I3y Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



beget such luxuriant imaginations that one rarely finds it at the top. 

 As to training to the use of firearms, I would not confine it to the 

 youth of the sterner sex only. The ladies of Ixopo have set an 

 excellent example to the rest of the Colony by practising at the rifle 

 range, and surely our Colonial womanhood may legitimately fit them- 

 selves to lend their aid in a crisis to the defence of their hearths 

 and homes. Besides, recent events in the precincts of the British 

 House of Commons have demonstrated what splendid material has 

 been lost to Great Britain through ignorance as to the fighting capacity 

 of the so-called weaker sex. For the rest, even in this comparativelv 

 young country, the subsequent training, whether secondary or 

 University, should be directed so as to secure the best service to the 

 State. In the best days of Athens the citizens vied with each other 

 to render the greatest gratuitous service, but nowadays the greed of 

 wealth prompts the modern citizen to make false income tax returns, 

 and even to shirk military service. The old adage was much better, 

 " No man liveth to himself, no man dieth to himself, living or dying, 

 ye are the State's.'" I thrust South Africa will never see the day when 

 Ministers of the various Colonies shall belie the original meaning of 

 their ofiicial title, viz., "servants," by making themselves the Colonv's 

 masters, with an eye onlv to the loaves and fishes attached to their 

 office. 



I yield to no man in my appreciation of the importance of the 

 branches of science included in the other Sections of the Association, 

 and in admiration of the magnificent achievements therein accom- 

 plished for the progress and well-being of the race, but I trust I 

 may be pardoned if I claim that the paramount and proper studv 

 of mankind is man, and from the first dav I came across Terenr-e's 

 immortal pronouncement " Homo sum. hiimani nihil a me aliennm 

 fjito," I have held that mere science without the humanities is not 

 the be-all and' the end-all of life; for I must confess to sharing 

 Herbert Spencer's apprehension that the moralisation of the race is 

 not keeping pace with its mere intellectualisation. 



" Let knowledge grow from more to more, 



But more of reverence in us dwell, 



That mind and soul, according well, 



May make one music as before, 



But vaster." 



It is painful, for example, to see our schoolboys in a suburban train 

 making it impossible for their elders to read a book or paper owing 

 to their noisy, boisterous and irreverent behaviour, even towards our 

 City Fathers and statesmen. Then I fear, too, that Christianity 

 is losing its driving or compelling power, and from a national point 

 of vieAV, is inferior even to the ancient Roman or the modern Japanese 

 religion in this respect. ■ Whatever form of religion produces the 

 most public-spirited and self-sacrificing citizen is the best for any 

 State. Whilst we have been bickering over religious differences, the 

 words of Lucretius seem almost prophetic of the condition of England 

 in this respect: '■'■ Tantum religio pottiit suadere vialornm.'''' We 

 have, in fact, been neglecting the most vital interest of a nation. 



