PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—-SECTION D. 101 
day—conclusions which, as the united opinion of the Association, 
may have their full weight in questions of public moment. As 
Emerson has well said, it is agreed that in the sections of the 
British Association more information is mutually and effectually 
communicated in a few hours than in many months of ordinary 
correspondence and the printing and transmission of ponderous 
reports. 
The general aim of: our Association is declared to be the 
advancement of science. For this advancement many workers 
are needed, and for this, as well as for other reasons, it will be 
the duty of the Association to consider the place taken by science 
in colonial education. Royal Commissions and leading men in 
every department of human thought have recognised the necessity 
of the introduction of a liberal measure of scientific knowledge 
and training into our systems of education. Nevertheless, the 
day when science will take its proper position as a means of 
education appears to be far off. It is still a common thing for a 
boy or girl to pass through their schooldays without any scientific 
training ; it is still the usual thing for university degrees to be 
granted to students who have no knowledge of the scientific 
methods which have revolutionised modern thought and action. 
Many causes combine to produce this state of matters—not only 
vested interests and stubborn traditions, but also a lack of 
teachers competent to give instruction in science, and some 
uncertainty as to what subjects are to be taught, and how they 
are to be taught. 
It is alleged, further, that no time can be found in the school 
curriculum for science. I remember only too well that in my 
schooldays I spent some six months in tinkering at Latin verses 
a cruel and barbarous waste of time. Fortunately, in many 
schools this particular abuse has been removed, but subjects are 
still retained whose only claims to their prominence are those of 
fashion and tradition. 
It is not my intention to enter into the question of the relative 
merits of different branches of study, and still less to depreciate 
the value of any subject in particular, but it is necessary to point 
out constantly that in matters of education the choice must be 
given to that which is most valuable : hence prominence must be 
given to those studies which teach us how to conform our actions 
to the laws of the world of nature in which we are placed. The 
study of natural law is science, and it appears a remarkable 
circumstance that the learning of these laws should occupy 
so insignificant a portion of education. 
It is clear that, if science-teaching is to be extended, the study 
of science must form an integral part of the training of the 
teacher. Let me give you an instance of. this, which has come 
under my own observation. The mainstay of New Zealand, as 
well as of the other Australian colonies, is unquestionably agri- 
