Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Hi. ( 1 907). 1 3 



There seems to me no reason in the nature of things 

 why a professional in one science should not be a success- 

 ful amateur in another — at all events be interested in 

 its aims and development. And probably no more 

 stimulating ideas are struck out than at the personal 

 contact, if I may use the phrase, of two minds trained in 

 different sciences. I know that I am very grateful for 

 ideas received in this meeting-room, and I feel sure that 

 many of our members feel similar gratitude. I would 

 then plead for the cultivation of the amateur. I have 

 tried to show how important he is to our Society : it must 

 be our business to attract and then to interest him. 



And there is another connected danger which I have 

 heard threatens us. The Society is being swallowed up 

 by the University. As the older Universities sent out 

 " extensions " where the concentrated culture of higher 

 intelligences was diluted down to the density of common 

 comprehensions, so the Manchester University is seeking 

 to establish a " centre " here where similar experiments 

 may be carried ^out ! Speaking as a member of that 

 University I would only ask "Why should we?" We 

 surely have enough lecturing to satisfy our professorial 

 zeal : we are not ambitious to restart evening classes — 

 unpaid. I think I speak for all my colleagues when I 

 say that we come here because this Society knows no 

 distinctions among its members, who meet on a perfectly 

 equal footing whether professors or manufacturers, 

 professional men or students ; because criticism is 

 informal and open to all ; because it is advantageous 

 that we should have mutual interchange of experience 

 and ideas — especially between men of the laboratory 

 and men of the works ; and because it is our pride to 

 maintain as best we may the tradition of this spot — 

 hallowed by the fame of those achievements that know 

 no wane. 



