28 ■ REPORT — 1887. 



and useful aspects, owes to chemistry, and, tlierefote, how essential a 

 knowledge of the principles of the science is to all who have the industrial 

 progress of the country at heart. 



This leads me to refer to what has been accomplished in this country 

 of ours towards the diffusion of scientific knowledge amongst the people 

 during the Victorian era. It is true that the English people do not 

 possess, as yet, that appreciation of the value of science so characteristic 

 of some other nations. Up to very recent years our educational system, 

 handed down to us from the middle ages, has systematically ignored 

 science, and we are only just beginning, thanks in a great degree to the 

 prevision of the late Prince Consort, to give it a place, and that but 

 an unimportant one, in our primary and secondary schools or in our 

 universities. The country is, however, now awakening to the necessity 

 of placing its house in order in this respect, and is beginning to see that 

 if she is to maintain her commercial and industrial supremacy the 

 education of her people from top to bottom must be carried out on new 

 lines. The question as to how this can be most safely and snrely ac- 

 complished is one of transcendent national importance, and the statesman 

 who solves this educational problem will earn the gratitude of generations 

 yet to come. 



In conclusion, may I be allowed to welcome the unprecedentedly large 

 number of foreign men of science who have on this occasion honoured the 

 British Association by their presence, and to express the hope that this 

 meeting may be the commencement of an international scientific organi- 

 sation, the only means nowadays existing, to use the words of one of the 

 most distinguished of our guests, of establishing that fraternity among 

 nations from which politics appears to remove us farther and farther by 

 absorbing human powers and human work, and directing them to pur- 

 poses of destruction ? It would indeed be well if Great Britain, which 

 has hitherto taken the lead in so many things that are great and good, 

 should now direct her attention to the furthering of international organi- 

 sations of a scientific nature. A more appropriate occasion than the 

 present meeting could perhaps hardly be found for the inauguration of 

 such a movement. 



But whether this hope be realised or not, we all unite in that one 

 great object, the search after truth for its own sake, and we all, there- 

 fore, may join in re-echoing the words of Lessing : ' The worth of man 

 lies not in the truth which he possesses, or believes that he possesses, 

 but in the honest endeavour which he puts forth to secure that truth ; 

 for not by the possession of truth, but by the search after ih, are the 

 faculties of man enlarged, and in this alone consists his ever-growing 

 perfection. Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride. If God 

 should hold in His right hand all truth, and in His left hand tbe ever- 

 active desire to seek truth, though with the condition of perpetual error, 

 I would humbly ask for the contents of the left hand; saying, ' Father, 

 give me this ; pure truth is only for Thee." ' 



