76 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



said, 'On the return of the British Association to the 

 metropolis of Scotland, I am naturally reminded of the 

 small band of pilgrims who carried the seeds of this Insti- 

 tution into the more genial soil of our sister land. . . . 

 Sir John Robison, Professor Johnston, and Professor J. 

 D. Forbes were the earliest friends and promoters of the 

 British Association. They went to York to assist in its 

 establishment, and they found there the very men who 

 were qualified to foster and organize it. The Rev. Vernon 

 Harcourt, whose name cannot be mentioned here without 

 gratitude, had provided laws for its government, and 

 along with Mr. Phillips, the oldest and most valuable of 

 its office-bearers, had made all those arrangements by 

 which its success was ensured. Headed by Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, one of the very earliest and most active advo- 

 cates of the Association, there assembled in York about 

 two hundred of the friends of science/ 



In this account of the founders of the Institution 

 Sir David omits only one, but that the chief name 

 his own. 



If to these words of Sir David Brewster we add those 

 of Forbes, when in 1866 he spoke at St. Andrews in favour 

 of the Association, then about to meet for the first time at 

 Dundee, enough will have been said to show with what 

 feelings that earliest meeting at York in 1831 was long 

 after remembered by two who had taken the chief part 

 in it : 



' . . . Mr. James Johnston, a chemist of repute 

 and a friend and correspondent of Sir David Brewster, 

 communicated to his scientific journal in 1830 details 

 of the proceedings of the German Association, and 

 their results. Sir David Brewster warmly took up the 

 idea of introducing into Great Britain a similar institu- 

 tion, which occurred the more opportunely that about 

 that time a controversy took place, in which he bore an 

 active part, as to whether the science of England, as com- 

 pared with that of continental countries, was or was not 

 in a condition of decline. Sir David, following Mr. 

 Babbage, espoused the less flattering side of the debate, 



