A word must here be said as to the importance--more especially to the
biological student who aims at social work--of some knowledge of
Anthropology. Biology is, in fact, incomplete without anthropology; for
in its absence there is a danger of applying biological principles too
summarily, and therefore unscientifically, to humanity. Anthropology, of
course, goes behind art and history and the literary ideas current among
civilised peoples. It gives life and meaning to customs, legends,
handicrafts, details of dress, ornament, and furniture which otherwise
go unheeded or misunderstood. It helps to interpret for us the ways of
contemporary peoples and classes which are on a level different from our
own. It gives a unity in infinite diversity to our whole conception of
humanity. When more widely studied, there can be little doubt that it
will cause us to reconstruct many of our judgments, both concerning the
history of the past and concerning the civilisations of the present
day.
We cannot but believe that a time will come when it will be assumed of
all women that they know the broad truths of biology, just as it is now
assumed that they know the alphabet. It will be taken for granted that
they have mastered the essential domestic arts with their own hands,
just as we now take for granted they can write with their own hands. We
shall have reached then the beginning of a new era--an era which we may
hope will unite the excellences, moral, aesthetic, and hygienic, of
earlier times, with the excellences, more purely intellectual and
scientific, of our own day.