820 REPORT— 1895. 



character of the museum accommodation at present provided. This is all of an. 

 elaborate and expensive nature, in palatial buildings and on highly valuable sites^ 

 To house the great mass of objects of either ancient or modern peoples in such a 

 costly manner is impracticable, and hence at present nothing is preserved but vrhat 

 is beautiful, strange, or rare. In short, our only subjects of study are the excep- 

 tional and not the usual products of races. The evil traditions of a ' collection 

 of curiosities ' still brood over our materials ; and until we face the fact that for 

 study the common things are generally more important than the rare ones, anthro- 

 pology must remain much as chemistry would if it were restricted to the study of" 

 pretty colours and sweet scents. 



Until we have an anthropological storehouse on a great scale we cannot hope- 

 to preserve the materials which are now continually being lost to study for lack of 

 reasonable accommodation. Such a storehouse should be on the cheapest ground 

 near London, built in the simplest weather-tight fashion, and capable of indefinite 

 expansion, without rearrangement or alteration of existing parts. It should con- 

 tain no baits for burglars, all valuable objects being locked up in the security of 

 the British Museum, to which such a storehouse would form a succursal, greatly 

 relieving the present overcrowded state of many departments. To such a store- 

 house for students all that does not serve for public education, or that is not port- 

 able or of much saleable value, should be consigned. There the piles of archi- 

 tectural fragments which are essential for study, but are useless to show the public, 

 should be all stacked in classified order. There the heaps of pottery of ancient 

 and modern races should all be arranged to illustrate everj^ variety of form and 

 style. There the series of entire tombs of other races and of our own should be- 

 set out in their original arrangement, as in the Bologna Museum. There whole 

 huts, boats, &c., could be placed in their proper order and sequence, while photo- 

 graphs of the showy educational specimens and valuables in the public museums 

 could fill their places in the arrangement. That such a storehouse is needed may 

 be illustrated by a collection gleaned in a few months' work this year. It repre- 

 sents the small products of a little village and a cemetery of a new race in Egypt. 

 But there is no possibility of keeping such a collection together in any Londoa 

 museum ; and but for the new Ashmolean Museum at Oxford having been lately 

 built with a wide view to its increase, it is doubtful if in any place in England suchi 

 a collection could be kept together. What happens to one excavator this year may 

 happen to a dozen excavators per annum in a generation or two hence ; and so long 

 as space is not available to preserve such collections when they are obtained,. 

 Invaluable material is being irrevocably wasted and destroyed. 



Besides the theoretical and scientific side of anthropology there is also a very 

 practical side to it which has not received any sufficient development as yet. 

 Anthropology should in our nation be studied first and foremost as the art of deal- 

 ing with other races. I cannot do better than quote a remark from the address of 

 our previous President, General Pitt Rivers, a remark which has been waiting 

 twenty-three years for further notice. He said, ' Nor is it unimportant to re- 

 member that anthropology has its practical and humanitarian aspect ; and that as 

 our race is more often brought into contact with savages than any other, a know- 

 ledge of their habits and modes of thought may be of the utmost value to us in- 

 utilising their labour, as well as in checking those inhuman practices from which 

 they have but too often sufiered at our hands.' 



The foremost principle which should be always in view is that the civilisation 

 of any race is not a system which can be changed at will. Every civilisation is the- 

 growing product of a very complex set of conditions, depending on race and char- 

 acter, on climate, on trade, and every minutia of the circumstances. To attempt 

 to alter such a system apart from its conditions is impossible. For instance, when- 

 ever a total change is made in government, it breaks down altogether, and a resort 

 to the despotism of one man is the result. When the English Constitution was 

 swept away, Cromwell or anarchy was the alternative : when the French Consti- 

 tution was swept away, Napoleon was the only salvation from anarchy. And if 

 this is the case when the externals of government alone are altered, how much 

 more is it the case if we attempt to uproot the whole of a civilisation and social 



