166 Transactions of the Society. 



scientific societies together, and upon that foundation will arise the 

 central fortress within which will be developed and protected, 

 encouraged and recorded, the methods of microscopical research, 

 and to which workers in all branches of science will fly when con- 

 fronted with the technical difficulties inseparable from their work. 

 The main object of our Journal in the future must, in my opinion, 

 be the publication of the means, and not of the ends. The ends 

 will find their proper place for publication in the journals of other 

 societies. 



You will observe that I have based the expression of my views 

 on the future of our Society primarily upon the text of its Journal. 

 But it is not only in our Journal that our future must express and 

 justify itself; it is — of necessity in the first instance — in our 

 active work, and in the proceedings at our Meetings. There are 

 prominent Fellows of the Society who have shaken their heads at 

 me dismally when I have adumbrated these views in the past ; 

 they have warned me that if the " Bug and Slug " men are asked 

 to retire and leave the field to the " Brass and Glass " men, our 

 Meelings will become so dull and technical that our President 

 will be reduced — like the unsuccessful Theatrical Manager — to 

 addressing his audience as "Respected Individual in the Pit." 

 But this is by no means a prospect to be seriously looked forward to 

 as even remotely probable — for the " Brass and Glass " man cannot 

 indulge in his beloved physical experiments and mathematics 

 unless provided with material by the "Bug and Slug" man. Without 

 going so far as the Technical Optician who asserted that the 

 Diatomace?e were created solely for the purpose of testing object- 

 glasses, I do look forward to a happy combination of effort, when 

 the Biological Fellow will be pouring out his woes of limitation on 

 the sympathetic bosom of the Purely-optical Fellow, and the 

 latter will be hailing with glee the difficulties of the former as 

 providing him with new worlds to conquer, and new equations 

 with which to overawe the mere research student. 



One task which we have set before ourselves as a body corpor- 

 ate is especially of interest to me, anTl to its due performance I 

 intend, as I announced at the February Meeting in 1916, to devote 

 my special energies and all the resources at my command as soon 

 as the conditions allow, and that is the Society's authoritative 

 History of the Microscope and Catalogue of the Society's collection 

 of instruments and apparatus. It will be within the recollection 

 of Fellows that a committee of the Council — with power to add to 

 the number — was formed for this purpose early in 1916 under 

 the Chairmanship of Dr. Charles Singer, than whom there is no 

 greater authority upon the subject living to-day. We have the 

 material and the men, and the men have the energy and the 

 enthusiasm required to bring the work to a successful issue. Tliis 

 work will be, when completed, a landmark in our history destined 



