CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 593 
certain that in professional archzology at the present day, Hokum is on the 
increase. Learned and estimable young men in baggy trousers and suede 
shoes are spreading contagiously from our universities and are beginning 
to cloud their science and their own minds with a whole lot of unnecessary 
Hokum, fortifying themselves the while with the disastrous slogan, Odi 
profanum vulgus et arceo. 
The remedy, could it be enforced, is an easy one. Could these young 
men—and, indeed, some of their elders—but be compelled to explain their 
ideas periodically to, shall we say, the Netherwallop Antiquarian Society 
and Field Club in language intelligible to the local birdscarer, then could 
we begin to hope at length for clarity of expression and clarity of thought. 
But what in fact happens in all too many cases is this. A young man of 
ability goes up to one or other of the older universities and there comes 
under the influence of a highly-specialised teacher, who instils his own 
special tastes and ideas into his disciple and ultimately secures a fellowship 
for him. The youth remains at the university for the rest of his mortal 
existence, coming only intermittently and accidentally into contact with the 
profanum vulgus beyond its walls. I am speaking now in particular of my 
own science of archeology, where the number of professional openings 
outside the universities is restricted to an extent perhaps unparalleled in any 
other branch of science. 
In this problem, therefore, of the co-ordination of research, I would begin 
by urging a closer contact and sympathy between the scientist and the 
general public. That contact is the return which, whether in its individual 
or its collective capacities, the general public has the right to demand for 
its constant and, on the whole, liberal support of research. Furthermore, 
the maintenance of contact is in itself a fine discipline for the scientist, 
compelling, as it does, a constant simplification and valuation of ideas. In 
other words, it is an excellent and essential antidote to that insidious pro- 
fessional pedantry which I have here called Hokum. 
I have spoken so far of the inter-relationship of layman and professional 
as it were of the interchange of courtesies between aliens, and I have not 
hesitated to put this vital factor into the forefront of my remarks. I now 
turn briefly to the more domestic problems of effective co-operation within 
the actual limits of organised science. In particular, we are faced at once 
with that ever-recurring problem of the proper working-relationship 
between the more central scientific bodies and the more local organisations. 
In this connection, I cannot refrain from expressing a personal regret that 
the central scientific societies in London and Edinburgh do not take a more 
active interest in assemblies such as that which I now have the honour to 
address. This aloofness is detrimental to the interests alike of the central 
societies and of their provincial kindred, and is in some sense another aspect 
of that snobbism to which I have already referred as a disruptive force. 
I speak with the impartiality of one who is a member both of more central 
and of more provincial societies than my banker cares to contemplate ; and 
it seems to me that, in future years, something might perhaps be done to 
secure a participation of the great metropolitan societies in our proceedings. 
It would be impertinent for me to point out here the fundamental value of 
the output of many even of the most local of provincial societies. But 
I would remind you that we have already had occasion to-day to congratulate 
the Manchester Statistical Society on the completion of a century of useful 
industry, and would emphasise also the solid scientific work, produced over 
a long period of years, in zoology, botany, geology and archzology, by closely- 
localised organisations such as—to take a random example—the Cardiff 
Naturalists’ Society. I recall as significant the delighted surprise with 
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