32 president's address. 



To some in this hall, the time seems not to have very long 

 passed when, in this country, almost all scientific work was 

 voluntary, and, in a sense, the majority of scientific Tvorkers 

 were amateurs. All that is changed now ; happily, science as 

 a profession is widely cultivated in all its branches, and our 

 country possesses some very fine, efficient, and original workers. 

 But this boon, great as it is, may be attended by a far from 

 impossible danger, a danger that some, at least, see looming 

 near — that is, the conclusion that now only the professional 

 men of science are doing serious scientific work; or, still worse, 

 the existence of a tacit assumption that sound scientific work 

 is only to be looked for from professional sources. 



From the nature of the English mind and the history of 

 English science, the suppression of the amateur as an 

 important factor in certain classes of English research and 

 experiment would be, I believe, greatly to be deplored. And it 

 may be fervently hoped that scientific work of real value will 

 long continue to be done in this country by men who, though not 

 professional workers, are still intelligent and ingenious inves- 

 tigators of Nature. 



No doubt amateur work of this sort, done alone, and without 

 the enlightenment and stimulus which comes from comparison 

 with similar or kindred work by other workers, is not wise. 

 The best results are not attainable in this way. A most 

 essential thing in any department of even amateur inquiry is 

 to know what has been done, is being done, or can be done. 

 And here, again, comes out the value of a club with aims like 

 ours. It is undoubtedly a feature of our immediate time, and an 

 indication of the broadening interest in the microscope and 

 microscopy, that clubs and smaller societies are being formed 

 in so many centres. 



Five and twenty years ago, when my work in microscopy 

 began, there were many of our very large towns with no trace 

 of a society of microscopists. But in the interval between 

 then and now such societies have been formed, have flourished, 

 doing frequently valuable work, and then, nominally by the 

 exigencies of city life, have been broken up into three or four 

 clubs or smaller societies in suburban parts, leaving the parent 

 society often greatly enfeebled, if enabled to exist. 



Now, my experience of these societies is, that although the 



