philips. modern asian studies in the universities of the united kingdom

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Modern Asian Studies in the Universities of the United Kingdom Author(s): C. H. Philips Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1967), pp. 1-14Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/311581Accessed: 10-09-2015 08:44 UTC

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Modern Asian Studies, I, I (1967), pp. I-I4

Modern Asian Studies in the Universities

of the United Kingdom BY C. H. PHILIPS

THE launching of this journal of Modern Asian Studies, on the initiative of the Hayter Asian Centres in co-operation with the School of Oriental and African Studies, provides a good opportunity to review the progress being made in these studies in the universities of the United Kingdom. We have nearly reached the half-way stage of a

ten-year programme of development which was put forward in the

Hayter Committee Report of 1961, and are approaching the new

quinquennium in which what has already been started should be consolidated and the new pattern for the future established.

In the growth of Asian studies generally in the United Kingdom the

Scarbrough Report of 1947 forms a watershed.1 Down to this point the picture presented in the universities of the United Kingdom, with the exception of the School of Oriental and African Studies, was that of isolated posts, relatively few students, little provision for the recruitment and training of staff or for field research or publication. At Oxford, Cambridge and London, where training for the overseas services had been concentrated, in particular for the Indian and Colonial Services, some modest development in the study of languages, law, history and anthropology had taken place. However, as the

Scarbrough Report made clear, at the School of Oriental and African Studies alone was there a long-established academic structure in these fields of work capable of bearing substantial and rapid development. There, regional departments concerned with the Near and Middle East, India and the Far East2 provided some framework of study relating to the major languages and literatures, complemented by two small departments in History and Law, and Phonetics and Linguistics; language studies at the School having also been given a recent boost by the government's demand for courses for servicemen during the war and in the African field by the Devonshire Committee Report on the training of Colonial Service officers.

In its report the Scarbrough Commission took the view that in peace

1 Report of the Interdepartmental Commission of Enquiry on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies. London, H.M.S.O. 1947. 2 And also with Africa, though this is outside the scope of the present article.



2 C. H. PHILIPS

as in war a knowledge of Asian countries had to be given a permanent and growing place in British culture, and that the right place to

promote this was in the universities, where previous developments had been quite inadequate for Britain's national purposes. The first require- ment in the Commission's view was to build strong university departments, primarily in the study of languages with some related historical and cultural studies, in place of the few isolated, mainly professorial posts which had for long been in existence. As a means of recruiting staff for these new or enlarged departments, Treasury Studentships were proposed, and provision was also to be made for those so trained and appointed to keep up-to-date by travel abroad. In this proposed programme of growth it recognized that all fields of study relating to Asia and Africa would be developed in the University of London, mainly at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and that for

economy, convenience and efficiency the study of the languages of Africa and South-east Asia in particular should be concentrated there. Fulfilment of these recommendations was envisaged as requiring a

period of ten years, the likely cost at the half-way stage being assessed at ?225,000 annually, with a similar increase to follow over the second

five-year period. But this policy of earmarking grants for these studies was pursued

for five years only, so that in practice a large part of the plans made by the universities was not fulfilled and indeed, as was to be expected, less had been proposed for the first five years than for the second period. In most universities which were promoting Asian studies, progress therefore came to an abrupt halt in 1952. With more strength already existing in language and history than in other studies it was natural that progress should be made in these directions and there was hardly any development in the broad field of the social sciences, with the

exception of very modest growth in law and anthropology in London.

The reasons why a broader interpretation of modern Asian studies was not followed at this period are not far to seek. Essentially the explanation seems to be that neither Government nor the universities were ready and equipped to adopt a broader course. At the time of the Scarbrough Commission the European Orientalist tradition held a commanding influence in British universities and it was natural that early post-war development should be thus conditioned. Moreover, the requirements of the British State Departments, especially the Foreign and Colonial



MODERN ASIAN STUDIES IN UNIVERSITIES OF THE U.K. 3

Offices, in the training of officers, were primarily for work in language with some history. Law, too, was held to be immediately useful and had long been taught to Indian Civil Service and Colonial Service probationers, and was therefore more easily able to establish itself academically. Otherwise, little claim was made on the social sciences, and in any event, the social scientists themselves were still too pre- occupied by the struggle to introduce and consolidate Western social studies in British universities to venture boldly on to the rather unfamiliar, difficult, and certainly expensive field of Asian studies.

