6 REPORT— 1903. 



other teaching centres are as important as battleships or big battalions ; 

 are, in fact, essential parts of a modern State's machinery, and, as such, 

 to be equally aided and as efficiently organised to secure its future well- 

 being. 



Now the objects of the British Association as laid down by its 

 founders seventy-two years ago are ' To give a stronger impulse and 

 a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry — to promote the inter- 

 course of those who cultivate science in different parts of the British 

 Empire with one another and with foreign philosophers —to obtain a more 

 general attention to the objects of science and a removal of any dis- 

 advantages of a public kind which impede its progress.' 



In the main, my predecessors in this Chair, to which you have done 

 me the honour to call me, have dealt, and with great benefit to science, 

 with the objects first named. 



But at a critical time like the present I find it imperative to depart 

 from the course so generally followed by my predecessors and to deal 

 with the last object named, for unless by some means or other we ' obtain 

 a more general attention to the objects of science and a removal of any 

 disadvantages of a public kind which impede its progress,' we shall suflTer 

 in competition with other communities in which science is more generally 

 utilised for the purposes of the national life. 



The Struggle for Existence in Modern Communities. 



Some years ngo, in discussing the relations of scientific instruction to 

 our industries, Huxley pointed out that we were in presence of a new 

 'struggle for existence,' a struggle which, once commenced, must go on 

 until only the fittest survives. 



It is a struggle between organised species — nations — not between indi- 

 viduals or any class of individuals. It is, moreover, a struggle in which 

 science and brains take the place of swords and sinews, on which depended 

 the result of those conflicts which, up to the present, have determined the 

 history and fate of nations. The school, the University, the laboratory, 

 and the workshop are the battlefields of this new warfare. 



But it is evident that if this, or anything like it, be true, our industries 

 cannot be involved alone ; the scientific spirit, brain-power, must not 

 be limited to the workshop, if other nations utilise it in all branches of 

 their administration and executive. 



It is a question of an impoilant change of front. It is a question of 

 Snding a new basis of stability for the Empire in face of new condition.s. 

 I am certain that those familiar with the present state of things will 

 acknowledge that the Prince of Wales's call, ' Wake up,' applies quite as 

 much to the members of the Government as it does to the leaders of 

 industry. 



What is wanted is a complete organisation of the resources of the 

 nation, so as to enable it best to face all the new problems which the 



