4 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



fear has been belied in tbe passing of tte years. The Association has 

 kept touch with the public, it has ' demonstrated to all men that Science 

 is thinking with them and for them,' it has secured their interest and 

 their sympathy, but it has never paid for that achievement the price of 

 a lowering of its aims or of its standards. It is its success in this respect 

 that has secured for it the prestige which has enabled it time and again 

 to stand forth as the ambassador of Science to the state, and so to play 

 an important part in initiating and furthering enterprises of great national 

 and scientific significance. 



For these reasons and for much else South Africa is proud and happy 

 to be able to welcome and do honour to the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. We welcome it the more heartily because of 

 our consciousness of the greatness of our indebtedness to the first visit 

 of the Association twenty-four years ago. To that visit, with which there 

 will always be linked a name honoured in the history of South Africa, as 

 it is in the annals of Science — I refer to Sir David Gill — this country 

 still looks back with grateful recollection. It marked the commencement 

 of an epoch in our scientific history, the epoch of the consolidation of the 

 position of Science in South Africa. 



Let us view the position of Science in our country as it was in 1905. 

 On the academic side it is the nakedness of the land that chiefly impresses 

 us. South Africa then had but one University, and it was in reality only 

 a Board of Examiners for the candidates presented by various Colleges, 

 which were all, without exception, inadequately staffed and poorly 

 equipped. In the subjects which fell within the scope of the Association, 

 as it was defined in 1905, there were in all the Colleges taken together in 

 that year only forty-nine workers, thirty-three professors, and sixteen 

 others. When it is remembered that this was the total number of 

 teachers of all branches of Science spread over seven different institutions, 

 all purporting to do University work, it is painfully obvious how little 

 time was available for scientific research and investigation. Nor was 

 the work done, measured in terms of the number of graduates, very 

 impressive. The number of those who in 1905 qualified for degrees in 

 Pure and Applied Science was only twenty-seven. Outside of the Colleges 

 scientific workers were to be found mainly in Government Departments, 

 then still small and inadequately staffed, and working in isolation in the 

 four South African Colonies. In most branches the State's scientific 

 activities were still in their earliest infancy. The organisation was only 

 just commencing to be built up. As part of these activities there fall 



