rRESIDENTiAL ADbRESS. 479 



rcgai'ds the fuudauieutal conceptions of the theory, * thecumulativo evideuce seems 

 overpoweriug-.' At all events, we may consider that the application to the 

 phenomena of solution of reasoning based on thermodynamic considerations is 

 justifiable, until we are presented with stronger arguments than those based on 

 the repulsiveness to certain chemists of the conclusions to which it leads, or the 

 doubt it throws upon the activities of Maxwell's demons and the selective action 

 of semi-permeable membranes. 



I will now trespass upon your forbearance and pass from the consideration of 

 such special departments of natural science as usually engage the attention of 

 members of this Section to some more general considerations, which naturally arise 

 in any comparison of our knowledge of to-day with that which we possessed when 

 we last met in this city. 



It will, I think, generally be admitted that during the last twenty-five years 

 the increase in our ' natural knowledge ' has been greater than in any previous 

 quarter of a century. 



Day by day we are adding new facts to our storehouse of information, until it 

 has now become impossible for the individual to have more than a superficial 

 knowledge of the contents of the building. And although this accumulation is 

 one which we may well regard with satisfaction, it necessarily gives rise to difli- 

 culties unfelt by our predecessors. 



I venture to indicate one of such difficulties, one which has been brought 

 home to me both by my experience as an examiner and by the fact that during 

 the past few years I have had to preside over many meetings of examiners, and to 

 mark the effect of examinations on the teaching in our universities. 



We now expect a student to acquire in a three years' course a far greater 

 amount of information than was considered necessary, say, twenty-five years ago. 

 The attention both of the teacher and of the taught is naturally directed to those 

 extremities of the branches of science in which the growth has been most marked 

 in recent 3'ears, and I venture to think that there is in consequence some danger of 

 our neglecting the roots of the whole matter. Compare, for example, a Final paper 

 in chemistry in any one of our universities with its predecessor of a quarter of a 

 century ago. 



The enormous advance of organic chemistry has necessarily reacted on the 

 examinations, and thus the student is unable to devote an adequate proportion of 

 his time and attention to the foundations of the subject. The same remarlc applies 

 in the domain of physics. There is a danger, therefore, of our educational edifice 

 l^ecomiug top-heavy, 



I have heard complaints, on the one hand, from the examiners that while the 

 candidates frequently exhibit considerable knowledge of the most recent scientific 

 development?, they show a lamentable ignorance of the simple phenomena and 

 the principles they illustrate. On the other hand, I have heard from candidates 

 that many of the questions were too simple — that they were concerned with prin- 

 ciples and facts to which their attention had not been directed since they first 

 began the study of natural science. 



My own experience lias been that the simplest questions are those answered in 

 the least effective manner. A candidate unable to give satisfactory illustrations of 

 Newton's Laws will discourse upon the mass of an electron or the nature of the 

 Rontgen rays, and attempt the solution of problems on such subjects as llerzian 

 waves and electric convection. 



I hope that the attention of both examiners and teachers may be directed to 

 the best methods of dealing with what appears to me to be not only a serious but 

 an increasing evil. 



To pass from one of the inconveniences which inevitably arise from growth, it 

 is pleasant to dwell upon its more gratifying consequences. 



Perhaps one of the most marked characteristics of the progress of science in 

 i-ecent times is the increasing public appreciation of the importance of original 

 investigation and research. 



The expansion of the university colleges in number and importance has greatly 

 ftssisted and quickened this movement. 



