146 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



haiVe attached to it a psychologist, a medical officer, and a biologist. 

 They are essential portions of its requisite staff, but this is a very 

 different matter from lopping off large and important branches of its 

 fitting studies, to lie neglected on the ground, or to be dragged away, 

 as dead wood, to be hewn and shapen for other purposes by scientific 

 colleagues in other institutes. Eemember that I am emphasising that 

 side of anthropology which studies man in the service of the State — 

 anthropology as a utile science — and that this is the only ground 

 on which anthropology can appeal for support and sympathy from 

 State, from municipality, and from private donors. You will notice 

 that I lay stress on the association of the anthropological institute 

 with the university, and the reasons for this are manifold. In the 

 first place, every science is stimulated by contact with the workers in 

 allied sciences ; in the second place, the institute must be a teaching 

 as well as a researching body, and it can only do this effectively in 

 association with an academic centre — a centre from which to draw 

 its students and to recruit its staff. In the third place, a great university 

 provides a wide field for anthi'opometric studies in its students and 

 its staff. And the advantages are mutual. It is not of much service 

 to hand a student a card containing his stature, his weight, his eye 

 colour, and his head length ! Most of these he can find out for himself ! 

 But it is of importance to him to know something of how his eye, heart, 

 and respiration function ; it is of importance to him to know the general 

 character of his mental qualities, and how they are associated with 

 the rapidity and steadiness of muscular responses. Knowledge on 

 these points may lead him to a fit choice of a career, or at any rate 

 save him from a thoroughly bad choice. 



In the course of my life I have often received inquiries from school- 

 masters of the following kind : We are setting up a school anthropo- 

 metric laboratory, and we propose to measure stature, weight, height 

 sitting, &c. Can you suggest anything else we should measure? 



My invariable reply is : Don't start measuring anything at all until 

 you have settled the problems you wish to answer, and then just 

 measure the characters in an adequate number of your boys, which 

 will enable you to solve those problems. Use your school as a labora- 

 tory, not as a weighhouse. 



And I might add, if I were not in dread of giving offence: And 

 most certainly do not measure anything at all if you have no problem 

 to solve, for unless you have you cannot have the true spirit of the 

 anthropologist, and you will merely increase that material up and down 

 in the schools of the country which nobody is turning to any real use. 



Which of us, who is a parent, has not felt the grrave responsibility 

 of advising a child on the choice of a profession? We have before us, 

 perhaps, a few meagre examination results, an indefinite knowledge 

 of the self-chosen occupations of the child, and perhaps some regard 

 to the past experience of the family or clan. Possibly we say John is 

 good with his hands and does not care for lessons ; therefore he should 

 be an engineer. That may be a correct judgment if we understand 

 by engineer, the engine-driver or mechanic. It is not true if we think of 

 the builders of Forth Bridges and Assuan Dams. Such men work 



