December 8, 3911] 



SCIENCE 



789 



consider the gist of the whole problem to be 

 its fearful money cost. Money spent on doing 

 the same work twice over is money wasted. 



Minnesota spends annually for her schools 

 about $15,000,000, and if 7.4 per cent, of this 

 is spent on repeaters then the loss is $1,110,000. 



It is estimated that the nation similarly 

 loses from 57 to 80 millions from the same 

 cause. 



We justly boast of our great school fund in 

 Minnesota, of about $27,000,000, but here is a 

 sum two or three times as great wasted yearly 

 in the United States because of loss and waste 

 in our management of the public schools along 

 this one line alone. 



The True Loss. — The true loss, however, is 

 the spiritual one, which refuses to submit to 

 statistical investigation. The retarded pupils 

 personally lose that fine spirit of initiative, of 

 progress, of growth, of self reliance and of 

 eagerness to achieve, which constitutes the 

 chief glory of youth, and which sends him from 

 school into life an effective member of society. 

 By allowing him to become retarded that birth- 

 right of the American boy is traded for the 

 pottage of idleness, failure and self-distrust. 



F. E. LURTON 

 Anoka, Minn. 



AN ANTHBOPOLOGICAL SUBVEY OF 

 CANADA 



A STEP forward in the development of an- 

 thropological studies in America was taken 

 September 1, 1910, by the establishment of a 

 division of anthropology under the Geological 

 Survey of Canada. This gives anthropology 

 a government status in Canada similar to 

 that which it enjoys in the United States, 

 where the Bureau of American Ethnology is 

 recognized as the most important body under- 

 taking the study of aboriginal America. The 

 establishment of the Canadian Division of 

 Anthropology was due primarily to the activ- 

 ity of a committee of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, on the 

 Ethnographical Survey of Canada. This 

 committee, of which Rev. Dr. G. Bryce was 

 chairman, was appointed in 1909 at the Winni- 



peg meeting of the Association' and recom- 

 mended to the Dominion Government the es- 

 tablishment of a systematic anthropological 

 survey of Canada in connection with the open- 

 ing of the new national museum. The recom- 

 mendations of this committee were supported 

 by delegations of the Archseological Institute 

 of America and the Royal Society of Canada.' 

 Though the actual governmental recognition 

 of anthropological work in Canada is thus to 

 be immediately credited to the efforts of these 

 scientific societies, in a larger sense the an- 

 thropological division is the outcome of many 

 years work on the part of Dr. G. M. Dawson, 

 formerly the director of the Geological Sur- 

 vey, and Dr. Franz Boas. These may be said 

 to have started the ball rolling, the former by 

 the work on the natives of British Columbia 

 that he did in connection with his geological 

 surveys, the latter by the more systematic 

 undertaking of ethnologic, physical anthropo- 

 logic, and linguistic studies in the same part 

 of Canada in the eighties and nineties under 

 the auspices of the British Association. The 

 present affiliation of the division of anthro- 

 pology with the Geological Survey is in a 

 large measure due to the personality of Dr. 

 Dawson, to whose earlier efforts, at last 

 analysis, is mainly due the recognition by the 

 Canadian government of ■ the importance of 

 anthropological work. The ethnological and 

 archaeological collections of the national mu- 

 seum have their nucleus in collections either 

 obtained by Dawson himself or through his 

 efforts. It is interesting in passing to note 

 that the Bureau of American Ethnology at 

 Washington began by affiliation with the 

 United States Geological Survey, the con- 

 necting personality in that ease being J. W. 

 Powell. 



At the present time the anthropological di- 



' See Eeport of the 79th Meeting of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science (Win- 

 nipeg, 1909), London, 1910, p. cxxxviii. See also 

 Professor J. L. Myres's address to Section H, 

 Hid., pp. 616, 617. 



- See Eeport of the 80th Meeting of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science (Shef- 

 field, 1910), London, 1911, pp. 265, 266. 



