CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 217 
which will probably be reduced, owing to the requirements of the war, to not 
more than two or three per cent. 
Next to fostering agriculture let it be your dim, individually as well as 
collectively in your capacity as members of societies working in harmonious 
co-operation, to promote to the best of your ability the re-afforestation of our 
country. By encouraging these two industries you will help to secure its future 
safety and prosperity. 
I have said nothing about three Sections of the British Association: B, 
Chemistry; G, Engineering; and I, Physiology. In them concerted action is 
not so much required as in those which I have brought before you, but I hope 
that I have given, for a single address, a sufficient number of examples of good 
work done by our Corresponding Societies in the past and a sufficiency of hints 
of what their aims should be in the future. I will only add that it should 
be the chief aim of each of us 
“To make the world within his reach 
Somewhat the better for his being, 
And gladder for his human speech.’ 
A vote of thanks was passed to the President on the proposition of Mr. 
William Whitaker, Chairman of the Corresponding Societies Committee, 
seconded by Sir Edward Brabrook, and afterwards the following discussion 
took place. 
Mr. Witt1am Wuitaker (Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society) 
said: I heartily agree with the President in pretty nearly the whole of his 
address. That he was the President of the first unofficial Congress of the 
ager Association interests me especially, as I happen’ to have been that of 
the last. 
It is a great thing that all societies should know of the slides mentioned by 
the President, and that they can be borrowed. I should like to emphasise 
what the President says of Topography. It is very important that this par- 
ticular branch of Geography should be studied, not only by observation in 
the field, but by the consideration of its literature, which is an exceedingly 
large and important one. I am not going to defend the Ordnance Survey; it is 
their business, not mine; but there is a good deal to be said for them in regard 
to prices. If any societies want a large number of maps for their use as a 
society—not for sale—they can get them at a ridiculously low price. We in 
Croydon have done it. We not merely got a map at a low price, but got the 
copy printed as we wanted it—that is, with Croydon as a centre; five hundred 
copies, and J think the cost was about a penny a copy. Of course they cannot 
be sold to members, but they can be given to them for use in marking scientific 
areas and sites. In Croydon every subject of importance we put on a map. 
The President says that Economic Science should be separated from 
Politics. But you cannot, the two sciences go together. Economics is a very 
important part of political science ; in fact, political science cannot get on without 
it. There is one economic law you cannot get rid of, and that is simply to 
buy in the cheapest market. In the end it comes to this, that the law will 
conquer. I need not go into the reasons Of course the war is making us 
think of these things, rightly in many cases, wrongly in others. 
I am not inclined to go so far as the President in favour of classical 
languages, but I heartily agree with him in what he said about English. We 
have in this country one of the finest languages, if not the finest, that ever 
Was invented, and we ought, instead of neglecting it, to make it one of our 
chief studies. It is one of those things in which we English, as we generally 
do, depreciate our own things, and make out that the English people are doing 
wrong and other people doing right. One of the changes wanted in English 
education is the proper study of the English language. 
‘The President has rightly put to the front the Hertfordshire County 
Museum. One of the societies I represent is the Essex Field Club, and we have 
two museums to look after. I do not know whether any other society can go as 
far as that. One museum is managed in concert with what I venture to call 
the enlightened Borough of West Ham, with a Council which does not mind 
