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Societies and Schools for the Study of Anthropology

The world of science has been recognizing more fully, year by year, the paramount importance of the systematic study of Anthropology to the aspirations of modern civilization.

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.