4 PRESIDEXTS ADDRESS. 



to handle and regard so as to become aware of what is known 

 of them. Do we make the parent and the schoolteacher 

 understand that education in science is the examination of things 

 and not of words or descriptions? I fear that many of us who 

 have some control over education in this State by means of ex- 

 aminations and the institution of courses of instruction, some- 

 times forget at what we aim. We demand too large a store of 

 knowledge. We force the child to learn of Nature by books. 

 We do not remember how slowly we acquired our own acquaint- 

 ance with the world of matter about us. We yield to the critic 

 w^ho tells us that we set too low a standard, and that we do not 

 ask the child to know enough. We set out examinations with- 

 out sufficient regard for the hours needed to experiment and to 

 observe the facts necessary for an answer. I have tried often to 

 persuade examiners and boards of examiners to give more weight 

 to practical examinations. I like to ask students to record their 

 observations on simple objects. M}^ fellow-examiners have said 

 to me that the questions are so easy. They are easy to the 

 student w^ho has learnt to stud}" things, and they mislead the 

 student who does not know of things but only about words. 

 Such students do not recognise what they see. Life, however, is 

 concerned with the persons and objects around us, not with the 

 descriptions of them that literary men may pen. 



I have told you that I used my microscope. To those hours 

 of observation I ow e the interest that Dr. Martin took in my 

 future education. Some weeks after lectures had begun, I went, 

 at the close of the instruction, to ask a question about the act of 

 breathing on high mountains. The conversation passed to 

 personal topics. I mentioned that I had seen certain appear- 

 ances in some sections of the lungs. I was invited to come into 

 the laboratory to arrange the microscopical objects that Dr. 

 Martin had brought with him from Sydney. Each day I spent 

 an hour or so in looking at the specimens and putting them in 

 the different drawers of the cabinets. Now and then, my teacher 

 came to hear what I was doing or to invite me to look at some 

 experiment that he was performing in the laboratory. I saw for 

 the first time a working laboratory engaged in the observation 



