ii8 



NA TURE 



iDcc. 3, 1885 



from ordinary schools, and by their very poor mathematical 

 acquirements, but by the miserable character of the so-called 

 literary training which they have undergone. 



Nothing would help the man of science of the future to rise to 

 the level of his great enterprise more effectually than certain 

 modifications, on the one hand, of primary and secondaiy school 

 education, and, on the other, of the conditions which are attached 

 by the Universities to the attainment of their degrees and their 

 rewards. As I ventured to remark some years ago, we want a 

 most favoured nation clause inserted in our treaty with educators. 

 We have a right to claim that science shall be put upon the same 

 footing as any other great subject of instruction, that it shall 

 have an equal share in the schools, an equal share in the recog- 

 nised qualification for degrees, and in University honours and 

 rewards. It must be recognised that science, as intellectual dis- 

 cipline, is at least ns valuable, and, as knowledge, is at least as 

 important, as literature, and that the scientific student must no 

 longer be handicapped by a linguistic (I will not call it literary) 

 burden, the equivalent of which is not imposed upon his classical 

 compeer. 



Let me repeat that I say this, not as a depredator of literature, 

 but in the interests of literature. The reason why our young 

 people are so often scandalously and lamentably deficient in 

 literary knowledge, and still more in the feeling and the desire 

 for literaiy excellence, lies in the fact that they have been with- 

 held from a true literary training by the pretence of it, which too 

 often passes under the name of classical instruction. Nothing is 

 of more importance to the man of science than that he should 

 appreciate the value of style, and the literary work of the school 

 would be of infinite value to him if it taught him this one thing. 

 But I do not believe that this is to be done by what is called 

 forming one's self on classical models, or that the advice to give 

 one's days and nights to the study of any great writer, is of much 

 value, *' Le'style est I'homme meme," as a man of science who 

 was a master of style has profoundly said ; and aping somebody 

 else does not help one to express one's self A good style is the 

 vivid expression of clear thinking, and it can be attained only by 

 those who will take infinite pains, in the first place, to purge 

 their own minds of ignorance and half knowledge, and, in the 

 second, to clothe their thoughts in the words which will most 

 fitly convey them to the minds of others. I can conceive no 

 greater help to our scientific students than that they should bring 

 to their work the habit of mind which is implied in the power to 

 write their own language in a good style. But this is exactly 

 what our present so-called literary education so often fails to 

 confer, even on those who have enjoyed its fullest advantages ; 

 while the ordinary schoolboy has rarely been even made aware 

 that its attainment is a thing to be desired. 



I venture to lay these last observations before you, because we 

 have heard a good deal l.itely of schemes for the remodelling of 

 the University of London, which has done so much, through its 

 Faculties ot Science and Medicine, to promote scientific instruc- 

 tion. As a member of the Senate of the University I am 

 necessarily greatly interested in such projects, and I greatly 

 regret that I have been unable to take part in the recent action 

 concerning them. This is not the time or the place for the dis- 

 cussion of any of these proposals, but many of my hearers must 

 be as warmly interested in them as I am myself, and it may not 

 be out of place to submit two questions for their serious con- 

 sideration. 



In the interests of science, will any change be satisfactory 

 which does not lighten the linguistic burden at present imposed 

 on students of science and of medicine by the matriculation 

 examination ? 



And again, in the interests of science, will any change be 

 satisfactory which does not convert the examining University into 

 a teaching University ? And, by that Last term, I do not mean a 

 mere co-operative society of teacher-examiners, but a corporation 

 which shall embrace a professoriate charged with the exposition 

 and the advancement of the higher forms of knowledge in all 

 its branches. 



The future both of pure science and of medicine in this country 

 is, I think, greatly interested in the answer which Fellows of this 

 Society, after due meditation, may be disposed to give to these 

 questions. 



I have to announce an unusually large number of changes in 

 the staff of the Society. 



Last December we regretted to receive the resignation of Mr. 

