There are at the present time so many societies and institutes—national and international—for the study of African questions that there would be no justification for the inauguration of yet another unless it had an object in view, different from, or at least not effectively met by, any existing organization. There are, as it seems to me, two directions in which the organizations at present in existence need to be supplemented, and the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures has been founded in the hope of meeting these two requirements.