OTAGO INSTITUTE. 



First Meeting : 10th May, 1904. 



The President, Professor W. B. Benham, read his presi- 

 dential address. 



The President, after returning thanks for the honour done him in 

 electing him to the office of President; for another year, said that since the 

 last presidential address was delivered the Institute had sustained the 

 loss of two valuable members of its Council — Mr. Justioe Chapman and 

 Mr. A. Hamilton. Both gentlemen have been valued coadjutors in the 

 Council's affairs. It was frequently complained that the meetings were 

 "dull," and in order to render them less dull, and even interesting, dis- 

 cussions of papers and casual talks on various subjects of interest would 

 be welcomed. These two gentlemen were always ready to join in such 

 discussions and to give such casual talks. There were, unfortunately, 

 few members — lay members, if he might so express himself to distinguish 

 them from the few professional scientists — who were so ready to give their 

 opinions as those two were. One often hears it stated that in former days 

 — in the good old days when the Institute was young, it was vigorous too 

 — its meetings were interesting, the papers more varied and less ab- 

 struse, and so forth. It had sometimes occurred to him that a pos- 

 sible means of revival of that much-to-be-desired condition of affairs 

 might be attained if they made it a rule that no professor or lecturer 

 — i.e., no professional — should read a paper or even be present at 

 the meetings. Let them lay their papers on the table for publication 

 in the Transactions, but let the evening meetings be conducted by 

 "lay members." It had occurred to him that then, perhaps, younger 

 folk would be induced to bring forward matter for discussion. In their 

 programme for the present session they had, as members would be 

 glad to note, two or three "new performers 1 ' in the lecture-room. 

 It was a very general, but wholly erroneous, idea that the Institute 

 was mainly connected with science ; but that was not so. The laws 

 of the Institute referred to the " promotion of art, literature, philosophy, 

 and science," and yet it had come about that science, at any rate in 

 recent years, bad predominated in the agenda lists, and that biology, 

 perhaps, had till the last year or two taken the lead. Was there no 

 advancement in arc, literature, or philosophy? Where were their literary 

 and philosophical members? Was it that the folk who were interested 

 in these matters preferred to keep their ideas to themselves ? Why was 

 it that only scientific men, or chiefly so, attended and read their articles ? 

 Were they to conclude from this absence of votaries of arts, literature, 

 and philosophy, and the presence of scientific men, that it was only 

 science and its followers that were awake, alive, and active ? It 

 might be that there were societies for arts, literature, and philosophy ; 

 if so, they seemed to hide their light under a bushel. In any case, it 

 would be a pleasing change if some of their members were to discourse 

 on some of these subjects at their meetings. Since their last meeting 

 two important events in the scientific world had occurred. The first was 

 the meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, which met for the first time in Dunedin, and for the seoond 



