Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/18

 6 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

leading subjects in normal schools, training colleges, and schools of education. The old and long established psychology of the university could do no other than yield to this great external pressure for applied psychology. The history of the case need not be recited to you, it is obvious that the prestige now held by psychology is due to its achievements as an applied science. "Mental engi- neering" is now a favorite slogan, and everyone knows that the term engineering implies applied science. I do not wish to be understood as denying that psychology has not maintained its position as a pure science, I desire only that all of us take account of the strong development of applied psychology and the con- sequent richness in the psychological personnel and resources.

Anthropology, on the other hand, has so far stood as a pure science. It has not been the source to which the teaching profession or any other profession looked for guidance. Even today the num- ber of our universities and colleges maintaining strong departments can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Research in anthro- pology has been supported almost exclusively through museums. That anthropology has been essentially a museum growth is clear when we note that even in the few large universities with depart- ments, these departments were the outgrowths of university mu- seums. It is not far wrong to say, then, that most anthropologists of the immediate past made their living as museum housekeepers and gave what spare time they could to the development of anthro- pology as a pure science. The result of this is a limited personnel and material resources. Had there been a vast, professional host knocking at the doors of our museums and demanding practical guidance in their everyday work, there would have been a different story to recite here. Further, if I mistake not the signs of the hour, those who stand here ten years hence will have a far different story to tell.

But, it may be asked, what have these museum men been doing behind their closed doors? This is easily answered; they have been face to face with problems of race. They have developed techniques for dealing with the zoology of man and also with his culture. Yet the subjects of their investigations have been the

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