356 Visit of the British Association to Australia [Feb. 19, 



methods of education into Java and Western teachers, without under- 

 standing, are perverting Eastern ideals ; we are following the same 

 mistaken course in India. 



These are the things that attract the attention of the traveller and 

 give cause for reflection ; more, therefore, should travel and reflect. 



AVe of the British Association now have cause to glory in the fact 

 that we are a chartered body of wanderers, with full right to an 

 Imperial title. In the future it will be our duty, I believe, to take 

 ourselves still more seriously and assume the office of incitors and 

 co-ordinators of the scientific activities of all regions of our Empire ; 

 they will need correlating and developing if we are to hold our own 

 and deserve the title of a civilized cultured people. The War must 

 imbue us with a deeper sense of responsibility. We mmt now follow 

 the advice given us by Huxley long, long ago, to Organize and 

 Organize and Organize. In some way the inertia of our ancient 

 Universities must be overcome, so that they are made eiflcient as 

 educational agencies ; in the future, we can have no use for any but 

 observant, reasoning beings, gifted with eyes and practical instincts, 

 as our schoolmasters. We shall need real men in large numbers for 

 the service of Australia and of our Empire generally and these can 

 only be trained by men ; I have seen everywhere evidence that such 

 are lacking and that our public service is most incomplete, not only 

 in point of numbers. To repeat words used in addressing the 

 Educational Science Section of our Association at Melbourne : " If 

 in Science, to-day, we have something unknown to former civilisa- 

 tions, what is its influence to be on the future of the world, in 

 particular on the future of the white people ? If we are not to suffer 

 the rise and fall which all previous civilizations have passed through 

 — rather let me say, if the period of our fall is to be retarded beyond 

 the period our forerunners enjoyed — it will be solely because we wield 

 and use the powers Science has put into our hands : not so much 

 those of abstract science but the broad wisdom which the proper 

 cultivation of Science should confer ; hence it is that I desire to urge 

 the absolute importance of giving, through Science, a place to the 

 cultivation of wisdom in the State : therefore in education." 



This message we carried to Australia ; this message we brought 

 back with us ; the task before us is to give reality to it in the future. 



[During the lecture nine dozen slides, mostly photographs of 

 scenery, were exhibited. The lecturer's thanks for these are specially 

 due to Miss Thomas, B.Sc, Prof. Pope, Dr. Seward and Dr. Sidgwick.] 



[H.E.A.] 