These general reasons were reinforced by special considerations deriving from the kind of scholarly investigation on Asia which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been fostered by the fact of European and British imperial rule. In modern British, French and Dutch scientific writing on Asia there is a striking absence of fully synthesized and balanced studies making adequate reference to economic and social factors, a situation which compares unfavourably with the plethora of good political writing on policy matters. This lopsidedness and political top-heaviness may be seen, for example, in serious British writing on India or in French writing on Indo-China, and in these two areas the comparisons are in fact striking.

Writers of the imperial metropolitan countries felt compelled above all to make up their minds on the central problem of imperial rule, dependence or independence, and therefore felt involved in the question of the viability of their own r6gime. Many of them, moreover, were primarily administrators concerned with problems of policy, which tended to dictate their choice of subject and their treatment and illustration of it. For example, any study of economic and social change in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India demands, one would assume, some treatment of local history, of the rise of the middle classes, of the modernization of industry and trade, and of the function of metropolitan financial and managerial groups. But such subjects were not investigated. Who were the Indian middle classes? How had they arisen? What was the return on metropolitan investments? How did the great managing agencies function ? Such questions were not asked. Although we are on occasion told about the increase in commodity exports, we are rarely introduced to the equally important rise and fall in internal consumption. What exactly was happening to Indian society? What was the interrelationship between caste and growing industry? We do not know because the attention of writers tended to concentrate on British and political activities. A major British text-book on the Indo-British empire, the Cambridge History of India in five



4 C. H. PHILIPS

volumes, forms a precise illustration of the points made above. Where Western imperial rule in Asia obtained, the special considerations, which I have adduced, apply to Western writings on Asia. Where it did not fully extend, as for example into China and Japan, they have less force, but the general arguments still have a bearing.

For the past several decades and especially since the war, Oriental- ism-the notion that classical studies provide a common discipline and framework for the study of Asia-has been a declining influence; Orientalism, that is to say, as distinct from Orientalist scholarship which continues to exercise a mature and beneficial influence. Through the nineteenth and the early part of this century, the traditional study of philology along with history provided the co-ordinates within which Orientalist scholarship grew to maturity. But the expansion of Oriental

regional studies has proceeded so far that it is no longer possible for the

Sanskritist, the Arabist, the Iranianist and the Sinologist to keep in

step. And the entry of new disciplines, especially of modern history and law, into the Oriental field has made it even more difficult to maintain a common base and agreed pattern of scholarship. If, in these circum-

stances, some common ground is to be found in Oriental studies, apart from their so-called exotic character and the practical purposes of

building up libraries and fostering research and teaching, it would seem that means are most likely to be found through the maintenance on the one hand of the discipline of Orientalist scholarship and the

growth on the other hand of disciplines devoted to modern studies. In the course of any systematic attempt to learn more about the

process and nature of changes in Asian societies in the age of the Western and modernist revolutions, essentially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we need first to enlarge the somewhat restricted

concept of modern studies as already applied to Asia. Fully to exploit the already well-developed study of modern languages, we need to

encourage the wider exploration of intellectual history, literature, religion and philosophy. Although aware that the main preoccupations of society are and always have been economic, we rightly persist with the study of society at leisure because in the spiritual history of mankind a most significant factor is the use made of the time saved by the slave, by cheap labour and by the machine. And we have an ever-present need to define and re-define, and defend the traditions which have made and do make life more worth living. Along with this enhancement of the scope of language and literary study we should develop the parallel operation of re-defining the nature of economic, political, social, legal and geographical enquiry, the first step in which should be




to bridge the gap between the British scholar's traditional preoccupa- tion with Western activities in Asia and his relative neglect of the study of the Asian peoples themselves. Secondly, and simultaneously, if we are to generate greater weight and momentum in modern studies of Asia we have to open on a much wider scale than ever before all the above fields of enquiry, especially in the social sciences.

The Scarbrough Commission had recognized that 'the number of

undergraduate students in most of these studies is likely to be relatively small' and that 'any increase can only be gradual', and the conclusion had therefore been drawn that in any event the right policy was to create strong departments 'independent of undergraduate demand'.

