president's address SECTION B. 119 



Having now cast a share of blame upon the teaching profession, 

 let me say something in defence of our teachers. As a rule too much 

 of a professor's time is taken up in the organisation of his department 

 and in the teaching of elementary students. In at least three cases 

 which have come under my notice in Australasia the professor of 

 chemistiy held also the chair of physics, and was allowed only one 

 demonstrator. Under such circumstances it is evident that the con- 

 centration of mind necessaiy for successful research work is seldom 

 possible; the mental overstrain deadens the intellectual ideal, and the 

 professor may surely be pardoned, if, when the vacation comes, he 

 shuns his laboratory as he would a plag-ue^infested area. 



May I here be allowed to digress in order to make a few remarks 

 upon the appointment of professors and university lecturers? It is 

 unfortunate that the members of the governing bodies of many 

 universities have not yet been led to an appreciation of the value of 

 research work, and, therefore, are apt to appoint men with a brilliant 

 exainination record or with a great reputation for getting students 

 through examinations rather than those who are known to surround 

 themselves with an atmosphere of scientific enthusiasm. It is, I know, 

 a matter of difficulty to find candidates with all the characteristics 

 which we hope for in a university professor. When, however, we 

 consider that nearly all great investigators gather around them a 

 researeh school, the members of wliicli introduce the scientific habit 

 into all work which they undertake, it becomes obvious that no man 

 should be appointed to a professorship of chemistry unless he can 

 show a good research record, together with evidence that he has the 

 power of stimulating others to the undertaking of similar work. Such 

 a professor will leave a profound impression upon the students who 

 have been fortunate enough to come under his influence, and will 

 benefit his generation to a far greater extent than the commonplace 

 hack who succeeds in preparing crowds of students to dodge the traps 

 laid by the university examiners. 



When it is remembered that a university professor, unless abso- 

 lutely lacking in backbone, leaves a pronounced stamp upon the 

 intellectual ideals of a whole generation of students, it must be 

 admitted that eveiy appointment to a professorial chair is an affair of 

 national importance. It, thei'efore, behoves Australasians to work as 

 one man to see that in the making of such appointments all personal 

 and parochial considerations are eliminated, and that only men of the 

 highest type are chosen as professors and university lecturers. Choose 

 men with some Australasian experience, if possible, that they may 

 understand our local conditions ; let them be men who have worked 

 also in Europe, that their outlook may be a broad one; insist that 

 they be men of affairs with high intellectual ideals, and our universi- 

 ties will become, as indeed they should, centres of the most leavening 

 influence upon the life and aspirations of oxu' citizens. 



In concluding an address which is already too long, and which 

 has, I fear, wandered only too freely from the subject chosen, let me 

 enter a plea on behalf of those who, having shown scientific ability 

 itnd power of conducting investigations, find themselves unable from 

 lack of funds to carry out their researches. The tendency in the past 



