TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 895 
yemunerate authors to write them. In my student-days the scarcity was even 
greater than it is now, and in fact then no one could hope to get even a reasonable 
acquaintance with the higher branches of exact science unless he had sowe 
familiarity with French or German at the very least—a familiarity which was rare 
among my fellow-students either in England or in Scotland. Might not the 
British Association now and then request some one fitted for the task to write a 
treatise on such and such a subject, and offer him reasonable remuneration for the 
time, labour, and skill required ? 
Another field in which the Association might profitably extend its labours 
appears to me to be the furnishing of reports, from time to time, on the teaching 
-of science in other countries, and the drawing up of programmes of instruction for 
the guidance of schoolmasters and of those who are reading for their own instruction. 
There is no need to impose these programmes ou any one. I would leave as much 
freedom to the teacher as I would to the private student. The programme drawn 
up by the Society for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching, for example, 
has been very useful to me as a teacher, although I do not follow it or any other 
system exclusively. The great thing is not to fall asleep over any programme or 
system. For the matter of that, Euclid would do very well in the earlier stages of 
school instruction at least, provided he were modernised, and judiciously discarded 
at that part of the student’s career where a lighter vehicle and more rapid progress 
becomes necessary. In such programmes as I contemplate the bearing of recent 
discovery on the elements of the various sciences could be pointed out, and the 
general public kept in this way from that gross ignorance into which they are at 
present allowed to fall. 
The British Association has of late, I believe, given its attention to the 
encouragement of local scientific activity. There can be no doubt that much 
could be done in this way that is not done at present. The concentration of 
scientific activity in metropolitan centres is beginning to have a depressing effect 
in Great Britain. Thisis seen in the singularly unequal way in which Government 
aid is distributed over the country. Large sums are spent—sometimes we out- 
siders think not to the best purpose—through certain channels, simply because 
these channels happen to have a convenient opening in some Government office in 
London, or in some place in that important city which has easy access to the 
ruling powers; while applications on behalf of other objects not less worthy are 
met with a refusal which is sometimes barely courteous. The result is that local 
effort languishes, and men of energy, finding that nothing can be done apart from 
certain centres, naturally gravitate thither, leaving provincial desolation to become 
more desolate. 
I think our great scientific societies—the Royal Societies of London and Edin- 
burgh and the Royal Irish Academy—might do more than they do at present to 
prevent this languishing of local science, which is so prejudicial to the growth of a 
scientific public. Besides their all-important publishing function, these bodies have 
for a considerable time back been constituted into a species of examining and 
degree-conferring bodies for grown-up men. That is to say, their membership has 
been conferred upon a principle of exclusion. Instead of any one being admitted 
who is willing to do his best, by paying his subscription or otherwise, to advance 
science, every one is excluded who does not come up to the standard of a certain 
examining body. So far is this carried in the case of the Royal Society of 
_ London, that there is an actual competitive examination, on the result of whicha 
certain number of successful candidates are annually chosen. Now, against this 
proceeding by itself I have nothing to say, except that it appears to belong to the 
pupillary age both of men and nations. It is not the honouring of the select few 
that I think evil, but the exclusion of the unhonoured many. The original inten- 
* tion in founding these societies was to promote the advancement of science. How 
that is done by excluding any one, be it the least gifted among us, who is honestly 
willing to contribute his mite towards the great end, fairly passes my comprehen- 
sion. If it is thought necessary, for the proper cultivation of the scientific spirit 
among us, that the degree-conferring function should be continued, let there by all 
means be an inner court of the temple, a place for titular immortals; but let there 
