TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 211 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Address hy Charles W. Mereifield, F.R.S., President of the Section. 



It is generally most useful and most interesting to intelligent listeners to hear from 

 those who address them that which is the most familiar to the mind of the speaker. 

 Passing by the question of primary education, I propose, therefore, to re^^iew briefly 

 our shortcomings in those subjects of instruction which are the necessary preludes to 

 natiu'al, and especially to mechanical, science. I then propose to direct your atten- 

 tion to some points dependent on the crowding of the population, and especially to 

 those consequences of it which are chiefly interesting to the Section of Mechanical 

 Science. 



To such an assembly as I see before me it hardly needs that I should say much 

 on the importance of a widespread Imowledge, as sound and exact as it can be made, 

 of the nature of all things about us. We need this not only as a nation to compete 

 with other nations, but we also need it more and more every day as men. The 

 crowded condition of the earth at this day is in the strongest contrast to its state in 

 the early days of our race ; and the necessities of our life then and now are in aa 

 strong contrast as those two conditions, or as the numbers who lived and live sub- 

 ject to them. Even in the early days there was more knowledge afoot than the 

 thoughtless among us dream of. At no stage of man's history was life to be held 

 on easy terms, and to those who in early times neglected the knowledge necessary 

 to take care of themselves and those about them the penalty of their remissness was 

 short and sure. It is not less certain now. Equal difficulties and dangers stfll 

 beset us, and are to be met with in the same way — by acquiruig knowledge, and by 

 applying it with industry and judgment. Only the knowledge that we want is 

 greater now than then, and, being a higher development of knowledge, it reqidres 

 to be moi'e systematically learnt and taught. This is an absolute necessity to us if 

 we wish to extend, or even to preserve, the possibiHty of our maintenance in such 

 masses as are gathered together in Western Europe, and in such towns as London 

 or Glasgow. 



Although the possibility of our existence as we are has been the consequence of 

 our ancestors, whether advisedly or not, yet successfully, following the law just 

 indicated, it is one of the concomitants of their success that we have brought up 

 amongst us the weak and foolish, who have recei-\ed the benefit of the knowledge 

 and industry of others without participating in either sufficiently to ruiderstand the 

 conditions which have rendered possible an ignorant, an idle, or a vicious hfe. Just 

 as the citizen of a coimtry which has been o\ev long at peace does not understand 

 that his safety depends upon the fighting power of himself and of those who will 

 take his part, so there are some in our midst who do not see the danger of ignorance 

 or the waste of idleness. Those among us are perhaps few who do not recognize 

 some disadvantage in ignorance and indolence ; but there are, I fear, many who fail 

 to realize the U]-gency of extirpating- both to the uttermost. Let me not be mis- 

 miderstood ; I do not suggest that there should be no pause from learning or from 

 exertion ; life would not be worth having vcithout its intervals of ease ; but the 

 enjoyment of these precious intervals is only to be purchased at the expense of 

 habitual thought and exertion ; and, in our present social condition, we cannot 

 safely neglect to afford to all amongst us opportimities of cultivating obser\-ation 

 and thought. 



These remarks may seem to you something like " slaying the dead." To those 

 engaged in the active work of mechanical industry, ignorance, stupidity, and indo- 

 lence are the enemy at the gate, with whom there is and can be no truce. But let 

 me ask even you whether you lia^e not among your circle of acquaintance many 

 ■who think that the erudition of a few and the ignorance of the many Ls a better 

 state of things than the miiversal and systematic instruction which, happily for our- 

 selves, our representative assembly has now determined to secure for all amongst 

 us. Let me ask whether there are not some who think the study of history or 

 literature far more important than natural science ; some also who think that reli- 

 gious teaching supersedes all other learning. All these doctrines are in my opinion 



