PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 619 
the temporal or spiritual benefit of themselves or their tribe. In making this 
remark, I must not be understood as proposing that they should not be put 
down, wherever that is practicable. I am merely trying now to give an 
anthropological explanation of human phenomena. 
In very many parts of the British Empire, the routine of daily life and the 
notions that govern it often find no counterparts of any kind in those of the 
British Isles, in such matters as personal habits and etiquette on occasions of 
social intercourse. And yet, perhaps, nothing estranges the administrator from 
his people more than mistakes on these points. It is small matters—such as 
the mode of salutation, forms of address and politeness, as rules of precedence, 
hospitality, and decency, as recognition of superstitions, however apparently 
unreasonable—which largely govern social relations, which no stranger can 
afford to ignore, and which at the same time cannot be ascertained and observed 
correctly without due study. 
The considerations so far urged to-day have carried us through the points 
of the nature and scope of the science of anthropology, the mental equipment 
necessary for the useful pursuit of it, the methods by which it can be success- 
fully studied, the extent and nature of the British Empire, the kind of 
knowledge of the alien populations within its boundaries required by persons of 
British origin who would administer the Empire with benefit to the people 
dwelling in it, and the importance to such persons of acquiring that knowledge. 
1 now turn to the present situation as to this last point and its possible 
improvement, though in doing so I have to cover ground that some of those 
present may think I have already trodden bare. The main proposition here is 
simple enough. The Empire is governed from the British Isles, and therefore 
year by year a large number of young men is sent out to its various component 
parts, and to them must inevitably be entrusted in due course the administrative, 
commercial, and social control over many alien races. If their relations with 
the foreign peoples with whom they come in contact are to be successful, they 
must acquire a working knowledge of the habits, customs, and ideas that govern 
the conduct of those peoples, and of the conditions in which they pass their 
lives. All those who succeed find these things out for themselves, and discern 
that success in administration and commerce is intimately affected by success in 
social relations, and that that in its turn is dependent on the knowledge they 
may attain of those with whom they have to deal. They set about learning 
what they can, but of necessity empirically, trusting to keenness of observation, 
because such self-tuition is, as it were, a side issue in the immediate and 
imperative business of their lives. But, as I have already said elsewhere, the 
man who is obliged to obtain the requisite knowledge empirically, and without 
any previous training in observation, is heavily handicapped indeed in com- 
parison with him who has already acquired the habit of right observation, and, 
what is of much more importance, has been put in the way of correctly 
interpreting his observations in his youth. 
To put the proposition in its briefest form : in order to succeed in administra- 
tion a man must use tact. Tact is the social expression of discernment and 
insight, qualities born of intuitive anthropological knowledge, and that is what 
it is necessary to induce in those sent abroad to become eventually the controllers 
of other kinds of men. What is required, therefore, is that in youth they 
should have imbibed the anthropological habit, so that as a result of having 
been taught how to study mankind, they may learn what it is necessary to 
know of those about them correctly, and in the shortest practicable time. The 
years of active life now unavoidably wasted in securing this knowledge, often 
inadequately and incorrectly even in the case of the ablest, can thus be saved, 
to the incalculable benefit of both the governors and the governed. 
The situation has, for some years past, been appreciated by those who have 
occupied themselves with the science we are assembled here to promote, and 
several efforts have been made by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the 
Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, at any rate to bring the 
public benefits accruing from the establishment of anthropological schools before 
the Government and the people of this country. 
In 1902 the Royal Anthropological Institute sent a deputation to the 
Government with a view to the establishment of an official Anthropometric 