Despite the modest build-up of Oriental faculties and departments in the first post-war quinquennium, very few undergraduates, especially from Britain, had entered these studies, and it was clear that students were not likely to be forthcoming in considerable numbers unless there was some spread of teaching into modern fields of study, associated, when necessary, with such provision as was already made in the

linguistic field. If the allocation of U.G.C. moneys was to be related in

any way to student numbers, it was essential for the Oriental departments to extend their studies in these ways and to reconsider their courses in order to see how far they were, or could be made attractive to British undergraduate students. However, the decision of the U.G.C. in 1952 to discontinue the earmarking of Scarbrough grants had the effect of discouraging any immediate extension of these kinds of

inquiry. Fortunately the Scarbrough Report had provided for a review of

progress so that in I96O the University Grants Committee established a Committee under Sir William Hayter to assess the effects in British universities of the Scarbrough grants and to make recommendations if necessary for development in the future.3 After describing the extent to which the intentions of the Scarbrough Commission had been frustrated by the abandonment of the earmarked grants in I952, the Hayter Committee recommended that selected British universities should again be encouraged to undertake development in Asian studies with immediate emphasis on disciplines other than linguistic, and with some stress on the social sciences. A ten-year period of expansion was

3 Report of the Sub-Committee on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies, University Grants Committee. London, H.M.S.O. i961.



6 C. H. PHILIPS

proposed in which some 70 or 80 posts were to be provided in Asian studies, and some concentration of effort in the form of six new Area Centres was to be achieved in selected universities. Modest grants for the improvement of libraries and for travel for both newly-trained and established staff were recommended. If their proposals were to be

adopted, by the close of the first quinquennium total annual expendi- ture was expected to rise to over ?250,000.

The Committee's general analysis of past progress and prescription for the future was virtually identical with the conclusions already drawn and acted upon in the School of Oriental and African Studies in the preceding three or four years. In working out a fresh policy to attract students, the School had concluded that it was not only necessary to create close and cumulative associations with a large number of schools in Britain, but also to broaden its range of teaching and to emphasize its interest in the study of modern and contemporary Asian societies by including within its scope the major social sciences of economics, politics, sociology, and also geography, which as an established study in the curriculum of schools could exert an important influence in attracting British students.

But the policy of attempting to build up the social sciences rested

upon a number of uncertainties; whether any money for the purpose could be obtained from sources outside the U.G.C. grant; whether both senior and junior scholars could be attracted in political science, economics and sociology, in which there was a known national scarcity and in which the period of training was bound to be arduous, expensive and long; whether the co-operation of established departments in these

subjects, particularly at the London School of Economics and University College, could be gained, and lastly upon the very big question whether, if and when scholars were duly recruited and trained, the money would be forthcoming at the right time from the U.G.C. to enable the School to incorporate their posts in its permanent structure.

Succeeding in raising substantial funds from the learned Founda- tions, the School embarked on the long and costly training of small but coherent groups of economists, economic historians, sociologists, political scientists, geographers and lawyers with reference to the major areas of Asia, equipped with a knowledge not only of their own discipline but also of the languages, history and cultures of these areas, reinforced by first-hand experience in the field. This undertaking was a difficult pioneer effort of the first importance because no such development on this scale for these major regions had been attempted previously in the United Kingdom, and success, if achieved, would be




bound in the long run not only to enhance the scholarly and practical contributions of the School but also to exert a formative influence

upon British studies in these fields.

Thus, by 1962 when the Hayter Committee's recommendations were accepted by the government and applied by the U.G.C., the School had already made a good start in the directions being encouraged by official policy, and with a relatively modest allocation of ten new posts was able to bring into being a Department of Economic and Political Studies under Dr (later Professor) Edith Penrose (1962), a new section in Sociology under Professor Ronald Dore, and a new

Department of Geography under Professor Charles Fisher. Out of its

general recurrent funds, strength was added to its existing work in

languages, law, history, including economic history, anthropology, linguisitics and phonetics, so that the School was able to complete its broad framework of studies in the humanities and the social sciences with reference to Asia, and in this new context was therefore able to

give fresh thought to the opportunities which were opened for advanced work and research.

Under the guidance of a standing committee set up by the U.G.C. to apply the Hayter Report, new Centres were approved in 1962 for

Japanese Studies at Sheffield, for Chinese Studies at Leeds, for South- east Asian Studies at Hull, for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Durham and Oxford, and, rather later, for South Asian Studies at

