• * * 



Februaiy, 1907.] Annual Address. ,,x,i, 



he is. Anything that advances this knouledge is svovth encour- 



• } ^'^ ^i'^''"*^, *" ""^y therefore that it is somewhat disappoint- 

 ing to find that the Asiatic Society of Bengal has enrolled anion 



n 



its members so few officers of my own and other services It 

 a great pleasure to me to find among the members severalOf mv 

 own officers in the Imperial and Provincial Services, and to find 

 tl.at some of these are doing work which is noticed in our reports 

 But they are far too few. I think that it is not altogether the 

 fault of the officers themselves. I think it is partly due to the 



fact that the Society does not sufficiently make itself known 

 I am inclined to think that the enlistini^ of a large number of 

 enthusiastic workmen in the various branches of Indian work as 

 members of this Society is an object well Avoith aiming at. It 

 woald not only be an advantage to the Society, and perhaps it 

 might not always be even an unmixed advantage ; but it would 

 certainly be a great advantage to such enthusiastic workers them- 

 selves to belong to a Society like this. Now I know from my 

 own experience that a young man may come to this country very 

 anxious indeed to learn something about the people he meets 

 the places he works in, and the things he sees. When he is 

 young and fresh to the country, if he is also enthusiastic, he 

 marks and notices the special features of the life and surroundings 

 into which he is brought. If he could be encouraged to record 



these, to study them scientifically and to assimilate them in a 



heajthy way, it would be of great advantage. And I cannot help 



thinking that membership of a society like this might tend to 



much advantage in this respect. On the other hand It is aho a 



mere matter of memory that the advantage of membership of 



this Society was denied to me, simply because the objects, if not 



also the very existence, of the Society were practically unknown 



in the province to which I belonged. Often and often customs 



had to be enquired into in the oi'dinary course of business. 



Mythological tales and religious legends wei'e reheaised by priests 

 at remote shrines, q--- ^ ^ - - ^ i^^ .-, >. •. . -., 



tire. Beautiful or curions family or caste observances were witnessed 



These and many other interesting experiences made their impres- 

 sion on one's heart and mind. But I cannot help feeling that that 

 impression would have been less vague, and often less ephemeral 

 and more useful, if there had been encouragement systematically 

 to record and scientifically to consider such experiences. 



I observe in the report that in the Anthropolot^ical section 

 Dr, Annandale animadverts on the tendency *^to regaid all 

 brnnches of anthropology,^ except the purely physical, as being 

 within the range of intellisrent observation unattended by library 

 research.*' I am prepared to admit that if every enthubia^tic 

 observer were to record every observation that he made in the 

 course of work and of tours in the interior of the country he 

 would produce a mass of material, which, however interesting to 

 himself and interesting to many others, would not be scientific- 

 ally new, and might not elucidate points at issue among scientific 



