ADDRESS. 49 



shipping rapidly on the increase, but it is increasing relatively to that 

 of the rest of the world. In 1860 our tonnage was 5,700,000 against 

 7,200,000; while it may now be placed as 8,500,000 against 8,200,000; 

 so that considerably more than half the whole shipping of the world 

 belongs to this country. 



If I say little with reference to economic science and statistics it is 

 because time, not materials, are wanting. 



I scarcely think that in the present state of the question I can be 

 accused of wandering into politics if I observe that the establishment of 

 the doctrine of free trade as a scientific truth falls within the period 

 under review. 



In education some progress has been made towards a more rational 

 system. When I was a boy, neither science, nor modern languages, nor 

 arithmetic formed any part of the public school, system of the country. 

 This is now happily changed. Much, however, still remains to be done. 

 Too little time is still devoted to French and German, and it is much to 

 be regretted that even in some of our best schools they are taught as dead 

 languages. Lastly, with few exceptions, only one or two hours a week 

 on an average are devoted to science. We have, I am sure, none of us 

 any desire to exclude, or discourage, literature. What we ask is that, say, 

 six hours a week each should be devoted to mathematics, modern lan- 

 guages, and science — an arrangement which would still leave twenty 

 hours for Latin and Greek. I admit the difficulties which schoolmasters 

 have to contend with; nevertheless, when we consider what science has 

 done and is doing for us, we cannot but consider that our present system 

 of education is, in the words of the Duke of Devonshire's Commission, 

 little less than a national misfortune. 



In agriculture the changes which have occurred in the period since 

 1831 have been immense. The last half-century has witnessed the in- 

 troduction of the modern S3'stem of subsoil drainage, founded on the ex- 

 periments of Smith of Deanston. The thrashing and drilling machines 

 wei-e the most advanced forms of machinery in use in 1831. Since then 

 there have been introduced the steam-plough ; the mowing-machine ; the 

 reaping-machine, which not only cuts the corn but binds it into sheaves ; 

 while the steam-engine thrashes out the grain and builds the ricks. 

 Science has thus greatly reduced the actual cost of labour, and yet it has 

 increased the wa^es of the labourer. 



It was to the British Association, at Glasgow in 1841, that Baron 

 Liebig first communicated his work ' On the Application of Chemistry to 

 Vegetable Physiology,' while we have also from time to time received 

 accounts of the persevering and important experiments which Mr. Lawes, 

 with the assistance of Dr. Gilbert, has now carried on for more than 

 forty years at Rothamsted, and which have given so great an impulse to 

 agriculture by directing attention to the principles of cropping, and by 

 leading to the more philosophical application of manures. 



1881. E 



