Klijlilli AtnuiaJ Meet tin/. 77 



piiviite work, but un annual < untVienco of voikt'is would st.iniulatc reseaicli and 

 eventually its nictlHitls and aims. Tlio geogiaphical diHicultics to which I before 

 alluded to, which^keep us se[)aratecl by wide intervals during the year, art; in one 

 respeet advantageous, as they give opportunities for detailed study over areas of 

 the Dominion which vary much in their natural-history productions. By the Act 

 of incorporation we are given a great opportunity, and we should see to it that we 

 break new ground well in tlie forefront of our onward track. 



Th(! b(jdy of research work done is much larger than those unacquainted with 

 it might suppose, and much of it is of excellent quality within certain narrow 

 limits. Those limits are in part inevitable and in part justifiable. So far there 

 has been little endowment of research, and nearly all the work is done in a neces- 

 sarily scrappy fashion by mi>n in professional employment. The man who can give 

 his life for an idea is unknown among us, and, following the line of least resist- 

 ance, we are apt to do tht^ work nearest us with no eagle eye on ultimate issues. 

 Once we are made to feel the influence of science, not merely on the accelerating 

 progress of the State, but on the world of ideas, of moials, and of emotion, we 

 may expect endowment to be much more frequent than it has been in the. past. 

 -Men could be found to do the work if the opportunity was present. Undoubtedly 

 the best plan is to provide research scholarships for young graduates, tenable for 

 short teims : from them in time will come the born investigator — the one in a 

 thousand — who should be permanently kept at work by private endowment or by 

 the State. 



