Clifton College Scientific Society. 53 



Everything was now made so easy to the new generation. The 

 order was getting reversed, and whereas boys used to work hard if 

 they wanted to learn anything, and the teachers took it easy, now 

 as to the teachers he was sure they worked exceedingly hard 

 — (cheers) — and he was sometimes induced to think the boys had 

 things made too easy for them. One of the effects of competition 

 was that there was too much hot-house cvdtivation ; and therefore 

 it was very important they should provide such institutions as the 

 museum and the laboratory and the workshop. What they ought 

 to encourage was independent, self-reliant, hard, earnest work. 

 (Applause.) Perhaps they might, all of them, be the better for 

 remembering that instruction was not the same as real education. 

 They might get knowledge and information, but they would not 

 obtain fibre unless they used independent eff"ort. (Hear, hear.) 

 The rev. gentleman continued by saying he did not profess to 

 know what would be the future relation of science to education. 

 But he ventured to say one thing — and that was, whether they 

 were boys and girls at school, or grown-up boys and girls learning 

 the later lessons in the school of life, they should just consider, 

 when they looked around at that infantine Museum, how little thej'^ 

 knew of that which they had inherited from the past, and how 

 feeble they were in their attempts to understand the phenomena 

 that were all around them ; and if they would learn the further 

 lesson, that the great thing they had to do was to endeavour as far 

 as they could to work honestly and simply ; to get at some real 

 knowledge, to do some real work, to cultivate some real desire to 

 get the truth — if they could only look around them in that way, 

 they would go away probably with something more than a desire 

 after the truth — with that reverence which was sometimes want- 

 ing in some of them simjDly because they were so wrapt up in their 

 immediate surroundings as to be unconscious of wliat was round 

 about them, and of the great mystery of that which lay before 

 them. (Loud cheers.) 



At a later period of the evening Professor Church, of tlie Royal 

 Agricultural College, Cirencester, gave a highly interesting lecture 

 on the nature of colour. Mr Lant Carpenter's address drew to- 

 gether a very large audience, and at the request of the President 

 of the Scientific Society (who occupied the chair), the lecturer very 

 kindly promised to give a further account of his experience during 

 the Atlantic dredging expeditions at an early date. To Messrs 

 Church, Carpenter, and Kerry, the best thanks of the society are 

 due, as their lectures were among the most successfid events of the 

 evening. The Orpheus Society also deserve high praise. Their 



