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. 1-14
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Modern Asian Studies, I, I (1967), pp.

I-I4

ModernAsian Studiesin the Universities

of the United Kingdom
BY C. H. PHILIPS
THE launching of this journal of ModernAsian 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 InterdepartmentalCommission 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.

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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 requirement 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

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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 preoccupied 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
illustrationof 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

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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, Orientalism-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 circumstances, 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

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to bridge the gap between the British scholar's traditional preoccupation 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 Reportof the Sub-Committee
on Oriental,Slavonic,East Europeanand AfricanStudies,
University Grants Committee. London, H.M.S.O. i961.

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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 expenditure 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 Foundations, 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

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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 Southeast 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. Committee 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

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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 introductory 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 twinsubject 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,
and Glasgow.

Edinburgh

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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 EconomicDevelopmentof SouthEast 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

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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 feasibility 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

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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 outstanding 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

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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 DevelopmentStudies 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 ModernAsian Studieswas
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'sPapers 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.

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MODERN

ASIAN

STUDIES

IN

UNIVERSITIES

OF

THE

U.K.

13

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. Nevertheless, 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

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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 Governmentand the U.G.C., they will successfullycomplete
what has been started so well.

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