ARTIFICIAL OYSTER CULTIVATION. 1195 



It has been well said that The value of scientific 

 research systematically carried on by the State, or under 

 State supervision, would lie not only in the assistance it 

 would afford to the servants of the State in administering 

 the law and in directing its amendment, but also in the 

 opportunity it would afford to the fishing population of 

 satisfying themselves that the State was right in any action 

 it might take, based on the results of its scientific informa- 

 tion. The dissemination among the fishermen, on State 

 authority, of information which they could hardly be 

 expected to acquire themselves, but which they could, 

 when properly directed, prove for themselves, would recon- 

 cile them to many decisions about the correctness of which 



tt 



they would otherwise prove sceptical. The State already 

 undertakes the direction of "art" education, and acts 

 directly as a teacher of " science }: generally, with special 

 application to mining and engineering pursuits. It could 

 hardly render greater service to the great national fishing 

 industries than by affording facilities to the fishermen for 

 applying the teachings of science to the practical opera- 

 tions of their craft. This might be done by encouraging 

 the creation of local museums and libraries having a 

 special bearing on the fisheries, by giving prominence, in 

 the schools under State regulation in the great fishing 

 centres, to matters connected with this important subject, 

 and by countenancing a National Society devoted to the 

 interests of the fisheries, (g) 



In concluding this work, I can only say in the some- 

 what altered words of a literary celebrity (7z) that I offer 



(g) "The Relations of the State with Fishermen and Fisheries, &c." 

 by C. E. Fryer, p. 82. 



(h) " Wanderings in South America," by Charles Waterton. 

 Preface. 



