Musical instruments are in so far of importance for cultural research as they partake, in an almost unparalleled degree, of the nature of both material and mental culture. They can be seen and handled and, in addition to this advantage, possess many qualities unconnected with their immediate purpose; purity, copiousness, and beauty of sound are historically the latest properties sought after, and aimed at technically. (For purposes of research everything must count as a musical instrument with which sound can be produced intentionally and, for this reason, it is advisable to use the term ‘sound-producing instruments’.) The fact of their giving forth sound classes them at once among ‘live’ objects and lends them an effect akin to that of speech and song. That their sounds are not those of the human voice invests them with a mysterious and superhuman potency. It would be hard to find a sound-instrument which had not originally a ritual or magical significance, and which had not served for an indefinite period as a secular amusement for adults before being finally passed on to the children. Ritual use is always therefore an indication of great antiquity. On the other hand, objects which are indiscriminately used at any time and by any person may be suspected of dating from a later period, or of having been imported from without.

About the middle of the last century, an English marine officer, F. E. Forbes, caused a sensation among his contemporaries by the report that he had discovered an indigenous script in use among the Vai people of West Africa. The question immediately arose how these natives, hitherto hardly known even by name to the civilized world, and pursuing an unobtrusive existence in the seclusion of the primeval forest far from the course of the world's traffic, came to possess a cultural treasure of so high a quality, one usually met with only among peoples of ancient and rich culture. Little wonder then, that in the years that followed, the solution of this problem occupied the attention of a number of European scholars.

The fact that the Yearbooks of Education, 1932, 1933, edited by Lord Eustace Percy, devote a large portion of their space to education in British dependencies, and that the whole of the Educational Yearbook, 1931, of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University, is devoted to a study of Colonial systems of education, with a liberal apportionment of space to British Colonial policy, shows the widespread interest that is now being taken in the education of the more primitive or indigenous races for which the more advanced countries are acting as trustees. The articles on British Tropical Africa and British India in the Yearbooks of Education, 1932 and 1933, and the survey of education in Tanganyika Territory in the Columbia University Yearbook, afford material for a comparison of educational aims in Africa and India, which may be of interest to the reader, as it certainly has been a source of profit to the writer of this article. The time has not yet come for passing any judgement on British educational policy in the African colonies, and it would be rash to predict the results of plans that have not yet matured and are constantly being adapted to changing conditions and newly discovered needs. But it is possible to survey as a whole the history of education in India from the date of Macaulay's Minute up to 1920, when education passed from the control of the central British Government to the charge of Ministers responsible to Provincial Legislative Councils. This history reveals risks to which tropical races brought into educational contact with western civilization are exposed, and suggests, by its record, of failure as well as success, means whereby these risks, so far as they are real in Africa, may be minimized. Sir Philip Hartog and Mr. Rivers-Smith are so well qualified for the work they have done in these Yearbooks, and have been so cautious in their presentation of the Indian and African situation, that no careful reader of their articles is likely to suppose that conclusions drawn from the one country are necessarily applicable to the other. But there is very much to be gained from a comparative study.

Baganda land tenure has always differed in important respects from most of the systems found in East Africa. Elsewhere the whole system rests on the principle that all land is the property of some kindred group whose controlling authorities administer it on behalf of that group, their supreme duty being to preserve it for the use of its members. Where powerful political authorities exist they usually exercise rights of disposal and readjustment which may conflict with the powers claimed by kinship heads, but these powers have never died out altogether.

Nous n'avons certes pas la prétention de donner ici une solution définitive ou complète au problème des origines de nos tribus malgaches. Madagascar, comme chacun sait, abonde en énigmes, et il faudra sans doute encore bien du temps, bien des recherches, bien des tâtonnements pour y répondre. Notre intention n'est que, pour ainsi parler, de faire le point soit des connaissances déjà acquises, soit des probabilités déjà entrevues au sujet du peuplement de la Grande-Ile.