Professors and Practical 



IT has been a fixed ambition of my life to play a worthy 

 part in adapting education to the needs of the busy world. 

 You will understand then though I cannot believe you will 

 understand fully how deeply I feel, and how much I prize, the 

 honour you have done me in placing me in the presidential chair 

 of a society that consists of men engaged in directing and execut- 

 ing the business of a large and important section of British indus- 

 try. My position arises, I know, from the circumstance that I 

 have taken part in the establishment of a memorial to that great 

 and noble man, George Livesey, who a short while ago was in 

 your ranks and whose former occupancy of this chair makes it 

 for ever a seat of honour. 



I am sure that you will not expect from me more than is 

 reasonable. You know (as, happily, I do also) that any attempt 

 of mine to comment or generalize upon the great majority of 

 the questions that concern you, would only lead me to disaster. 

 Your work, I know, is full of anxious problems. The gas 

 industries are in a state of tumultuous development ; you do 

 not know what a day may bring forth in the way of changes, 

 great or small. Vigilance, enterprise, skill of all kinds are 

 called for with an insistence that ever increases. It would be 

 grateful to your ears to hear the voice of the true prophet, and to 

 have an unquestionable forecast of your future tasks. Astrology 

 and alchemy were, it is true, kindred pursuits, and it is said 

 that modern chemistry is approaching alchemy ; but I will not 

 take upon myself to cast your horoscope. 



1 Presidential address to the Society of British Gas Industries, delivered 

 at Leeds on March 3, 1911. 



