ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (AUSTRALASIAN.) 



49 



law, and not artificial law, the element of compul- 

 sion had a great deal more to recommend it. As a 

 general conclusion it might be said that the people's 

 representatives could not remain indifferent to the 

 claims of modern hygienic science on behalf of the 

 people, nor could they remain any longer uncon- 

 scious of the power they possessed to pass intelligent 

 and efficient laws against public enemies so subtle, 

 so active, and so mighty. In dealing with the sec- 

 ond part of his subject, the speaker referred to the 

 larger works of a hygienic character that had been 

 carried out in several of the colonies. He pointed 

 out the influences at work throughout the colonies 

 tending toward the creation of a better ideal of 

 public hygiene. Among these he instanced the 

 mingling of health topics in our various systems of 

 public education, the existence of centers of instruc- 

 tion established by the St. John's Ambulance move- 

 ment, the labors ot scientific associations and popular 

 health societies, the dissemination of useful informa- 

 tion by the press, and the organization of several 

 forms of charity, especially hospitals and training in- 

 stitutions for nurses. All these were indications of 

 a preparedness to advance in numerous directions. 

 In discussing the question of what lines should be 

 taken by coming legislation, he said that the crucial 

 point of a health bill lay in its definition of the 

 powers and responsibilities of the central authority 

 on the one hand, and those of the local authority 

 on the other. He dwelt on the value of well- 

 equipped bacteriological laboratories, and said that 

 no hesitation should mark the steps of each Govern- 

 ment in providing a laboratory for itself. He ex- 

 pressed the conviction that an immediate step in 

 public-health legislation should be the adoption of 

 the control and administration of infectious diseases 

 by the state authority. 



Subsequently the following-named papers were 

 read and discussed before the section : " A New 

 Method of preparing and preserving Anatomical 

 and Pathological Tissues, with Special Reference to 

 Color Preservation," by Sydney Jamieson ; "A 

 Brief Sketch of the History of Smallpox and Vac- 

 cination in New South Wales," by Frank Tidswell; 

 " Tuberculosis and the Public Health," by G. Lane 

 Mullins; "The Epidemiologa of Lepa in Austra- 

 lia," by J. Ashburton Thompson; "The Scientific 

 Basis of the Prevention and Treatment in Con- 

 sumption," by W. Camac Wilkinson ; " Vaccination 

 in Australia," by E. Rougier; and "Death Certifi- 

 cation," by G. E. Rennie. 



J. Mental Science and Education. This section 

 was presided over by John Shirley, District Inspector 

 (if Schools, Brisbane, Queensland, who chose as the 

 subject of his vice-presidential address " The Influ- 

 ence of English History upon English Literature." 

 He said : The history of England might be represented 

 graphically by an irregular wavy line, whose crests 

 would depict years of victory and expansion, and 

 whose furrows would show periods of loss and civil 

 conflict and of depression. If they inserted the 

 dates on these historical summits, it would be 

 found "that periods of great national success were 

 synchronous with times of great literary activity, 

 and that when the heart of the nation was stirred 

 to its depths by threatened peril, only to be suc- 

 cessfully avoided by mighty effort and sacrifice, a 

 few master minds of the age, unconsciously, and 

 almost Divinely inspired, gave tongue in prose or 

 verse to the joy or thankfulness or exultation felt 

 by the mass of their fellow-countrymen, though in- 

 articulate in all but the selected few. Occasionally 

 the genius was born after the national uplifting 

 had ceased; or, still worse, before the nation was 

 in e.rcelsis ; but, like the Hebrew prophet of old, 

 when once the message had been given, it was de- 

 livered, whether in season or out of season, and 

 VOL. xxxvin. 4 A 



whether the outcome were acclamation or persecu- 

 tion. Occasionally, in times of misery the groans 

 of the oppressed were voiced in the lamentations of 

 a Piers Plowman, but the agony, however sincerely 

 expressed, was seldom accompanied by talents 

 above mediocrity. Again, both in history and lit- 

 erature there were periods of dull contentment or 

 of national high living when fervor and patriotism 

 were obscured and the Philistine was abroad in the 

 land. The peaceful and comparatively prosperous 

 reign of Henry VIII was also the era of Protes- 

 tant reformation, and with the interminable con- 

 troversies on the subject of religion came a quick- 

 ening of the national intelligence and an extension 

 of the benefits of education. New aims, new 

 desires, new aspirations, needed once more the in- 

 spired voice to give them utterance, and under the 

 Tudor sovereigns came the dawn of a glorious age, 

 which, reaching its apogee under the last of the 

 race, had been called the Elizabethan period. Dis- 

 content came in with the Stuarts, and the volcanic 

 upheavals of a civil war choked the stream of gen- 

 ius which had flowed so freely in the sixteenth 

 century. After England had crushed the power of 

 Louis XIV, this period of victory and exaltation 

 was as favorable to the production of genius as the 

 Elizabethan age, and the times of Queen Anne 

 could boast of Swift, Pope, Addison, and Stcele. 

 Under the last of the Stuarts the newspaper be- 

 gan to assume its modern form. To this period 

 might also be referred many of the stages in the 

 development of the modern novel. The literature 

 of the present day was a direct continuation of the 

 Georgian era, and it was questionable whether the 

 standard of merit was being maintained. If there 

 had been a time during the present century when 

 the minds of Englishmen were in accord, it was 

 during the late period of storm and stress when 

 Germany, a blood relation, and a supposed friend, 

 took advantage of the difficulties to do them an un- 

 friendly act, yet the situation evoked nothing better 

 than Austin's pitiful poem a possible sign that 

 the inspiration which had been created by the long 

 struggle with Napoleon had spent itself, and a lit- 

 erary decadence had set in. 



The following-named papers were read and dis- 

 cussed before the section : "The Relation of Ethics 

 to Political Economy," by Thomas Rosely ; "Ideal- 

 ism in Ethics and Religion." by A. J. Griffith: 

 "English Theories of Individual Freedom." by 

 James Hill: "The Psychology of Attention," by N. 

 J. Cocks; "The Place of Museums in University 

 Education," by Miss L. Macdonald ; "The Perma- 

 nent Place of Literature in Education," by C. J. 

 Prescott ; "Socialism in Education," by P. F.Row- 

 land ; " The Function of Classical Study in Educa- 

 tion," by F. V. Pratt; "Financial Aspects of Sec- 

 ondary Education," by P. Ansell Robin ; " Is there 

 a Science of Education?" by Mrs. W. L. Atkins; 

 " A New Educational Experiment," by Miss M. 

 Hodge; "Teaching versus Education," by Miss H. 

 Newcomb ; "The Rationale of Miraculous Cures in 

 Modern Days," by S. T. Knaggs ; " Evolution and 

 Sociology," by T. F. Macdonald ; " Technical Edu- 

 cation in England, Germany, America, and New 

 South Wales," by Prof. Selman ; and " Friedrich 

 Nietzsche and his Relation to Schopenhauer and 

 \Vagner." by C. J. Brennan. 



Final Session. The final session of the associa- 

 tion was held on Jan. 14, when the reports of the 

 various committees were received. Of these per- 

 haps the most important was that of the recom- 

 mendation committee recommending (1) that the 

 New South Wales Government acquire the quarry 

 of prismatic sandstone at Bondi with a view to its 

 preservation as a remarkable geological occurrence : 

 (2) the reappointment of the committee on the 



