60 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1918 
Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies. 
The meetings of the Conference took place on Thursday, July 4, 
1918, at Burlington House, London, by kind permission of the Geo- 
logical Society. At ten o’clock the President (Dr. F. A. Baruer, 
F.R.S.) delivered the following address, entitled :— 
‘he Contribution of Local Societies to Adult Education. 
It is one thing to achieve greatness, another to have greatness thrust upon 
one. While I thoroughly appreciate the honour of being selected to preside 
over the deliberations of a Conference, which, let me mention, I first attended 
in 1881, yet I could have wished that the dignity had been thrust upon me 
at less short notice. With adequate time for the preparation of an address 
such as custom requires, I could ‘have pleased myself, if not my hearers, by 
unloading the burden of certain ponderings during these many years on the 
subjects prescribed by the Council of the Association as suitable for our dis- 
cussion. But in these days every man’s time is filled, and you will readily 
pardon me if instead I ask your advice and help towards a Report which 
I have been asked to draw up for another committee. 
The subject of the desired Report is ‘The Extent and Scope of the Work 
of Naturalists’ and similar Societies up and down the country’ in special refer- 
ence to ‘non-vocational adult education,’ or, as I have phrased it for our 
purposes, ‘ The Contribution of Local Societies to Adult Education.’ 
The reference admits of some latitude in the interpretation of the term 
Local Societies. As regards restriction of place, a rigid interpretation of 
the word ‘local’ would exclude not only such bodies as the Royal, the Linnean, 
and the Geological Societies, but also the Selborne Society and the Museums 
Association. This would be a mistake. Again, a society must not be excluded 
because its headquarters are in London, or even because it has a Royal Charter. 
The Geologists’ Association is confessedly an educational body for amateurs. 
The most obvious activity of the Zoological Society is the education of the 
populace. Some meetings of the Royal Geographical Society and the lectures 
of the Royal Institution appeal intentionally to those who are not professed 
students of science. 
As regards restriction of subject, the bodies to be discussed are in the main 
societies for the promotion of natural ‘history studies, but include a considerable 
number which devote their attention in large part to other branches of physical 
science, to archeology and history, and even to philosophy and polite literature. 
The line between naturalists’ societies and the others is vague and fluctuating, 
and the name is often an unsafe guide to classification. A society with the 
words ‘natural history’ in its title may drift into archeology and stay there, 
perhaps half-a-century, till some prophet of nature arises in the neighbourhood 
with force enough to re-introduce the old studies. 
Probably every district has the societies which it needs, and if people prefer 
one subject rather than another they are only to be commended for cultivating 
it. The educational effect depends less on the subject than on the way in which 
it is approached. Our ultimate classification will therefore be based on method 
rather than on matter. 
In compiling my own list I have excluded societies for the propagation 
of the Arts and Crafts, Photographic Societies except when they conduct 
regional surveys, and purely literary societies such as the hundreds of Shake- 
speare Societies. Some societies that do not, at least in their titles, claim 
connection with natural history or with science of any kind have been included 
because the papers read before them occasionally deal with the facts or theories 
of Natural Science. 
To appreciate the educational influence of these societies we have first to 
consider their number, distribution, and strength. 
For nearly forty years the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science has attempted to draw to its bosom some if not all of those societies 
scattered throughout our islands which promote any branch of knowledge that. 
