xxx Presidential Address. 



For the progress of science in New Zealand there is great need for a 

 strong spirit of research to permeate the community. In every trade, in 

 every profession, in our social relationships and religious questionings, a 

 more burning desire for knowledge of the whole truth is required. 



It is a matter for regret that such a small proportion of the students 

 entering our University colleges become investigators. If we attempt to 

 assess the blame, I do not think we can put any considerable portion of 

 it upon the professors, for in general a professor of science has his time 

 so fully taken up that it is only by extraordinary effort that he can himself 

 get any serious amount of research work done. Yet experience shows 

 that only those teaching institutions become important centres of research 

 activity in which the professors are devoting their main interest to 

 scientific inquiry, and the direction of such inquiry on the part of their 

 students. One contributing cause in some of our University colleges is 

 that too much of the instruction is given in the evening, with the 

 philanthropic object of enabling those who are working by day to receive 

 instruction outside of working-hours. Excellent as this practice is from 

 one point of view, it is not in the interests of national efficiency, and it 

 appears to be based upon the supposition that it is more important to give 

 opportunities to all than that it is of the greatest importance to the State 

 to have in Ihe community a supply of highly trained scholars. " These 

 things ought ye to have done and not to have left the other undone " is a 

 maxim as true to-day as when it was first spoken. 



A point which I should like to stress is that we have great need at the 

 present day for investigators who can carry on researches in the border- 

 land between the different sciences. How seldom we meet a biologist who 

 can understand the researches of a chemist, or a chemist who similarlv 

 can appreciate the work of a biologist ! Yet there is an immense amount 

 of work to be done in the borderland between chemistry and biology, and 

 for this work to be successful the investigator's theoretical and practical 

 knowledge of both of these sciences must be of a very high order. 

 Distinguished physiologists have assured me that the greatest hindrance 

 to research in their departments was the fact that so few of the students 

 desiring to carry out research had attained facility in the technique of the 

 chemical laboratory, and that familiarity with theoretical chemistry which 

 allows of the thinking without effort in terms of chemical phenomena. 

 I believe that all great investigators now recognize that it is impossible for 

 any one science to stand alone, and the difficulty which faces the educator 

 in scientific subjects is to combine breadth of outlook with specialized 

 knowledge in the short period which can be given to a student's training. 

 Several solutions of this difficult problem have been suggested. One is 

 that an effort should be made to teach each subject more rapidly, by 

 eliminating all unnecessary detail. From the examination point of view 

 this system might be perfect, but I have great doubts as to whether 

 the hastening-up of the acquiring of scientific knowledge by such a method 

 can be effected satisfactorily. Time is essential for the absorption of ideas, 

 and if the ideas are to take root and be fruitful of results the student 

 must regard each principle from a large number of standpoints. He must 

 discuss it with his fellow-students, and he must perform many experiments. 

 Having made this criticism, I suggest that it would be of great interest if 

 the teachers of some one science were to agree to carry out a series of 

 experiments extending over several years, and checked by a constant 

 comparison of observations, in order to ascertain the quickest way in which 



