THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF ANTHE POLOGY TO OUR NATION1

THE last few years have taught Ameri scientists the lesson of service to our nation time of crisis. It had seemed to be a condi of our American civilization that the vast b of our people spent their energies solely their private interests. Most of these pri interests were producing things demanded sold in the market, hence were esteemed at times of practical value. A science which not benefit commodities hawked and sold the public market was given only scant pas notice. This condition has had much to with the slowness of certain sciences in de oping their practical phases. But in our t of national peril it was demanded of every ence that to the utmost limit of its pract possibilities it be useful to the state. So g was the impetus given to the developmen the practical side of scientific research tha pragmatic America of this hour a sci which can not develop its practical side service to its nation and to its day can long retain respect among other sciences.

It is probably true, as Earl Gray said, nationalistic statesmen are largely opportu who see only a little way ahead, and who entitled to congratulate themselves if steer their powerful nations safely among rocks and bars which appear unexpectedl the uncharted course along which they A long look at nations as they have come gone reveals the tragedies of the opportu statesmen. In modern times the nations of old world seem to have had their courses q largely projected into the future by the i itable continuity of a long historic past. we now see their statesmen too were lar

1 Address by the vice-president and chairma Section H (Anthropology), of the American ciation for the Advancement of Science, at cago, December 28, 1920.

only opportunists; they could not foretell the future. Since this is true, can Americans easily overstress the need our nation has of all data obtainable to assist her along her course so infinitely new?

I have no hesitation in saying that of America's recognized problems those most unique, and most difficult to foresee in solution are anthropological at base. Because of these problems confronting America our anthropologists have the opportunity and the duty of service to our nation second to no other group of scientists. I put them first.

Psychologists have given us the scientific procedure for thinking through great problems: First, there must be a clear statement of the problem; second, the accumulation of all obtainable data; third, a survey of the accumulated data with all possible judgment and guided imagination, resulting in conclusions which, after constant efforts at refutation and verification, should furnish grounds for future action. I fear that we as anthropologists have sometimes stopped at the second point without going on to the most vital part of the procedure covered by the third. A step further than this is necessary, however. In a nation with government by public opinion and universal franchise any conclusions which are to affect national policies and actions must be so popularized that an educated public opinion will irresistibly dominate the nation in questions affected by these conclusions. Public opinion so engendered concerning anthropological questions would put their solution in the scientific class that of deliberative thought and action. It would take their solution out of the disreputable but still existing class of chance or luck; and out of the still more common but extremely wasteful class of trial and error. From anthropologists should come the data, as far as possible the conclusions, and to a certain extent the programs for the solutions of our national problems which have an anthropological basis.

We shall not have time in one brief paper to state all the anthropological problems whose solution would be of practical value to our nation. I wish to touch in a general way on the

fundamental value to our nation of practical anthropological research as a whole and then to pass on to a more extended discussion of the relation of anthropology to two of the gravest problems before the nation to-day.

Stated broadly the bed-rock national anthropological problem is the survival and improvement of the human element of our nation. The sine qua non of civilization at any time is man's survival on physical, intellectual, and moral planes as high as those he possessed at that time. Civilization is lost to the extent that man's survival-planes are lowered. The goal of civilization seems to be for increasing numbers of mankind to survive on more elevated planes of mutual physical, intellectual and moral freedom. It appears to be a part of cosmic evolution for each generation to press toward that goal. But to a large extent even to-day our generation is pressing blindly toward this goal with its mind on remedial factors rather than on causative factors. There is a pertinent question and its answer in Ellsworth Huntington's new book, "World-Power and Evolution":

Shall we despair because the church, the school, the charity organization, and the state have not yet destroyed war, pestilence, lust, greed, cruelty and selfishness? Far from it. These agencies can not possibly play their proper parts unless science comes to their aid.

The time has come when anthropologists who study breeds of men from the disinterested scientific point of view should help create dominating constructive public opinion founded on research to assist our nation toward her goal of developing civilization.

In my "Report on the Science of Anthropology in the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific Islands," published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1914, I discussed this question at some length under the section with the general title of "Modern Problems" and the sub-titles of "Ethnic Heredity,” “Influence of Environment on Mankind," "Human Amalgamation," and "An Anthropological Laboratory." I here quote from the opening and closing paragraphs of that section of the "Report":

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 still in the making. He studies man's present-day evolution 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 process in the past, and which vitiate or benefit it today, may serve as guides for future generations.

The field of anthropological study of modern people is new and unoccupied, only the barest beginnings having been made. The horizon of this coming field for research among present and future man and ethnic groups is seen to extend indefinitely 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 accumulate and where they would be kept indefinitely. 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 generations 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 educated public opinion surprisingly soon, and have their inevitable and far-reaching influences.3

The president of the Anthropological Section of the British Association for the Advancement 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. R. Rivers, A. E. Jenks, and S. G. Morley, at the request of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, printed 1914. 3 Page 58, ibid.

necessity of making anthropological rese of service to the nation, and urges the elishment of "anthropological institutes British universities to further this end.

There can be no question of the service thropological knowledge and research m render to the United States to-day.

In the improvement of plants and ani in the economic life of the United States experts are constantly at work using as ready tools every latest fact of scien knowledge. We have carefully studied lected and improved the native Amer maize, potatoes, yams, tobacco and turkey, built them into our everyday life.

The United States government keeps in stant employ experts who in recent years imported many varieties of plants and ani which are successfully and permanently into our economic production.

Among such plants, I quote from a pers letter received from Dr. Fairchild, Agr tural Explorer in Charge, United States partment of Agriculture, Bureau of Plan dustry, Washington, D. C., "are the di wheat brought since 1898 from Russia now an annual value in increased wealt the farmers of the United States of $50 000, the Sudan grass imported in 1909 from Sudan with a crop in 1918 valued at than $10,000,000, the Rhodes grass Rhodesia, represented now by an indust several millions, the feterita from the S which since 1906 has grown to an indust over $16,000,000 annual value, the Egy long staple cotton, which since 1899 hɛ come an industry worth over $20,000,0 southern California, the soy bean crop, to-day amounts to six and one third m dollars, and the newer things, such a avocado, the dasheen, the chayote, the Cl jujube, the Oriental persimmon, the Jap bamboo, the tropical papaya, the Jaj rices, which cover now 60,000 acres of la California alone."

To this list must be added the date bi from the Sahara or the deserts of Arab

"Institutes of Anthropology," by Pr Karl Pearson, in SCIENCE, October 22, 1920