Anthropologist
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Honour For Papuan
Mr. F. E. Williams Awarded Wellcome Medal
From Our Own Correspondent.
PT. MORESBY, August 10.
MR. F. E. WILLIAMS, anthropologist to the Papuan Administration, who was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship last year, and who is studying in Europe, has secured the Wellcome Gold Medal for Anthropological Research for his paper “Education and Culture Contact.” The Wellcome Gold Medal is awarded each year by the Royal Anthropological Insti tute through the generosity of Sir Henry S. Wellcome, LLD., F.R.S.
The Medal was awarded by the Anthro pological Institute on the recommendation of a Medal Committee. The Medal Com mittee consists of the President of the Anthropological Institute, the Conserva tor of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, and three members nominated respectively by the President of the An thropological Institute, the Royal Empire Society, and the African Society.
Mr. Williams in his paper “Education and Culture Contact” deals mainly with the adaptation to meet the conditions of the times of native customs that are good and the destruction of those that are bad.
He says that by enlarging and enriching their culture by positive contributions from our higher civilisation we can make up for those customs eliminated, thus raising the level of the native. He deals also with the problem of improving and modernising native crafts and agriculture, and gives suggestions for an agricultural school.
Chiefly, he lays stress on the importance of education —useful and suitable educa tion which will enable the native to face and adjust himself to the vastly changed conditions in which he has been placed by the intrusion of the white man.
Speaking of scholastic education, he takes English to be the most valuable gift that can be bestowed upon a native. It opens a gate, he believes, for wider fields of ex perience and knowledge, and provides a communication between the white man and the black. “The very basement of the maladjustment between natives and Euro peans,” he states, “lies in the fact that we do not understand one another.”
Suitable education, he considers, will provide understanding, helpfulness, and good-will between natives and Europeans, and enable the native to develop his latent powers and live a fuller and richer life.