Presiuknt's Address. 13 



In the words of its Constitution, which is founded on that of its 

 parent Association, the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, the object of this Association is "to give a stronger impulse 

 " and a more systematic direction to scientific enquiry; to promote 

 " the intercourse of societies and individuals interested in science 

 "in different parts of South Africa." Its work is not quite iden- 

 tical with that of the British Association, because the conditions of 

 scientific work out here differ from the conditions which surround 

 it in older countries. Here scientific work labours under certain dis- 

 abilities — want of endowed institutions for scientific work, where the 

 work goes on partly of its own momentum — geographical sepa- 

 ration from the great centres of scientific activity — want of scientific 

 libraries, and so forth — but it also enjoys certain compensating ad- 

 vantages — greater freedom (owing partly, perhaps, to the non-exist- 

 ence of endowed institutions) in striking out in new directions — 

 different aspect of scientific problems — new problems and new con- 

 ditions — so that a new country may, as it were, often begin where 

 older countries leave off. This has been illustrated in South Africa 

 in many ways — notably in the discovery and successful working, in 

 the teeth of the vaticinations of the older scientists, of diamonds 

 and banket — in the treatment of rinderpest — and in many other 

 directions. Until recently, too, scientific work in South Africa has 

 laboured under the disadvantage of insufficient support of a strong 

 and general scientific spirit, and of public sympathy. It is the 

 association of science with practical life and material welfare (which, 

 it may be observed, is the flower which the long and loving cultiva- 

 tion of pure science has produced), which has to a certain extent 

 cured this defect, and is a feature — perhaps the feature — of scientific 

 advance in the present age, not onlv in South Africa, but through- 

 out the civilised world. As you will have derived from what has been 

 said about the extinguishing of Malta fever and about the discoveries 

 of Mendel, no well-established scientific fact is so trivial, or so 

 obscure, that it may not have a vital bearing on human life and 

 progress. I have ventured to indicate, in a former part of this 

 Address, the sources from which assistance, in promoting the advance- 

 ment of science, may come — whether from public or from private 

 funds, or from the devotion of individual w'orkers. The advance- 

 ment of science will probably continue to be due to many and diverse 

 factors ; and perhaps one of the most useful objects to which this 

 Association could direct its energies would be towards encouraging 

 and securing the co-ordination of these factors — to the fostering 

 amongst scientific men of the spirit of co-operation and union. From 

 co-operation and union will be derived the greatest impulse to the 

 advancement of science here. 



Take, for instance, the question of scientific publications. 

 Scientific papers appear in the publications of various and 

 diverse scientific societies and institutions in South Africa, 

 and here and there in warious Agrirnltural Journals : many are buried 



