PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 379 
precious time to give a boy a smattering of chemistry at school 
because he is destined for a laboratory when he leaves. Let him 
be grounded thoroughly in mathematics, let him work seriously 
at history and geography, and from the first drill him in the 
Latin grammar, and then teach him to read and understand 
French and German, the Latin grammar being taken up, as he 
will learn from it the construction of a language much better than 
if taught syntax from an English grammar, while it will also be 
of much assistance afterwards when studying French and German, 
a partial knowledge of which languages is desirable on account of 
the valuable scientific literature thus made available. With such 
a training as this, the boy will have a fair chance when he 
commences his business life ; but if some of his school hours are 
spent in an endeavour to teach him chemistry, he will find, when 
put in a laboratory, that he has then to make good deficiencies in 
his education due to his time having been wasted over so-called 
technical training. Ido not go the length of saying that there 
should not be a chemical laboratory at a school, or that the boys 
should be brought up in entire ignorance of chemistry or science 
of any sort, but I do maintain that the laboratory will do more 
harm than good unless the masters realise that its function can 
only be to fulfil that part of the definition of education which 
requires that a man should know something of everything, or to 
give a possible bias to the thoughts and aims of some boys who 
have a natural gift for scientific pursuits; and it is surely an axiom 
that no boy is fit to take up any branch of science, or indeed any 
work by which he is to earn a living, until he has received a 
thorough elementary training, and has learned how to acquire 
knowledge—the only part of an education he can hope to receive 
-at school. 
There only remains now for me to add the hope-that the facts 
and opinions I have been permitted to bring before you this 
morning may be of some use in showing you how, by the employ- 
ment of trained experts, the results from manufacturing and 
agricultural work can be improved, and the losses which now 
occur may be reduced, and those products now called waste 
utilised, which latter may in other industries, as in the manufac- 
ture of gas, be found of sufficient value to cause an enormous 
reduction in the expenses of manufacture. 
2,.—ON THE GUM OF THE LEOPARD-TREE 
(Hindersia maculosa.—¥. v. M.) 
By J. H. Maipey, F.LS., F.C.S., Curator of the Technological 
Museum, Sydney. 
Hilindersia maculosa (F. v. M., B. Fl., i. 388) is a synonym of 
F. strzeleckiana (F. v. M.), of Mueller’s Census, p. 9. It belongs 
