318 Notes and Comments. 
A SUMMARY. 
The following is a summary of the Committee’s report :— 
(1) Many local societies arrange for the delivery of 
occasional popular or semi-popular science lectures, but the 
audiences are mostly made up of members and their friends. 
(2) In most places there is a small circle of people interested 
in scientific work and development, and _ sufficient means 
exist to enable them to extend their acquaintance with diverse 
branches of natural knowledge, but the great bulk of the com- 
munity is outside this circle and is untouched by its influence. 
(3) Popular lectures on scientific subjects do not usually 
attract such large audiences as formerly in most parts of the 
Kingdom. To make a wide appeal to the general public the 
same principles of organisation, advertisement, and selection 
of lecturer and subject must be followed, as are adopted by 
agents of other public performances. 
(4) Increase in the number of educational institutions has 
provided for the needs of most persons who wish to study 
science, either to gain knowledge or prepare for a career. 
Other people seek entertainment rather than mental effort 
in their leisure hours, and they require subjects of topical in- 
terest, or of social and political importance, to attract them 
to lectures. 
(5) Few popular lectures pay their expenses, and scarcely 
a single local society has a special fund upon which it can draw 
in order to meet the cost involved in the provision of a first-rate 
lecturer and adequate advertisement. 
(6) Expenses of public lectures are usually paid from 
(2) general funds of local societies; (b) college or museum 
funds; (c) rates; (d) education grants; or (¢é : Gilchrist and 
other trusts. 
(7) After the war there will be a new public for lectures 
and courses on a wide range cf subjects ; but one of the main 
purposes of the lectures should be to show as many people 
as possible that they are personally concerned as citizens 
with the position of science in the State, in industry, and in 
education. 
PROF. G. A. LEBOUR’S ADDRESS. 
In his presidential address to the Conference of Delegates, 
Prof. G. A. Lebour dealt with ‘ Co-operation.’ He pointed 
out that all Field Clubs, at one period or another, probably 
‘have been the means of encouraging and fixing the scientific 
bent of minds which without their help would have been lost 
to science. I refer specially to those many remarkable men 
who, without special training, often without any but the slightest 
elementary education, have done so much towards the advance- 
ment of Biology and Geology. Every district has produced 
Naturalist, 
