igoS. 7 he British Associatio7i in Dublin. 217 



some common ground in which they are united by a general interest 

 in science, and could offer educational help, they would be doing 

 work which cannot be performed b}- any other sort of society or by 

 the publication of any ordinary text-book or treatise. In the present 

 state of scientific knowledge and specialisation nothing can be more 

 useful than to bring together persons interested in different subjects 

 and to enable them to understand one another. The most useful function 

 that can be performed by the Local Societies, in addition to that of 

 kindling an interest in local problems and in the methods by which they 

 are to be studied, is to encourage a habit of expressing scientific result 

 in simple and intelligible language that will appeal to the whole 

 society. Indeed, nothing can be better or more useful for the scientific 

 specialist himself than to attempt to explain his own work in simple 

 language to a mixed audience. 



The educational opportunities which lie before the local scientific 

 societies can only be developed by co-operation between the profes- 

 sional and the amateur ; let the professional scientist become less 

 professional and let the amateur become less amateurish when they 

 come together at the meetings of such societies. Everyone must 

 have seen how the utility of a society is undermined by a single 

 pedantic address, which only causes members to drop their attendance 

 or by the reluctance of some members to attend unless they can expect 

 to be amused by lantern-slides or showy experiments or witty talk, And 

 yet where can better material exist for the teaching of science than 

 among the members of a society who have joined it voluntarily, and in 

 the first instance because they really wished to learn ? 



An account of some piece of original work actually in course of pro- 

 gress, and described by the enthusiast who is himself carrying it on, is 

 far more interesting and stimulating than any secondhand account in 

 text-books and treatises of the work that has been done at some previous 

 time by others, and should not require any additional embroidery to 

 make it attractive. Anyone who hears a keen naturalist describe the 

 excitement with which he has watched something new in the habits 

 of animal or plant must catch the spirit of enthusiasm, and feel 

 the stir of interest that is the inspiration of all successful teaching. 



I am aware that to many it will seem that popularisation of the newest 

 thing in science is being overdone at the present time, I am suggesting, 

 however, that not only the brilliant discoveries, should be taken up 

 by the Local Societies, but that the more ordinary work of everyday- 

 science, equally necessary and perhaps equally momentous in its con- 

 sequences, which is at present buried in the proceedings of one sort of 

 society, should be made a real and living thing by the humbler societies 

 of another sort. 



Up to the present, however, I have left out of sight the really great 

 educational advantage that science possesses over all other subjects, 

 namely this : that science is not only talk and thought, but action ; 

 that there is always ready to hand, not only something new to be 

 described or narrated, but something new to be actually done by both 



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