Principles and Methods of Physical Anthropology

Abstract

THERE is not an anthropologist in Europe who will not extend a welcome to this work by Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy, reader in anthropology at Patna University, not only for what it is, but also for what its appearance signifies. Anthropology, hitherto a plant of exotic growth in India, has at length taken root in the native mind. A single readership in a single university is a somewhat slender root for a plant which has to cover more than 300 millions of people, but those who have noted the series of excellent researches and monographs which have been published in recent years by Mr. Roy and by his colleagues and disciples will have no fear of the result if a fostering hand be extended by the Government of India. Our knowledge of the peoples of India has been laid by those great-minded Civil Servants who realised that good government must be based on accurate, intimate, and sympathetic records of the mentality, customs, and traditions of the governed. It was at the feet of one of these great Indian servants, Sir Edward Gait, now chancellor of Patna University, that Mr. Roy was introduced to the methods and aims of modern anthropology.

Principles and Methods of Physical Anthropology.

By Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy. (Patna University Readership Lectures, 1920.) Pp. xiii + 181. (Patna: Government Printing Office, 1920.) 5 rupees.