4 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



State, will more and more recognise the claims of science to 

 their attention; so that it may no longer require the begging- 

 box, but may speak to the State like a favoured child to its 

 parent, sure of parental solicitude for its welfare; that the 

 State will recognise in Science one of its elements of strength 

 and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of self- 

 interest demand." In reading these eloquent words we natur- 

 ally inquire whether the hope which they express has in fifty 

 years been adequately fulfilled, whether the begging-box has 

 become useless and an occupant of the lumber-room, whether 

 Science has found in the State a beneticeent mother, and has 

 thriven as a well-cared-for child should. 



It is questions like these that have led me to select as the 

 main subject of this address " The State's Duty to Science." 

 It was originally suggested that I should use the occasion for 

 the purely historical purpose of sketching the growth of Science 

 in South Africa during the past twenty years. But as almost 

 the only advantage to be got from looking backward is to take 

 lessons from our mistakes, and as in science our mistakes have 

 a knack of being their own remembrancers, I have chosen the 

 more congenial task of indicating what all thoughtful men — 

 men of affairs as well as men of science — consider to be the 

 State's proper attitude towards Scientific Research. Although 

 in so doing it is the future that one must steadily keep in one's 

 eye, there is still no reason why the policy or separate actions 

 of the past should not be incidentally recalled in order to illus- 

 trate a dictum or to point a moral. Further, it would seem 

 that no more fitting time could be chosen for speaking generally 

 of the State and its duties than the year in which by the union 

 of four colonies a new State has been set to work out its 

 destinv l)efore an onlooking world. 



In all ages the welfare of a State must have been in a greater 

 ■or less degree dependent on the development of its material 

 resources and on the vigour and intelligence of its people; it 

 is only in comparatively recent years, however, that recognition 

 has been given to the fact that the State must leave nothing 

 of this to chance, but must set itself deliberately, by the use 

 of scientific method, to make the very best of its resources, 

 and to increase the available vigour and intelligence of every 

 one within its borders. Not only so, but it must take suitable 

 precautions that intelligence be universally trained, and be also 

 duly organised so as to give the most effective and productive 

 result. It is no longer enough that the State shall merely 

 welcome and applaud a discoverer when he arises, or merely 

 safeguard a private inventor from being fleeced : on the con- 

 trary, it must give of its substance to foster both discovery and 

 invention, and must give legislative help to secure that inven- 

 tions when made shall not be unfruitful through want of skilled 

 labour or other hampering cause. And if we ask the reason for 

 this change, the answer is that the keenness of international 

 competition has vastly increased, that this has led to serious 

 searching of intellect, that the laws of evolution have in conse- 



