H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 169 
_ territory of Papua, but a number of the senior officers of the administra- 
_ tion have devoted their vacations to attending special courses at Sydney. 
Thus, some progress has already been made in turning anthropological 
studies to practical use. There is still a great deal more that might be 
- done and that ought to be done. Some of the British colonies, such as 
the Western Pacific and British Malaya, have neither government anthro- 
_ pologists nor any regular training in anthropology for their officers. 
_ Moreover, it seems to me that the courses now taken by officers in the 
_ African services are inadequate. A few weeks given to anthropology may 
; be better than nothing, but certainly cannot be called sufficient. There 
} is no doubt that one of the most efficient native administrations is that of 
_ the Dutch East Indies, and the qualification for this requires five years 
of special studies, including native languages and native law and custom. 
} A question of some importance is, what kind of anthropological teaching 
_ should be given to native administrators to fit them better for carrying 
on their work. There is, I think, no value to them in a study of physical 
anthropology or the classification of races that falls under physical 
_ anthropology or ethnology. There is equally no value for them in any 
_ study of prehistoric archeology. Further, those attempts to reconstruct 
_ the history of cultures and peoples that I have been calling ethnology 
_ are of absolutely no practical value in the work of native administration 
f or education. 
____ There is obvious practical value in training which will help the colonial 
_ officer to speak the language or languages of the peoples he is dealing with. 
_ This is already provided for in some of our colonies. 
__ What the administrator and educator amongst dependent peoples need 
above all is a detailed knowledge of the social organisation, the customs 
and beliefs of the natives and an understanding of their meanings and 
their functions. This can be attained only by means of a general study 
_ of comparative sociology, followed by an intensive study of the particular 
_ people in question. 
I have on many occasions met with persons who were engaged in the 
_ government or education of native peoples who have expressed the view 
that, whatever academic interest anthropology might have, it has no 
_ practical value in work such as they are engaged in. I have found that 
_ what was thought of as anthropology by these persons was the series of 
academic studies that includes physical anthropology, the classification of 
races, the ethnological reconstruction of history, prehistoric archeology 
and the social anthropology that elaborates theories of the origins of 
institutions. One magistrate complained to me that, though he had read 
‘the whole of the Golden Bough, he did not find that it gave him any 
practical help in dealing in his court with the customs of a native tribe. 
Another, who had interested himself in the writings of Elliot Smith and 
Perry, was firmly convinced that a study of anthropology could be of no 
practical use to him in spite of its interest. An officer of one of the 
African colonies who was specially sent to give advice on methods of 
colonial administration to one of the British Dominions, was asked if it 
would be a good thing to give a training in anthropology to those who 
would ultimately become district officers. He replied that it would be 
useless or even harmful; that a magistrate so trained would be thinking 
