ABSTRACT
One of the immediate and lasting effects of the First World War was that everyone worried about the nature of civilization. Faith in its durability and some of its characteristics had been severely shaken and there was a growing sense that civilization was not as robust or decent a process as had been previously believed. The possibility occurred that civilization might not progress as inevitably and naturally as Angell with his Lamarckian ideas made out. The idea arose that civilization might be a fragile structure and something that required effort to sustain; all of which contributed to the urgent need for a ‘truer understanding of civilization,’ necessitating the founding of a formal programme of study.
