Indian Antiquary Vol 42

SR No.: 032534
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1913.
trodden bare. The main proposition here is simple enough. The Empire is governed from the British Isles, and therefore year by year a large number of young men is sent out to its various component parts, and to them must inevitably be entrusted in due course the administrative, commercial, and social control over many alien races. If their relations with the foreign peoples with whom they come in contact are to be successful, they must acquire a working knowledge of the habits, customs, and ideas that govern the conduct of those peoples, and of the conditions in which they pass their lives. All those who succeed find these things out for themselves, and discern that success in administration and commerce is intimately affected by success in social relations, and that that in its turn is dependent on the knowledge they may attain of those with whom they have to deal. They set about learning what they can, but of necessity empirically, trusting to keenness of observation, because such self-tuition is, as it were, a side issue in the immediate and imperative business of their lives. But, as I have already said elsewhere, the man who is obliged to obtain the requisite knowledge empirically, and without any previous training in observation, is heavily handicapped indeed in comparison with him who has already acquired the habit of right observation, and, what is of much more importance, has been put in the way of correctly interpreting his observations in his youth.
To put the proposition in its briefest form : in order to succeed in administration a man must use tact. Tact is the social expression of discernment and insight, qualities born of intuitive anthropological knowledge, and that is what it is necessary to induce in those sent abroad to become eventually the controllers of other kinds of men. What is required, therefore, is that in youth they should have imbibed the anthropological habit, so that as a result of having been taught how to study mankind, they may learn what it is necessary to know of those about them correctly, and in the shortest practicable time. The years of active life now unavoidably wasted in securing this knowledge, often inadequately and incorrectly even in the case of the ablest, can thus be saved, to the incalculable benefit of both the governors and the governed.
The situation has, for some years past, been appreciated by those who have occupied themselves with the science we are assembled here to promote, and several efforts have been made by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, at any rate, to bring the public benefits accruing from the establishment of anthro- pological schools before the Government and the people of this country.
In 1902 the Royal Anthropological Institute sent a deputation to the Government with a view to the establishment of an official Anthropometric Survey of the United Kingdom, in order to test the foundation for fears, then widely expressed, as to the physical deterioration of the population. In 1909 the Institute sent a second deputation to the present Government, to urge the need for the official training in anthropology of candidates for the Consular Service and of the Indian and Colonial Civil Services. There is happily every reason to hope that the Public Services Commission may act on the recommendations then made. This year (1913) the Institute returned to the charge and approached the Secretary of State for India, with & view to making anthropology an integral feature of the studies of the Oriental Research Institute, to the establishment of which the Government of India had officially proposed to give special attention. The Institute has also lately arranged to deal with all questions of scientific import that may come before the newly constituted Bureau of Ethnology at the Royal Colonial Institute, in the hope with its co-operation of eventually establishing a great desideratum-an Imperial Bureau of Ethnology. It has further had in hand a scheme for the systematic and thorough distribution of local correspondents throughout the world.
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