Our Institute should, from the very beginning of its activities, both in connexion with languages and with the cultures of the African native, bear in mind its ultimate aim, and not be satisfied with the mere introduction of more or less casual individual measures. This should not be interpreted as the pedantry of the German professor, nor should the contention be put forward that British experience goes to prove that such matters must be dealt with as they arise without considering future possibilities too seriously. In my opinion it is, on contrary, typically British to take distant ultimate aims into consideration at an early stage of the proceedings, and to bear them in mind while maintaining flexibility in the intermediate stages and adapting them on a wide scale to present contingencies.

The Education Code of 1887 provided for the teaching of art subjects as they were understood in South Kensington at that time—the age of Froebel and Slojd: the aim seems to have been the vague one of ‘hand-and-eye training’. But the purpose for which hand and eye were to be trained does not appear clearly in its instructions, and I am perfectly certain that the bulk of teachers of the older generation do not know of one. One cannot trace in the Code any real policy of artistic development in the country by means of the educational system. ‘Drawing’ was, and is, taught not primarily from the artist's point of view at all, i. e. as a study of form. The study of colour is not taught, nor the elements of design. Now form, colour, and design are the elements of the graphic and plastic art, and one would have thought that they would have been incorporated in a balanced scheme of elementary education. There was, and is, no provision for the training of taste, appreciation, criticism, or for the slightest perception of the horizons of art history.

D'après la tradition indigène certaines contrées de la région de Ngaoundéré, de Batouri, de Yokadouma et de Lomié auraient été autrefois décimées par la maladie du sommeil. Ce que nous savons actuellement des conditions dans lesquelles cette affection se propage rend cette hypothèse tout-à-fait improbable et en vérité nous ne savons ni quand, ni comment, la maladie du sommeil a fait son apparition dans le centre et l'est du Cameroun.

In Südwest-Afrika wohnt zerstreut unter Herero, Hottentitten und Bastards ein rätselhaftes, nur etwa 25,000 Seelen zählendes Völkchen, das in der einschlägigen Literatur unter dem Namen Bergdamara bekannt ist. Diese Bezeichnung ist die wörtliche Uebersetzung von ‖Hom-dama, dem Namen, mit dem die Hottentotten diese ihre früheren Knechte zu bezeichnen pflegen. Gebräuchlicher unter ihnen ist aber die Bezeichnung Xou-dama, Schmutzdama, zum Unterschied von den Herero, die von ihnen Gomaxa-dama d.h. rinderreiche Dama genannt werden. Hieraus ist schon ersichtlich, dass man in der Literatur nicht von Damara, sondern von Dama reden sollte. Die Endsilbe ra ist der Volksbezeichnung zu einer Zeit beigefügt worden, in der man den Bau der Hottentottensprache noch nicht kannte. Ra ist 3. Person Dual, et Com. des Personalpronomens, und ergibt in der Zusammensetzung mit der Bezeichnung für das Volksganze keinen oder nur einen irreführenden Sinn. Es sollte daher in wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen nur der reine Stamm des Volksnamens in der Form Bergdama gebraucht werden. Die Bergdama selbst haben keinen eigenen Volksnamen gebildet oder angenommen. Sie bezeichnen sich einfach als Nu-khoi, schwarze Menschen. In der Tat haben sie von alien Eingeborenen des afrikanischen Südens die schwärzeste Hautfarbe, die allerdings in den Handflächen und unter den Fusssohlen einem hellen grauschwarz weicht, und in der Kreuzbeingegend in einen tiefschwarzen, mehr oder weniger breiten Gürtel übergeht.

In considering the linguistic situation of East Africa the first outstanding impression is that of a vast multiplicity of languages which is not met with in any other part of the continent. For instance travelling inland from Tanga for about a hundred miles, the areas of the following languages are entered or crossed: Swahili, Digo, Bondei, Ruvu, Zigula, Shambala, Mbugu, Pare (also called Chasu), and also various linguistic enclaves, viz. Taita, Kamba, Kwafi, Ndorobo, and Masai. For such a small district this is a somewhat bewildering richness, even when allowance is made for the fact that most of these languages are Bantu, and some of them, as for example Ruvu and Zigula, or Shambala and Bondei, are closely related. In addition several languages, such as Jagga on the Kilimanjaro, are split up into a number of widely divergent dialects. Although the linguistic divisions are not in all parts of East Africa as marked as they are in the district between the coast and Kilimanjaro, yet there are other districts, where for the periods when on ‘safari’, almost every day a new language is encountered, as for example on the way to Lake Nyassa. In a survey like this it cannot therefore be our object to enumerate all the languages of East Africa, even in the case of those which possess the beginnings of a literature.

One of the chief impediments to ethnological study in Africa, south of Egypt and the northern coast belt of the continent, lies in the meagre amount of archaelogical data which exists, as also in the paucity of records which can be called historical. The position as regards these matters, however, is not as bad in the Sudan belt as is sometimes thought. The historical data collected by Barth and other writers concerning the Sudan belt in past ages, have been perhaps too readily considered as of doubtful authenticity. Consequently, any surviving direct evidence concerning Sudanese history and chronological data to fix it, is valuable not only in itself, but as helping to substantiate other traditions and notices which may not be considered to be fully authenticated.

In an article entitled ‘Practical Anthropology’, which appeared in Vol. II, No. I of Africa, Professor Malinowski makes suggestions as to the manner in which the anthropologist can be of service to those who are engaged in the practical business of colonial administration, especially in Africa. He writes, it is true, as an anthropologist, and he proposes that the anthropologist shall record the facts and the ‘practical’ man draw his deductions therefrom. How many anthropologists would agree that a division into anthropologists and practical men is satisfactory may be open to doubt: but as I am certainly not an anthropologist I hope that I may speak for the practical man.