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DISCOVERY 



on two legs or four on its way up the street. " But 

 even worse than to be regarded with curiosity or con- 

 tempt is to be ignored altogether. " There is not at 

 this moment, within the British Isles," complained 

 Sir David Brewster in 1830, " a single scientist, how- 

 ever eminent have been his services, who bears the 

 lowest title that is given to the lowest benefactor of 

 the nation, or to the humblest servant of the Crown ! " 

 This was true enough if we consider James Watt, 

 not, however, if we consider Sir David himself. Yet 

 things were bad for scientists in those days. For them 

 no pensions, allowances, or sinecures ; no favours 

 from the sovereign, no friendships with his ministers. 

 Recognition, power, fame were still to come ; the 

 Orders of Merit and of the British Empire had still to 

 be instituted ; not then was that home of science, 

 Cambridge, a beknighted city. 



The British Association was founded to better this 

 wretched condition. Its founders were Sir David 

 Brewster, John Phillips the geologist, and the Rev. 

 W. Vernon Harcourt, chemist and Canon of York. 

 Its object was to advance science by giving a stronger 

 impulse and more systematic direction to scientific 

 inquiry, to obtain a greater degree of national 

 attention to the objects of science, and to promote the 

 intercourse of the cultivators of science with one 

 another and with those from abroad. To the first 

 meeting, held in York under the presidency of Lord 

 Milton, afterwards the third Earl FitzwilUam, came 

 200 friends of science. The early meetings became at 

 once successful. Dalton attended. Cambridge sent 

 Sedgwick, Airy, Herschel, Babbage, and Lubbock ; 

 London, Faraday, Owen, Wheatstone, and Lyell. 

 From Ireland came Lord Rosse and Sir William 

 Hamilton, and, from the Continent, Bessel, Liebig, 

 Leverrier, and Jacobi. The meetings were originally 

 for men only. It was thought that if ladies were 

 admitted to any of the scientific discussions the pro- 

 ceedings would lose their real value and degenerate — 

 " especially in a place like Oxford — into a sort of 

 Albcmarle-dilettanti meeting. 



The York meeting was a great success and the 

 Association found its feet at once. There was, how- 

 ever, opposition to be encountered and quashed. 

 Some did not like the rule that the annual meetings 

 be held only in the provinces ; some thought the 

 Association was being used by its founders to advertise 

 themselves unnecessarily ; others were simply shy. 

 Lockhart of the Qiiarlcrlv Review, and even Charles 

 Dickens attacked it. Many sneering and pseudo- 

 scientific humbugs maligned it. The Times showed 

 uncompromising hostility. When the Association held 

 its second meeting in 1832 at Oxford the honorary 

 degree of D.C.L. was bestowed upon some of the most 

 distinguished members of the Association. Yet 



Keble, at that time a leader of university thought, 

 found time to write, " The Oxford Doctors have 

 truckled sadly to the spirit of the times in receiving the 

 hodgepodge of philosophers as they did." The hodge- 

 podge of philosophers were Robert Brown (of the 

 Brownian movement). Sir David Brewster, Michael 

 Faraday, and John Dalton, great scientists all ! 



But none of these things worried the Association 

 much. Slowly it grew in numbers, repute, and power. 

 In 1833 there were four sections, in 1836 seven ; to- 

 day there are thirteen. Geography became a separate 

 section in 1S51, anthropology in 1884, physiology in 

 1893, educational science in 1901, agriculture in 1912, 

 and psychology in 1921 . There is no record of a section 

 once formed being afterwards disbanded, and though 

 some were objected to at the time of their formation, 

 all have eventually justified their establishment. 

 Another thing illustrative of the Association's power 

 and influence is the number of smaller scientific 

 societies to which it has given birth. Important and 

 flourishing societies in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birming- 

 ham, Norwich, Bradford, Southampton, and Aberdeen 

 were founded as a result of, and soon after, the meetings 

 of the Association in those cities. 



A feature of the British Association has been the 

 overseas meetings. The first of these was held in 

 Montreal in 1884. An American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science had been founded in 1848 

 on the lines of the British one. This society met in 

 Montreal in 1882 and to it they invited British scientific 

 men, offering many inducements, but the response was 

 very poor. Yet it helped to popularise the suggestion 

 of holding a meeting outside England. Opposition, 

 however, was strong. Why should eminent scientists 

 travel across the Atlantic to visit a land not great in 

 science ? It could only be because they regarded the 

 trip as a picnic, or because they could add to the joy 

 of an agreeable outing the pleasure of showing off or 

 of being wondered at. The Canadians, some of 

 them at least, were also dubious. They foresaw audi- 

 ences small and uninspired : " the mind of the average 

 fashionable gathering is not scientific ; it is not even 

 literary in the most meagre sense ; it very hazOy 

 comprehends Oscar Wilde ; it fails to grasp Professor 

 Tyndall or Professor Huxley." Nevertheless the 

 Association went overseas more than nine hundred 

 strong ; they saw and conquered. The whole adven- 

 ture was a great success. Numerous excursions were 

 arranged ; the American Association was invited to 

 Montreal, and it invited the British Association to 

 Philadelphia ; everybody was pleased, and even some 

 scientific work was done. Since then the Association 

 has crossed the sea four times : to Toronto in 1897, to 

 South Africa in 1905, to Winnipeg in 1909, and to 

 Australia in 1914. All of these meetings have been 



