THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 5 



tained ever since, is ' to obtain more general attention for the objects of 

 Science and the removal of any disadvantages of a public kind which im- 

 pede its progress.' In an article contributed by Brewster to the * Quarterly 

 Review ' in 1830, he asserted frankly that ' the sciences of England ' were 

 ' in a wretched state of depression, and their decline is mainly owing to the 

 ignorance and supineness of the Government ' as well as to various other 

 causes which he detailed. The same theme (if less forcibly stated) recurs in 

 some of the earlier addresses from the chair of the Association : the Prince 

 Consort, for example, as President in 1859, thus indicates his view of the 

 situation at that time — ' We may be justified in hoping,' he said, ' that by 

 the gradual diffusion of Science, and its increasing recognition as a principal 

 part of our national education, the public in general, no less than the legis- 

 lature and the State, will more and more recognise the claims of Science 

 to their attention ; so that it may no longer require the begging-box, but 

 speak to the State, like a favoured child to its parent, sure of his parental 

 solicitude for its welfare ; that the State will recognise in Science one of 

 its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest 

 dictates of self-interest demand.' 



It may be fairly said that the position foreshadowed in those words is 

 now, in a large measure, attained. The progress towards it was visible, 

 if .''low, down to the end of the last century ; but the beginning of a new 

 era was then marked by the establishment of the National Physical 

 Laboratory. This was at first set up in Kew Observatory, a building which, 

 as a laboratory for magnetic and meteorological observations, and for 

 the standardising of instruments, owed its maintenance to the British 

 Association for thirty years from 1841, when, as a royal observatory, the 

 Government decided to dismantle it. The building proved incapable of 

 extension to accommodate the whole of the work, and in 1900 Bushy 

 House, Teddington, was placed at the disposal of the laboratory by the 

 Crown. The laboratory, at its inception, was divided into departments 

 dealing with physics, engineering and chemistry, and it possesses also 

 the famous William Froude experimental ship tank. The investigations 

 with which it has been so largely concerned — -the testing and standardisa- 

 tion of machines, materials, and scientific instruments, researches into 

 methods of mea.surement with the utmost accuracy, work on scale-models 

 of ships, and the like — -while of the first importance to Government Depart- 

 ments concerned with such applications of science, have also achieved 

 many valuable results for industry in improving standard (jualities, in 

 indicating scientific methods applicable throughout a variety of manu- 



