24 president's address. 



the Cause of Truth and Knowledge, have never had a more austere 

 duty set before us. I know that our ranks are thinned. How many 

 of those who would otherwise be engaged in progressive research have 

 been called away for their country's service! How many who could 

 least be spared were called to return no more ! Scientific intercourse 

 is broken, and its cosmopolitan character is obscured by the death 

 struggle in which whole Continents are locked. The concentration, 

 moreover, of the Nation and of its Government on immediate ends has 

 distracted it from the urgent reforms called for by the very evils that 

 are the root cause of many of the greatest difficulties it has had to 

 overcome. It is a lamentable fact that beyond any nation of the West 

 the bulk of our people remains sunk not in comparative ignorance 

 only — for that is less difficult to overcome — but in intellectual apathy. 

 The dull incuria of the parents is reflected in the children, and the 

 desire for the acquirement of knowledge in our schools and colleges 

 is appreciably less than elsewhere. So, too, with the scientific side of 

 education, it is not so much the actual amount of Science taught that 

 is in question — insufficient as that is — as the instillation of the scientific 

 spirit itself — the perception of method, the sacred thirst for investiga- 

 tion. 



But can we yet despair of the educational future of a people that 

 has risen to the full height of the great emergency with which they 

 were confronted? Can we doubt that, out of the crucible of fiery trial, 

 a New England is already in the moulding ? 



We must ell bow before the hard necessity of the moment. Of 

 much we cannot judge. Great patience is demanded. But let us, who 

 still have the opportunity of doing so, at least prepare for the even 

 more serious struggle that must ensue against the enemy in our midst, 

 that gnaws our vitals. We have to deal with ignorance, apathy, the 

 non-scientific mental attitude, the absorption of popular interest in 

 sports and amusements. 



And what, meanwhile, is the attitude of those in power — of our 

 Govei'nment, still more of our permanent officials ? A cheap epigram is 

 worn threadbare in order to justify the ingrained distrust of expert., in 

 other words of scientific, advice on the part of our public offices. We 

 hear, indeed, of 'Commissions' and 'Enquiries,' but the inveterate 

 attitude of our rulers towards the higher interests that we are here to 

 promote is too clearly shown by a single episode. It is those higher 

 interests that are the first to be thrown to the wolves. All are agreed that 

 special treasures should be stored in positions of safety, but at a time 

 when it might have been thought desirable to keep open every avenue 

 of popular instruction and of intelligent diversion, the galleries of our 

 National Museum at Bloomsbury were entirely closed for the sake of the 

 paltriest saving — ^three minutes, it was calculated — of the cost of the 



