262 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [Sept. 
as is the time, and though much has utterly perished, there is no doubt 
that much can be saved and recorded. It should, however, be realized 
that though we may know that certain comparatively untouched localities 
may give the largest, the most interesting, and even the most valu¬ 
able results, these should not be studied before other places, all too 
numerous in the Pacific, where so short a period as ten years will see 
not only a change, but the complete extinction of the knowledge and 
traditions. 
(5.) Sir James G. Frazer , D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D., Fellow of Trinity College, 
Cambridge; Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of 
Liverpool. 
In my opinion it is very desirable, in the interest both of education and 
of science, that the University of New Zealand should provide teaching 
and facilities for research in anthropology. 
As an -.educational subject anthropology is of high value. Forming a 
link between the humane studies and natural science, it is fitted to appeal 
to men of very varied tastes and talents, as appears from the observation 
that the ranks of professional anthropologists have been recruited both 
from the humane and the scientific branches of learning. It opens up 
wide intellectual vistas, and is thus eminently fitted to interest the student 
and to stimulate him to think for himself. But, apart from its value as 
a subject of general education, it is of special importance in the training 
of all whose duties bring them into contact with native races. Without 
some insight into the habits, institutions, and modes of thought of 
uncivilized peoples it is almost impossible for an administrator in his 
dealings with them to avoid falling into mistakes which may have serious 
and even disastrous practical consequences, but from which some acquaint¬ 
ance with anthropology might have saved him. Again, a missionary 
who has had anthropological training gains incalculably in influence for 
good with his native flock by starting from a basis of mutual sympathy 
and understanding, instead of from one of mutual prejudice and ignorance, 
if not open and avowed hostility. For it is to be remembered that many 
customs observed by savages are not only innocent but beneficial, being 
the fruit of long experience and adaptation to circumstances, and that much 
harm may be done by their hasty abolition and the substitution for them 
of others which may be far less suited to the mental condition and natural 
surroundings of the people. 
But besides its educational value anthropology possesses a high degree 
of scientific interest. Indeed, dealing as it does in large measure with races 
of men who are rapidly disappearing or being transformed by contact with 
Europeans or people of European descent, it stands in the forefront of 
those sciences which have an immediate and imperative claim on the 
attention of all who are concerned for the advancement of knowledge ; 
for every year makes a serious inroad on those records of the human past 
which can still be rescued for posterity by an attentive study of savage 
life. Few countries are better situated for prosecuting such inquiries than 
New Zealand, for not only does it possess in the Maoris a fine specimen 
of a people till lately in a state of savagery, but it enjoys ample, if not 
unique, opportunities for investigating the still purely savage tribes of 
Melanesia, which offer one of the best remaining fields for the study of 
primitive man. 
