BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 



SCIENCE. 



SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 



OF SCIENCE. 



AFRICA AND SCIENCE. 



ADDRESS BY 



JAN H. HOFMEYR, M.A., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION, 

 ON THE OCCASION OP THE Inattgubal Meeting IN Cape Town, July 22, 1929. 



To-NiGHT I enter upon the consummation of what is at once the highest 

 and the least merited distinction which it has been my privilege to receive. 

 To those who called me to the office of President of the South African 

 Association for the Advancement of Science I tender my sincere thanks. 

 I make myself no illusions in respect of the adequacy of my claims to 

 that honour on the ground either of scientific attainment or of services 

 rendered to the cause of Science, nor would I have our visitors remain for 

 a moment without the knowledge that my scientific qualifications for this 

 Presidential Chair are of the slightest. They are far less indeed than 

 those of that distinguished statesman to whom when he had remarked 

 to the great Faraday in relation to an important new discovery in Science, 

 ' But after all, what is the use of it ? ' the scientist replied, ' Why, Sir, 

 there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it.' The 

 Presidency of this Association is an honour the conferment of which upon 

 myself has never seemed to fall properly within the scope of my ambitions ; 

 it imposes responsibilities for the discharge of which I am all too scantily 

 eqmpped ; and I can only seek to justify my election in a manner similar 

 to that which Mr. Stanley Baldwin followed when he was chosen to be 

 President of the Classical Association in England. I can but say that, 

 while it is to the scientist that we look for the advancement and the 

 progress of Science, the effectiveness with which his work is brought to 

 frmtion does depend in some measure on the interest, the sympathy, and 

 the enthusiasm, with which his achievements are followed up by that 

 army of plain, ordinary men, in which I gladly count myself a musket 

 1929 B 