 Walter White, so long our Assistant Secretary, whose faithful 

 and efficient services, continued for more than forty years, are 



well known to all the Fellows of the Society. The minutes of 

 the Council record our appreciation of Mr. White's services, and 

 our endeavour to give as substantial a form as possible to our 

 hearty recognition of his deserts. The vacancy thus caused has 

 been filled up by the appointment of Mr. Herbert Rix, whose 

 work since he has held the office of clerk has been such as to 

 justify the confidence of the officers, not only that the functions 

 hitherto discharged by the Assistant Secretary will be as well 

 performed as heretofore ; but that, if the interest of the Society 

 should demand it, we may throw still more important duties upon 

 iiim. I receive the most favourable reports of the efficiency of 

 Mr. James, who has been appointed to the office of clerk in place 

 of Mr. Rix. 



Notwithstanding my release from all serious work, my health 

 remained so very indifterent for some months after my return to 

 England that I felt it" my duty to the Society to bring the ques- 

 tion of my resignation of the Presidency, on the present Anni- 

 versary, before the Council which met on May 20. My col- 

 leagues were kind enough to wish that my final decision should 

 be deferred, and I need hardly say how willing I should have 

 been to retain my honourable office if I could have done so with 

 due regard to the interests of the Society, and, perhaps I may 

 add, of self-preservation. 



I am happy to say that I have good reason to believe that, 

 with prolonged rest — by which I do not mean idleness, but 

 release from distraction and complete freedom from those lethal 

 agencies which are commonly known as the pleasures of society — 

 1 may yet regain so much strength as is compatible with nrl- 

 vancing years. But, in order to do so, I must, for a long time 

 yet, be content to lead a more or less anchoritic life. Now it is 

 not fitting that your President should be a hermit, and it becomes 

 me, who have received so much kindness and consideration from 

 the Society, to be particularly careful that no sense of personal 

 gratification should delude me into holding the office of its 

 representative one moment after reason and conscience have 

 pointed out my incapacity to discharge the serious duties which 

 devolve upon the President, w-ith some approach to efficiency. 



I beg leave, therefore, with much gratitude for the crowning 

 honour of my life which you have conferred upon me, to be per- 

 mitted to vacate the chair of the Society as soon as the business 

 of this meeting is at an end. 



As I am of opinion that it is very undesirable that the Presi- 

 dent should even seem to wish to exert any influence, direct or 

 indirect, on the action of the Fellows assembled in General 

 Meeting, I am silent respecting the proposals embodied in the 

 new list of the officers of the Society which my colleagues and I 

 have unanimously agreed to submit for your consideration. 



The President then proceeded to the presentation of the 

 Medals : — 



The Copley Medal is awarded to Prof. August Kekule of 

 Bonn, whose researches in organic chemistry, extended over the 

 last five-and-thirty years, have been fruitful of results of high 

 importance in chemical science. The great work of Prof. 

 Kekule's life, that which has raised him to the highest rank 

 among the investigators of the da)', is his general theory of the 

 constitution of carbon compounds, in which the now universally 

 accepted conception of the constitution of those compounds wa^ 

 first clearly and definitely stated. 



A development of the fundamental theory led Kekule to the 

 discovery of the constitution of an exceedingly numerous and 

 very complex class of compounds, which he ha.s named the aro- 

 matic compounds, and his theory of the constitution of the 

 aromatic compounds has suggested and guided innumerable 

 investigations. The marvellous success obtained by many of his 

 followers and pupils in building up artificially complex sub- 

 stances which had defied the efforts of all previous investigators, 

 affords tangible evidence that Kekule's labours have given us a 

 deeper insight into the order of nature. 



One of the Royal Medals is awarded to Prof. Hughes, 

 F. R. S., for a series of experimental investigations in electricity 

 and magnetism, which are remarkable alike for ingenuity of 

 contrivance, for the simplicity of the apparatus employed, for 

 the delicacy of the indications afforded, and for the wide ap- 

 plicability of the instruments invented to researches other than 

 those for which they were originally designed. 



The microphone, the induction balance, and the sonometer, 

 are instnnnents by which inconceivably minute electrical and 

 magnetic disturbances not only make themselves loudly audible, 

 but may be definitely measured ; and their application has 

 opened up new lines of inquiry. 