Cambridge, it being assumed that the progress of development in all Centres in the first quinquennium 1962-67 would be relatively slow. A nucleus of staff had to be found for each Centre and the period of

training of new recruits was bound to be lengthy. The U.G.C. Com- mittee had concluded that in the first quinquennium a nucleus of at least five members of staff would be needed for an effective Centre, possibly growing to double that size or more in the following years. Because strong foundations already existed in Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford and Durham it was in fact possible to make rapid progress there. In Oxford six new posts were added, four in the Centre and two in the Faculties; and at Durham in the first two sessions 1962-63 and 1963-64 five new posts were filled, three in the Centre and two in the departments and a target of nine posts in the Centre was aimed at by 1965-66. In Leeds, Hull and Sheffield a start was being made virtually from scratch and initial progress was therefore bound to be slower, but nevertheless towards the close of the quinquennium essential staffing targets had been reached and Leeds had set a new target of filling eight posts in the Department of Chinese Studies. By providing moneys



8 C. H. PHILIPS

over and above the earmarked Hayter grants, Leeds proposed to establish altogether 13 posts relating to China, eight of them being in this Department, providing a nucleus of language teaching and intro-

ductory courses in Chinese history and institutions, under the Director of the Centre, Professor Owen Lattimore, and five in other departments.4 In Sheffield, the newly appointed Professor of Japanese Studies, Mr G. Bownas, became Director of the Centre with two

supporting posts in the Centre and two posts in the departments, and a useful connexion was made with local industry which had important Japanese contacts. At Hull, in the rather difficult enterprise of opening up South-east Asian studies, five new members of staff were recruited and trained. In Cambridge, Mr B. H. Farmer became Director of the Centre, supported by five new posts.

Although attention was naturally concentrated on the recruitment and training of staff in all the universities which had been named as

Centres, teaching at the undergraduate stage was quickly extended in the area fields. At Oxford and Cambridge new options and special subjects were added to existing Honours syllabuses; at Leeds, Durham, Sheffield and Hull new twin-subject degree courses were introduced, combining a study of language with history or one of the social sciences, and a fairly quick build-up of student numbers began to take place. In the first year of the course at Leeds ten students were admitted and the rate of intake is expected to increase so that by the end of the quinquennium there should be some 70 undergraduate students proceeding to degrees in the field of Chinese studies. At Hull in 1965-66, the first full session of teaching of South-east Asian studies, 35 students were

taking one or other of the area courses in geography, politics, history or economics. And Sheffield expected to start its new twin course in

Japanese studies in October 1966 with half a dozen students: there was an increase in the numbers of those taking special papers on Japan in the Departments of Modern History and Economic History.

Similar trends were evident also in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Besides increasing its intake of undergraduate students for specialist degrees in language, especially in Arabic and Chinese, and also in its four Asian branches in history, new twin-

subject courses combining the study of language and anthropology or

history were introduced, and consideration was being given to the extension of twin-subject courses to include other social sciences.

In the universities selected as Centres the proposed pattern of

4 Small China programmes have already been started in Durham, Edinburgh and Glasgow.




postgraduate teaching assumed a common shape, the traditional doctoral or master's degree by research being maintained or introduced, along with new courses of instruction, in some instances for a Master's degree, in others for a B.Phil. degree. Oxford consolidated its courses in Middle Eastern studies for a B.Phil. degree and Cambridge proposed the introduction of comparable courses relating to South Asia. In London, besides adding a new Master's degree for continued

study in existing disciplines, a major new area course for each of its Asian regions, the Near and Middle East, South Asia, South-east Asia, and the Far East, combining up to three disciplines in each area, was introduced in 1966-67. The introduction of these courses on this scale and complexity precipitated in 1966 the long discussed formation at the School of four Area Centres for each of the major Asian regions, through which postgraduate teaching and inter-disciplinary and research studies could be fostered and extended. With these additions to its existing postgraduate programme it seems likely that London will be considering in the near future the creation of a Graduate School of Area Studies, covering each of the major areas of the world and also

providing, therefore, for advanced work in comparative and international studies.

Co-operation and inter-disciplinary research by groups of staff members at the School has found expression in the organization of study conferences, attended by leading authorities in the world on the

subject under investigation. Meetings on Historical Writings on the Peoples of Asia (1956 and 1958), on the Economic Development of South- East Asia and the Far East (1961), and on the Modern History of Egypt (1965), not only produced important advances in knowledge, but created a foundation and framework of reference within which the subject seems likely to grow in future. Advanced study groups, some short- and some long-term, the work of most of which is designed to lead to publication, as, for example, on Agricultural Reform in Contemporary China, Revolution in Asia and Africa, the Partition of India, or the Economic History of the Middle East, had become a normal and regular activity of the School, serving purposes of both national and international significance. The feasibility of establishing joint research enterprises was demonstrated in I963-64 when the three Area Centres in Hull, Leeds and Sheffield initiated a joint study group, shortly afterwards joined by Cambridge, which had meanwhile, like the other Centres, started its own research seminar.

