242 RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



functions are to foster both ; and it is perhaps on that 

 account that from time to time critics of the Associa- 

 tion have risen to assert either that it is not doing, 

 or that it has done, its proper work. Such a cry 

 arose, for example, about the time of the brilliant 

 ' jubilee ' meeting in York (1881), and a few years 

 later, when the Association made its first journey 

 overseas (1884), the position was epitomised in a verse 

 of one of the ' Red Lions' songs, entitled ' The 

 Travelled Ass ' : 



At York they thought she was sure to die ; 



For she didn't seem to enjoy age ; 

 But at last the doctors bade her try 



The effects of an ocean voyage. 



' Now the voyage is over, the ass is well ' -so it 

 was asserted later in the same ballad. But the pessi- 

 mistic view evidently persisted, for Alfred Newton, 

 in an address to the biological section at Manchester 

 in 1887 (an extraordinarily prosperous meeting), 

 spoke of ' those who believe, as I do, that our Associa- 

 tion has no justifiable cause for thinking that its 

 work is accomplished, that it had better settle its 

 worldly affairs, and compose its robes around it in a 

 becoming fashion, before lying down to die.' It is 

 to be inferred from this that the opinion contested 

 by Newton still held ground, and perhaps Sir Douglas 

 Galton had it in mind when, in his presidential address 

 (1895), he concluded a review of the Association's 

 work with the words, ' We exhibit no symptom of 

 decay.' 



An organisation of less vitality might easily have 

 been brought to the edge of the grave by the circum- 

 stances of the Great War (1914-18). As we have seen, 

 the Association,^owing to the preoccupations of those 



