12 President's Address. 



exceedingly valuable and interesting scientific deductions, has been 

 established at Rosebank. The Natal Government has established a 

 Laboratory near Maritzburg, at and in connection with which Watkins 

 Pitchford and his assistants have done much useful work, notably 

 by making the discovery that horses could be protected against horse- 

 sickness by the exclusion of biting insects, and in the preparation of 

 anti-toxic sera and of anti-venene. And the Transvaal Government, 

 after liberally subsidising Theiler's epoch-making investigations, has 

 recently built an exf>erimental station, at a cost of some ;^6o,ooo, 

 which will bear comparison, so far as design and facilities go, with 

 any such station in the world. Added to this, the Cape Government, 

 besides incurring large expenditure on rinderpest experiments, con- 

 tributed liberally to defray the out-of-pocket expenses of Beattie's 

 magnetic survey, expended large sums on Gilchrist's investigation of 

 South African marine biology, and joined with the other South Afri- 

 can Governments in defraying the heavy cost of Koch's enquiry into 

 East Coast fever. And the Zululand Government bore the whole of 

 the expense of Bruce's nagana investigations. It cannot be said, 

 therefore, that the South African Governments have been backward 

 in this matter. Much has been done, no doubt, but more is wanted. 

 This is a subject which South Africans, and their representatives in 

 Parliament, will do well to perpend. 



It is not only in connection with the investigation of diseases 

 that research is required. It is, no doubt, the practical value of 

 that particular line of research which has contributed in a 

 large degree to the popularisation in South Africa of the 

 advancement of science. But it is the educative side of 

 scientific research that will in the end prove of the highest 

 and most i>ermanent value to the community. That fact has 

 been recognised by the Transvaal Government, which has provided, 

 in its new experimental station, for the training of students ; and a 

 small commencement has been made in the matter of training research 

 students in the laboratories of some of the colleges in Cape Colony. 

 Although South Africa has produced a Greathead, whose name has 

 become a household word amongst engineers throughout the world — 

 whose untimely death was a heavy loss to the development of engin- 

 eering science in his own particular line, nearly all the trained .scien- 

 tific men now working in South Africa (Dr. Purcell, and one or two 

 others, are exceptions), are men who were not born in this country. 

 Most nf them, I shall hope, have decided to make South Africn their 

 home; but however that may be, it seems the obvious dutv of South 

 Africa to afford adequate facilities for the training of its own scienti- 

 fic men. Students have been sent to Europe, to study wine-making, 

 forestry, and other subjects, and it will be the desire of all of you 

 that the first steps which have thus been taken should be followed by 

 many others, in the direction of providing for the scientific training 

 of South African youth, whether in Europe, or in South Africa. 

 This, it seems to me, is one of the ends the promotion of which this 

 Association mnv well devote itself to secure. 



