Presidential Address. i3g 



namely, the inculcation of the binding claims of Duty, both public 

 and private. This is the key to the efficiency of the Romans as a 

 conquering and a ruling race, and the British Empire will last only 

 so long as its members give duty the first place and self only the 

 second. Duty is the foundation-stone of Sociology, and yet what 

 a lamentably small percentage of us will lift even a little finger for 

 the furtherance of their lips' desire. The solidarity of the race, 

 thanks to the triumphs of science, is being more firmly established 

 vear by year, and the prime requisite is conduct directed to the 

 bettering of the individual in all his highest interests, the welfare 

 of the State or Empire, and that of mankind at large. 



I hail with pleasure the awakening that is taking place through- 

 out the Empire as to the value and need of technical instruction. 

 The American axe fashioned on Nature's Laws easily ousts its 

 clumsy British competitor from the markets of the world, and this 

 pocket pencil which I hold in my hand from the factory of Johann 

 Faber, in Bavaria, has, for cheapness, handiness and efficiency, no 

 English rival. 



Mine is somewhat of a death-bed repentance, but I now see 

 clearly that the smattering of Latin which is all that can be got in 

 most of our High Schools involves a sinful waste of time. It has been 

 argued in defence that memory can be got in the mere acquirement of 

 the rudiments, but as good a memory can be got in the acquirement of a 

 modern language, or the study of the elements of any of the sciences, 

 with the added advantage that something useful for life, which, after 

 all, is the main interest, has been gained. I know that in this view 

 I may seem to some of my friends to be talking nonsense, but I 

 would ask them to reflect on what Shakespeare, with his little Latin 

 and less Greek, has been able to do for the enrichment of the human 

 mind, using only translations of the ancients into English, e.g., 

 " Plutarch's Lives." And if I may refer for a moment to a minor 

 question, I am one of those who are of opinion that if taught at all 

 the pronunciation of it in other than the Continental or Italian 

 method, should be held to be nothing less than a statutory offence. 

 Let me, in conclusion, endeavour briefly to correlate the topics 

 of our own sections with those that fall under different heads. As 

 human beings, we find we are moving about at the bottom of an 

 aerial sea some sixty miles deep, which envelopes the planet on 

 which we tread, and without which we should be much worse off 

 than fishes out of water. This planet is only one of several solar 

 satellites, while beyond all this is illimitable space, dividing us from 

 the stellar worlds.' The modern advances made by the science of 

 Astronomy, enable us to view these wonders without the pessimistic 

 note of Omar Khayyam : 



" And this inverted bowl we call the sky. 



Whereunder crawling, cooped we live and die, 



Lift not your hands to it for help for it 



As impotently moves as you or I." 



Reverting again to the solid earth which forms our standpoint, 

 the science of Geologv reads for us the riddle of the rocks, and 



