Anthropology / As a Science and as a Branch of University Education in the United States

by Daniel G. Brinton

The first Anthropological Society—that of Paris—was founded by Paul Broca, in May, 1859. It has been rapidly followed by the organization of similar societies in London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Brussels, Munich, Madrid, Florence, Washington, New York, and many other centres of enlightened thought. In 1882 the American Association for the Advancement of Science organized its Section of Anthropology; and in 1884 the British Association for the Advancement of Science followed this example. It is a well known fact that these sections are more attractive to the general public, and are better supplied with material than any other sections in the Associations. This augurs well for the zeal with which students would welcome the creation of special departments for instruction in all branches of the science.

The first School of Anthropology was founded also by Broca, at Paris, in the year 1876. It began with a corps of five professors, a number which it has now doubled, the demand for more extended instruction having steadily increased. The courses have been as well attended as any others, either at the Collége de France, or at the Sorbonne. A second school is organized in connection with the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes. It has counted among its instructors various illustrious names, and its courses have also been highly popular.

Several of the German universities have organized a department of Anthropology. In those of Munich, Berlin, Marburg, and Buda Pesth the chairs are filled respectively by Ranke, Bastian, Von den Steinen, and Von Török. In the University of Leipzig, Dr. E. Schmidt is docent in Anthropology; and the same position is held in Berlin by Dr. Von Luschan. In a number of other institutions, lectures on the branch are given. The first degree in Anthropology was conferred by the University of Munich three years ago. The University of Brussels has established a full chair of Anthropology, occupied by Professor Houze; and a similar position is filled in the Musée Polytechnique, at Moscow, by Professor Dimitri Anoutchine.

In the United States, regular courses on Physical Anthropology and Ethnology have been given by me for the last six years, at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. But the only educational institutions which have distinctly recognized the branch are Clark University, Worcester, Mass., where Dr. Franz Boas is docent in Anthropology, and which, in March of this year, conferred the first degree in Anthropology given in America; and the University of Chicago, in which Dr. Frederick Starr is Assistant Professor of Anthropology. I cannot learn that any full professorship of the science has been established in this country.

Considerable attention has been paid to the subject by the scientists connected with the National Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Army Medical Museum, and especially the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington. The last mentioned, under the efficient administration of Major J. W. Powell, has enriched the literature of Anthropology with a series of publications not exceeded in value by those of any other government.

Subdivisions of Anthropology.

The Study of Man in accordance with the laws of inductive research is, therefore, the aim and meaning of Anthropology. The subject is a broad one,—in space, as wide as the world; in time, longer than all history; in depth, reaching to the innermost consciousness. A man may be regarded merely as a specimen of a certain species of vertebrates; or, in his multifarious relations as a member of a social organization. We may study him as a living being; or seek to trace his actions and origin in ages long before history begins. Hence, Anthropology is divided into several associated departments devoted to the exploration of its varied realms of research. They may conveniently be divided into four, of nearly equal importance. An acquaintance with all of them is essential to the equipment of a sound anthropologist.

The first is the study of the physical nature of man, his anatomy, physiology and biology, so far as these bear on the distinctions of races, peoples, and nations. Psychology, so far as it is an experimental and inductive science, belongs in this department. This general division has been called by French writers “special Anthropology”, and by the Germans “somatic Anthropology”; but we need for it a single term, and none better could be found than that suggested by the German expression. I call it, therefore, Somatology, a word long since," domesticated in the vocabulary of English and American medical science, and explained in the dictionaries as “a discourse or discussion on the human body”.

The second division is Ethnology. This is, in its methods, historic and analytic. It contemplates man as a social creature. It is more concerned with the mental, the psychical part of man, than with his physical nature, and seeks to trace the intellectual development of communities by studying the growth of government, laws, arts, languages, religions, and society.

The third division, Ethnography, is geographic and descriptive in its plans of research. It studies the subdivision and migrations of races, local traits, peculiarities and customs, and confines itself to matters of present observation.