 

 interest which attaches to the subject in the abstract. Laws, customs, and insti- 

 tutions may perhaps be regarded as of greater importance than the arts of life, 

 but for anthropological purposes they are of less value, because in them, previously to 

 the introduction of writing, the different phases of development, as soon as they are 

 superseded by new ideas, are entu-ely lost and cannot be reproduced except in 

 imagination. Whereas in the arts of life, in which ideas are embodied in material 

 forms, the connecting links are in many cases preserved, and can be replaced in 

 their proper sequence by meais of antiquities. 



For this reason the study of the arts of life ought always to precede the 

 study of social evolution, in order that the student may learn to make allowance 



