SCOPE AND VALUE OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES. 2S9i 
While paying a glowing tribute to those who worked with insufificient light, Prof. 
Mason called attention to the fact that twenty years antiquate a man nowadays as 
effectually as did centuries in former times. Quite an extended report was given 
of the work now being thoroughly done in every department of anthropology 
throughout our country. 
The second benefit of anthropology is its good effect on human weal. The 
study of climatology already begins to enable those who direct political move- 
ments to thwart the destructive energies of nature and to add to the natural 
selection of physical forces the effective co-operation of human design. A better 
knowledge of the religions of peoples puts in the hand of the statesman and the 
missionary a more effectual means of amelioration. Those who have to deal with 
uncivilized people on reservations and in colonies, win their confidence better by 
knowing their political organization. The history of civilization is in one sense a 
history of industrial accretions which can be read backwards by the elimination 
of inventions in the inverse order of their addition. So much is said about race 
and race prejudice that only by a correct analysis of what race really is can we 
hope to arrive at a proper disposition of the problem. Thus throughout every 
part of this anthropologic domain, knowledge wide and deep is to humanity both 
a safeguard and a positive boon. 
The third and most interesting point in this part of the paper was that anthro- 
pology afforded opportunity for the exercise of the most diversified talent. The 
speaker showed that every one in the audience, by his occupation or natural gifts, 
was thus qualified to be an expert in anthropology. Some very interesting illus- 
trations of this point were given, such as the identification of all the birds in the 
mound-pipes by Mr. Henshaw ; the explanation of the designs on the shell orna- 
ments, by Mr. Holmes, the artist; the explanation of the true history of savage 
invention, by Mr. Seely. apatent examiner, and the order of elaboration in savage 
weapons, by Gen. Pitt Rivers. Mothers, teachers, physicians, tradesmen, law- 
yers, legislators, and clergymen, were urged to couduct a series of anthropologic 
experiments. 
The last advantage to which Prof. Mason alluded was the assistance which 
such studies lend to philanthropy and legislation. Science now has her mission- 
aries as well as religion. It was the demonstration by science that the Indians 
are not dying out which revolutionized public sentiment in their favor. The gen- 
uine sympathy necessary to constitute a good scientific observer redounds to the 
permanent good of those who are under scrutiny. 
The closing portion of the address related to the future of anthropology. In 
the study of the anthropocosmos, as in other studies, we are brought face to face 
with the inscrutable. In these voyages of discovery we have no right to expect 
that we shall ever find a passage to the ultimate truth. With all our sciences 
comes the consciousness of new ignorances. There is more known to be un- 
known now than when the wisest men knew that they did not understand many 
things well known to us. So will it ever be. We are just on the threshold of 
applying the instruments of precision to the study of man. But there is no Ultima 
