February 18, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



149 



It must not be supposed that the anthropologist 

 is limited in his interest and his field of work to 

 man 's evolution of the past. He knows man is stiU 

 in the making. He studies man 's present-day evo- 

 lution in its individual and ethnic aspects. He 

 makes his studies of both the past and the present, 

 with an eye to the future, in order that those things 

 which vitiated or benefited the evolutionary proc- 

 ess in the past, and which vitiate or benefit it to- 

 day, may serve as guides for future generations. 



The field of anthropological study of modern 

 people is new and unoccupied, only the barest be- 

 ginnings having been made. The horizon of this 

 coming field for research among present and fu- 

 ture man and ethnic groups is seen to extend in- 

 definitely into the future. It would be difficult to 

 overestimate the practical value of these continued 

 studies. Their utility would be world-wide.2 

 , A permanent laboratory should eventually be 

 established in connection with these studies in 

 ethnic heredity, environment, and amalgamation 

 where records of research would continually ac- 

 cumulate and where they would be kept indefi- 

 nitely. From this laboratory new data should be 

 published frequently, not alone for conclusions 

 which might have been arrived at, but that such 

 data might assist investigators in various parts of 

 the world. . . . 



, It may be argued that, even were the facts of 

 heredity, environment, and amalgamation obtained 

 and available, they would be of little use to-day, 

 since influences are already at work which would 

 be impossible to control. To a certain extent this 

 is true, but one of the essentials of human progress 

 is that man works not for his own generation 

 alone, but for future generations. One can not 

 measure the beneficial results to future genera- 

 tions of a body of accurate and scientific facts 

 available on these subjects. Moreover, facts of 

 this kind to-day in America become a part of edu- 

 cated public opinion surprisingly soon, and have 

 their inevitable and far-reaching influences.s 



The president of the Anthropological Sec- 

 tion of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science in his recent address at 

 Cardiff emphasizes in no uncertain terms the 



2 Page 54 of " Reports upon the Condition and 

 Future Needs of the Science of Anthropology," 

 presented by W. H. B. Rivers, A. E. Jenks, and S. 

 G. Morley, at the request of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion of Washington, printed 1914. 



3 Page 58, Hid. 



necessity of making anthropological research 

 of service to the nation, and urges the estab- 

 lishment of " anthropological institutes " in 

 British universities to further this end.* 



There can be no question of the service an- 

 thropological knowledge and research might 

 render to the United States to-day. 



In the improvement of plants and animals 

 in the economic life of the United States our 

 experts are constantly at work using as their 

 ready tools every latest fact of scientific 

 knowledge. We have carefully studied, se- 

 lected and improved the native American 

 maize, potatoes, yams, tobacco and turkey, and 

 built them into our everyday life. 



The United States goverimient keeps in con- 

 stant employ experts who in recent years have 

 imported many varieties of plants and animals 

 which are successfully and permanently built 

 into our economic production. 



Among such plants, I quote from a personal 

 letter received from Dr. Fairchild, Agricul- 

 tural Explorer in Charge, United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry, Washington, D. C, " are the durum 

 wheat brought since 1898 from Russia with 

 now an annual value in increased wealth to 

 the farmers of the United States of $50,000,- 

 000, the Sudan grass imported in 1909 from the 

 Sudan with a crop in 1918 valued at more 

 than $10,000,000, the Ehodes grass from 

 Rhodesia, represented now by an industry of 

 several millions, the feterita from the Sudan, 

 which since 1906 has grown to an industry of 

 over $16,000,000 annual value, the Egyptian 

 long staple cotton, which since 1899 has be- 

 come an industry worth over $20,000,000 in 

 southern California, the soy bean crop, which 

 to-day amounts to six and one third million 

 dollars, and the newer things, such as the 

 avocado, the dasheen, the chayote, the Chinese 

 jujube, the Oriental persimmon, the Japanese 

 bamboo, the tropical papaya, the Japanese 

 rices, which cover now 60,000 acres of land in 

 California alone." 



To this list must be added the date brought 

 from the Sahara or the deserts of Arabia. It 



•♦"Institutes of Anthropology," by Professor 

 Karl Pearson, in Science, October 22, 1920. 



