Sections E, and F. 



I— PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 

 By R. D. Clark, M.A. (Oxon.). 



I cannot deal with the topics that I have deemed fit to bring 

 before you on this occasion without first giving expression to the 

 deep sorrow which I am sure we all share in that the eloquent voice 

 of the Prince of modern British scholars, to which we were privileged 

 to listen last year in this Section, has since been stilled in death. 

 I little thought that when first I met the late Sir Richard Jebb that 

 the next time I should meet him would be well into the twentieth 

 century, gazing on the South African veld with cultured curiosity 

 at a native marriage-dance, and trying to square the new experience 

 with the wealth of lore he could bring to bear on it. 



At a hint from me that it might shed some light on the function 

 of the chorus in Greek Tragedy, his eyes lit up, and but for the 

 fact that he had then, alas ! a foot in the grave, the idea might 



have born rich fruit Requiescat in pace, and 



may Bentley, Porson and Jebb be minded for a pleasure trip when 

 I have at last saved the three obols necessary for paying Charon 

 to ferry me across the Styx. 



Now it is to the breaking down of the misconception that science 

 or scholarship or its last and highest stage, culture, are incompatible 

 or antagonistic, that an Association such as ours lends itself. Its 

 catholic scope can be gathered from a conspectus of its various 

 sections. Taken together, they virtually imply a knowledge of 

 what is in heaven above, w^hat is on the face of the earth underneath, 

 and what is in the matter of the earth itself. Each individual is 

 the centre of all the phenomena of which he is cognisant, and other 

 things being equal, he will live best who knows the most regarding 

 their nature and laws. In this respect knowledge is indeed power, 

 the power to command the highest good of all, viz., the good life. 

 The difference between knowledge and ignorance is just this : the 

 former enables us consciously to work together with Nature's forces 

 alike for our own good and the good of others ; the latter lets its 

 unhappy victim unconsciously work against them to his own undoing 

 and that of those with whom he comes in contact. I can attach 

 no other meaning to St. Paul's sublime conception of the creature 

 being exalted to being a co-worker with the Creator, than this, that it 

 is the high calling, the only royal road to which lies through the 

 acquisition of knowledge. Ignorance is mankind's greatest foe, a 

 fact which makes education the paramount concern of individuals 

 as w^ell as of States. This was enunciated by Aristotle in his Politics 

 some twenty-two centuries ago, where he says that the legislators' 



