THE chairman's ADDRESS. 915 



This question, involving as it does so many side issues, such 

 as the endowment of research, the question recently dealt with 

 by Professor Thomas as to whether our Museums do all they are 

 capable of as educational agents, with others of equal importance, 

 is too complex to be dealt with exhaustively on the present 

 occasion. But there is a three-fold aspect of it upon which 

 however I shall venture a few remarks. 



Firstly, there are in my opinion two great causes in action 

 which militate against a marked increase in the number of 

 enthusiastic amateur naturalists. With very rare exceptions our 

 children are growing up purblind to the beauties and attractions 

 of nature which surround them on every hand, because our present 

 conservative modes of education do so little either to cultivate their 

 powers of observation, or to arouse and nurture an interest not 

 only in Nature in the abstract, but particularly in those special 

 and profoundly interesting features of Nature as she presents 

 herself under these Australian skies, where, as Wallace aptly puts 

 it, "the flora and fauna preserve to the present day the fades of 

 an ancient geological epoch." Young Australia thus bids fair to 

 continue to offer in these matters only too forcible an illustration 

 of the old adage that "familiarity breeds contempt," and in too 

 many cases in after life to ' lament with Thomas Carlyle that, 

 " For many years it has been one of my constant regrets that no 

 schoolmaster of mine had a knowledge of Natural History, so far, 

 at least, as to have taught me the grasses that grow by the 

 wayside, and the little winged or wingless neighbours that are 

 continually meeting me with salutation that I cannot answer as 

 things are." 



The second cause to which I refer is that even when, in spite of 

 drawbacks, an inherent love of Nature asserts itself our amateur 

 finds himself too often hampered and crippled by the want of 

 well -illustrated handbooks written from an Australian point of 

 view, or descriptive catalogues, in the absence of which he not 

 only often has the greatest difficulty in determining some of our 

 very common and familiar types, but also pursues his studies 

 under such unsatisfactory conditions as to be unable to turn them 



