20 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



speaking or thinking jargon ! Science has not yet taken the 

 place in public estimation which it deserves, and which is 

 most desirable for the welfare of the country; and it has been 

 suggested that an organisation of scientific workers should be 

 formed for securing recognition and proper rewards for their 

 work, a method which is not only fashionable, but usually 

 successful in' other walks of life. We owe much to our 

 scientists; and it would have been hard for the bravery of our 

 soldiers to have won the war without their help. A controversy 

 has been going on between Museums and the Educational 

 Authorities in consequence of a desire on behalf of the latter 

 to transfer the Museums to the Board of Education. But the 

 Museums say truly that they are not in the first place 

 educational institutions, but receptacles for the preservation 

 of all that is interesting and rare in Nature and Art. I have 

 always myself thought that this should be their first and most 

 important aim, but that suitable arrangements with full 

 explanatory labels and guide books should make them, as far 

 as possible, convenient for educational purposes. Personally 

 I have found that really good labelling adds immensely to 

 their interest, and in that respect I think our County Museum 

 will take a good place. A good guide book or catalogue is 

 useful, but much more difficult and lengthy to refer to. 

 Museums generally must have grown very much in number 

 and size in the last 40 years. Taking the department of 

 Zoology alone, the number of specimens in the British Museum 

 of Natural History has increased from about 1,400,000 in 1883, 

 when it was removed to South Kensington, to about 6,000,000, 

 and I expect that our Museum, would shew even a greater 

 proportional increase. More organized collecting is now being 

 done for the Natural History Museum, so that we may expect 

 it to grow even faster in the future. For some years after 

 that date our Club used to hold its Winter meetings in the 

 Museum itself; but the gradual filling up made it inconvenient, 

 and we migrated to our present quarters about 1890. As in 

 most other things, the subscription for membership of the 

 British Association has been raised by half; but we hope that 



