324 OPEXIXG OF THK ESSEX MUSEUM, ETC. 



evening primarily as a member of the Essex Field Club, an association 

 founded twenty years ago, and which has been carrying on active work 

 throughout this period. We have with us to-day Professor Meldola, 

 the first President of the Club, who, if I mistake not, in his inaugural 

 address, contemplated the establishment of a museum which should contain 

 collections illustrating the natural history, geology, and pre-historic archaeo- 

 logy of our county. This original idea of the founders of this Club has never 

 been lost sight of, but for various reasons it has hitherto been found impossi- 

 ble to bring it to a practical issue. A few years ago an attempt was made to 

 establish the Club's Museum in Chelmsford, and it is perhaps to be regretted 

 that this attempt could not be successfully realised. An Essex Museum would 

 have found an appropriate home in the county town, and I may perhaps ven- 

 ture to take this opportunity of expressing the hope that the nucleus ot a 

 museum which is in existence they may yet be developed in conjunction with 

 the Essex Field Club. For I am convinced that museums are destined to 

 play such an important part in education in the future that no town of any 

 importance will be able to be without an institution of this kind. But one of 

 the chief reasons why this part of the Club's work has not hitherto been 

 piactically realised is because the establishment and maintenance of a museum 

 requires considerable financial resource. However zealous the members of a 

 county Natural History Society may be, their aims and objects rarely rouse 

 popular enthusiasm to the extent of raising an adequate fund for such pur- 

 poses. In some counties private munificence has compensated for the lack of 

 public interest. In other cases — and I am glad to be able to quote as an 

 example another Essex town, Colchester — an enlightened Town Council has 

 enabled an excellent local museum of archaeology to find an appropriate 

 home. And, again, in other instances some of the County Councils have 

 given financial aid from the Technical Instruction Grant — quite a legitimate 

 expenditure as it appears to me, and, if I may express a personal opinion, a 

 most valuable way of assisting in the spread of that knowledge which is the 

 core and essence of all sound education — a knowledge of nature at first hand 

 as distinguished from the knowledge imparted through books, or didactically 

 taught in the class room. But I am afraid that we, as a nation, have hardly 

 yet risen to that high water mark of scientific culture which should charac- 

 terise a great ci\ilisation. I do not mean to imply that we are lacking in 

 scientific ability, or that we are devoid of originality, or that we have failed 

 to contribute our share of knowledge to the sum total of human progress. 

 But I fear that the spirit of modern science has not sunk into the public 

 mind ; it has not permeated the rank and file to that extent which is required 

 by the age in which we live, the century of science pay excellence. Our 

 purses are ever open, and have always been open, in the names of charity and 

 philanthropy, religious endowment, and missionary enterprise, political 

 organisation and popular sports. (Laughter.) But science, upon which the 

 national wslfare and our position in the scale of nations ultimately depends, 

 has to go begging for her tens, while thousands are forthcoming for other 

 objects. (Applause.) 



With regard to the particular Museum w^hich I have been asked to open 

 to-day, it is with special pleasure that I am enabled to point to this practical 

 realisation of the scheme of the Essex Field Club as the outcome of private 