In the new Hayter Centres a start was made in building up specialist libraries, but the earmarked capital grants for these purposes averaged



IO C. H. PHILIPS

no more than ?5,000 with relatively small recurrent increases, so that the prospective rate of growth was slow and the ultimate size scarcely capable of supporting advanced research. In Oxford, Cambridge and

London, although important gaps in the collections existed, library facilities were good and the numbers of research students already large. Yet, bearing in mind the need of Britain in a rapidly changing world order to maintain or improve her position in the Asian fields of study, it must be noted with disquiet that the most serious under-provision in British universities in the post-war period has been in the realm of libraries. To provide for the routine needs of undergraduates and to enable British scholars to reach and maintain the highest level and

quality of research, it is necessary to mobilize much larger financial resources for libraries than are at present available, and if and when

obtained, to use them in the most economically efficient ways. Fortunately, in a small, relatively compact country like Britain,

much which would otherwise be impossible can be achieved, and

money can be made to spin out and do more through the adoption of

co-operative library policies by universities and other national libraries. From the beginning, and on an increasing scale in the past couple of

decades, the School of Oriental and African Studies, taking full

advantage of the comprehensiveness of its range of studies and its

compact system of organization, has allocated a good proportion of its income in order to build up its library into what is today recognized as a major national resource with a current total size of some 290,000 volumes, and to make it generally available to all serious students in the United Kingdom through a generous policy of lending, all the more valuable because such facilities are not offered by the British Museum or by Oxford and Cambridge. It has also come to appreciate that Asian studies offer a splendid field nationally in which to devise and test a

variety of co-operative library enterprises and to examine the feasi-

bility of using computerized systems; and that, if rightly conducted, such a policy might play a role as a pioneer national venture.

Recognizing the force of these arguments, and emphasizing the central and formative role which the School could play in the British educational system, the Hayter Committee put forward, and the U.G.C. accepted, the proposal that the School's library should be

given financial support 'to operate fully as a national library'. From this decision two lines of policy stemmed, on the one hand that the School should take the initiative in promoting the closest co-operation between interested university libraries, including the newly established Asian centres, and on the other hand that, with a view to creating in



MODERN ASIAN STUDIES IN UNIVERSITIES OF THE U.K. II

these fields a national lending library, the School should prepare a union catalogue of all works on Asia, and ascertain the annual cost of

acquiring all new and significant publications relating to Asia. At

prices ruling in the summer of 1965, this was found to be about

?T35,ooo annually, and with the help of the U.G.C. the School at once set itself to reach this scale of book collection, which meant doubling its existing outlay, and to increasing in proportion the size of its staff of specialized librarians. A start had been made in exploring the

possibility of co-operation between universities in making field visits for book purchases, and in book selection and cataloguing. The out-

standing merit of a national co-operative policy of this kind is that in an economical way it should be possible to maintain British research collections at a level to support advanced research, and to enable the new Centres and schools of study to make an early start in creating postgraduate research programmes.

Under the Hayter Report in effect five postgraduate studentships were offered annually for research on Asia, it being assumed that the demand for such studentships was likely to grow slowly. In fact in the first year of the scheme over 90 well-qualified students applied for

Hayter awards and from the start the State Studentships Committee of the Ministry of Education on its already established standards was able to award many more studentships in the Asian fields from its

existing grant than had been provided for in the Hayter allocation. However, the small provision of Hayter studentships proper is proving a bottle-neck to the growth of these studies, and the introduction of the new Social Science Research Council in 1966 with its own allocation of awards in the social sciences has apparently done little to remedy the situation. For example, the considerable increase in the number of postgraduate degree courses by instruction rather than by thesis was not foreseen by the Hayter Committee and, although these courses offer a valuable means of recruitment of good students into the Asian fields, they are at present handicapped because of the lack of supporting scholarship funds.

With the creation of new universities it seemed likely that new

departments or schools of study would be established with reference to Asia. The Universities of York, East Anglia and Canterbury have shown some interest in the Asian field, but so far the only University to create a significant scale and scheme of work is Sussex, in its School of African and Asian Studies, in which stress is laid on the study of India and East Africa. Here undergraduate courses have been introduced permitting a major emphasis in history or in one of the social



12 C. H. PHILIPS

sciences without involving the student at this stage in language study. At the postgraduate stage reinforcement of the chosen major discipline can take place in the Master's degree and in research for the doctorate.

