20 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



traditions and learning are to be followed. It is to be hoped 

 that all the wonderful and ancient traditional learning and 

 art of the Chinese will not be destroyed by this and similar 

 institutions, as this would be a great loss to the world, but 

 one can hardly see how they can survive such influences 

 which are yearly springing up around them and have already 

 affected the arts both of them and other nations prejudicially. 

 I was surprised and pleased to find that the President of the 

 Educational Science Section at the British Association strongly 

 upheld in his Address the mode of pronouncing Latin like 

 English, and not in the foreign manner. His argument was 

 that it was much more important that boys should learn it, 

 than that an attempt should be made to pronounce it as the 

 ancient Romans are supposed to have pronounced it, especi- 

 ally as we do not want to speak it, and that the foreign method 

 of pronunciation created a prejudice against it. The derivation 

 of English words was also much more obvious if similar^ 

 pronounced. For myself I have found the very moderate 

 knowledge of Latin (and less Greek) that I possess so very 

 useful in my pursuits, both Natural History and Archaeolo- 

 gical, so much more than Mathematics, the subject I specially 

 studied, that I think it most important that boys, and girls 

 too, should have some knowledge of it, and if they should 

 ever take an interest in any of the branches of a Club like 

 ours, they will find it an immense advantage. A German 

 Bibliography of the divining rod has lately appeared con- 

 taining a long list of books on the subject covering 103 pages 

 from 1532 onwards. Whether the belief in its powers is 

 true or not, it is undoubtedly very ancient and widespread, 

 and from my little experience of it I am certainly inclined 

 to credit it. The only suggestion towards explanation given 

 by the author is that, according to experiments, the gamma- 

 radiation over even small sources of water is said to be lessened. 

 He also says that certain inventions have been made for 

 demonstrating this, but he has not been allowed to test their 

 powers, which makes him doubtful of them. Diviners seem 

 rare, but the one of whom I had experience not only found 



