Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/31

 Rh of the philosophy of religion, and, coming to perceive that systems of religion cannot be studied apart from culture, nor culture from anthropology as a whole, she has instituted a diploma in anthropology, and has succeeded in awakening a real interest in the subject among the young men from whose ranks the future rulers of the native races of the British Empire are likely to be drawn. Of the younger Universities, London has established two Professorships of Sociology and a Lectureship of Ethnology, and Liverpool a Chair of Social Anthropology. The names differ, but the early stages of the history of culture are dealt with under them all.

In other quarters, the barrier once existing between students of physical anthropology and students of culture may now be said to have been thoroughly broken down. The Royal Anthropological Institute has silently and gradually enlarged its borders, and now welcomes cultural studies as freely as the physical or technological work which used to be its chief concern. It has progressed by leaps and bounds, and has become a centre of influence, a voice to be listened to, a power not to be disregarded.

Of the progress made in exploration by America and Australia, of the societies founded and the important works produced on the Continent of Europe, I will not now stay to speak. I have said enough to show the difference of our circumstances to-day from those of thirty years ago.

The change being so great,—the phenomenon of savage survivals in culture established, the position of the history and development of culture as an integral part of anthropology vindicated, and the claims of anthropology as a subject of study recognized by the Universities,—the question has naturally been more than once asked,—Is there any further need for the Folk-Lore Society? Has it not done its work? How can it now justify its existence as a separate organization? It is to these questions that I propose to address myself to-night. Sundry criticisms of