The total effect during the past two or three years of the introduction of these new courses in London, in the new university Centres and at Sussex, has been very greatly to increase the intake of undergraduates. This cannot but find expression in due course in the gradual growth of

postgraduate studies, particularly perhaps in the early stages at

Oxford, Cambridge and London, where the library provision is

already adequate. Under the impulse of these many fresh developments in modern

Asian studies in British universities the scale and variety of research

generally has been much increased, as is shown by the inception of new

journals and several new series of monographs. The School of Oriental and African Studies had for long maintained a major programme of

publication which was now significantly enlarged on the modern side. A new Journal of Development Studies was started (I964), strong support was afforded to a Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, initiated at the London School of Economics, and in 1966-67 Modern Asian Studies was launched in co-operation with the new Asian Centres at Cambridge, Hull, Leeds and Sheffield. A new series of Studies on Modern Asia and

Africa was also initiated. At Cambridge the Centre promoted a series of South Asian Studies; at Oxford St Antony's Papers appeared from time to time; and from outside the universities, largely through the initiative and endeavour of Mr Roderick MacFarquhar, the China Quarterly appeared regularly.

In fostering co-operation for studies and research, several other

significant developments took place. A scheme to encourage the study of the peripheral countries of China was initiated jointly by the Universities of London and Cornell, to provide grants for fieldwork

by postgraduate students and to established scholars. This not only proved the effectiveness and usefulness of this kind of international co-operation but also gave a boost to the study of the social sciences.

Secondly, an Anglo-American Liaison Committee for the Study of

Contemporary China, meeting regularly at six-monthly intervals, began to lay the groundwork for a more rapid spread and intensification of these studies, and as a beginning sponsored a most useful Service Centre for scholars in Hong Kong. In addition, the Association of British Orientalists, first founded in 1947, was given a new lease of life in 1960-61 and in its annual conferences held since that date has begun to provide a useful forum for the discussion of common problems.




Possibly this Association is too wide in its scope and varied in its interests to provide the kind of national leadership and co-operation which may be required in future if these studies are to prosper. Never- theless, it has created a framework within which national policies, as for example in the needs of libraries, can be explored. It would seem that the time is ripe for the formation of national committees for area studies perhaps under the Association's wing, which can take initiative and act as clearing houses in the discussion of academic needs, progress and policies.

In summary, within the last decade and especially because of the

impulse given by the Hayter Report, the field of modern Asian studies in the universities of the United Kingdom has been transformed. These studies have been diversified and extended in many universities and have been given an especially strong momentum in the six universities selected as Centres. The development in the University of Sussex in the study of India (reinforced by the recent establishment of a new Institute of Development Studies) is encouraging, particularly in the attraction which it so quickly offered to undergraduate students. A nucleus of staff has been trained and appointed in each of these Centres and, given another quinquennium of earmarked support, it seems likely that the intention of the U.G.C. to form strong nuclei, especially in modern studies, in these Centres will be fulfilled. The growth of studies with reference to the major Asian areas at the School of Oriental and African Studies, whose scale is still very much greater than at the new Centres, has become cumulative. With its entry into the field of the social sciences and its creation of its four Asian Area Centres for advanced research it has put itself into the right posture, along with the new Hayter Centres, to foster national and co-operative policies of development. Progress in the last few years has indicated in particular the very great importance in these fields of encouraging co-operative endeavours between universities. The prospects for the development of a national library policy relating to Asian studies are bright, and similar developments providing for an increasing association of universities and Centres in advanced work are evident. There is, however, an immediate national need for an increase in the number of postgraduate studentships and in the grants for libraries and for research in the field. If any danger exists in what has been done during the past few years, it lies in the tendency to spread scarce resources too

widely. If the policy of the Hayter Committee is to succeed it is essential not only to promote co-operation between universities but also to concentrate resources of men, money and material.

B



14 C. H. PHILIPS

Plans to foster the growth of modern Asian studies have been made in the universities of the United Kingdom on the assumption that there would be an initial period of ten years with earmarked support throughout from the U.G.C. in which strong foundations could be laid. In recommending this line of policy, the Hayter Committee pointed to the disastrous effects on the Scarbrough programme of removing earmarked support after only five years. As we approach the close of the first five years of the Hayter programme, the universities are confident that if consistency of purpose is shown by all concerned, including Government and the U.G.C., they will successfully complete what has been started so well.



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