H.— ANTHROPOLOGY, 163 



It is not my busiiu'ss to draft a scheme foi' the I'Lirlherance ^>i. 

 anthropological studies. Two of our universities offer degrees in this 

 subject, ami others a. diploma; courses of instruction on some sectio'US 

 of the subject are given there and elsewhere. Many teachers of 

 geography are introducing much anthropological matter into their 

 curricula, and there are signs that some historical teachers may follow 

 suit, so that the subject-matter, if not the name, is not unknown in 

 some of our schools. But we have much lost time to make up and 

 the matter is urgent. 



We cannot, of course, expect all our people to be trained anthro- 

 pologists and to understand fully all the ways of the people they may 

 chance to meet in their wanderings. What matters far more is that 

 they should appreciate the fact that different peoples have had different 

 pasts and so act differently in response to the same stimuli. Further, 

 that all this diversity has its value ; that we cannot be sure that one 

 culture is in all respects superior to another, still less that ours is the 

 best and the only one which is of consequence. It is not so much the 

 facts that matter as the spirit of anthropology ; we need not so much 

 that our people should have anthropological knowledge as that they 

 should learn to think anthropologically. 



It is needless for me to remind you that the world is in a state of 

 very unstable equilibrium — that the crust is, so tO' speak, cracked in 

 many places, and that the fissures are becoming wider and deeper, and 

 that fresh fissures are constantly appearing, not only in distant lands 

 but nearer home. Again, this crust, if I may continue the geological 

 metaphor, is stratified, and there are horizontal as well as vertical 

 cleavages, which are daily becoming more marked. It is to the interest 

 of humanity that these breaches should be healed and the cracks 

 stopped, or we may find the civilisation of the world, which has grown 

 up through long millennia at the cost of enormous struggles, break up 

 into a thousand fragments. Such a break in the culture of the Euro- 

 pean Eegion followed the dissolution of the Eoman Empire, and more 

 than a thousand years were needed to heal it; nay, some of the cracks 

 then made have never yet been closed. 



Anything that may help to avert such a disaster is important to 

 the human race, and there is no greater danger at present than the 

 alienation of the peoples of Asia and the Near East. Much of the ill- 

 feeling engendered in India, Egypt, and elsewhere is the product of 

 misunderstandings, due to a lack of appreciation on both sides of the 

 opinions and views of the other party, and there seems to be no better 

 method of removing such misunderstandings than a sympathetic study 

 of one another's culture, and to this end anthropology offers the most 

 hopeful approach. 



