PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — HARRIS. xH 



on physical science and an ex-President of the Royal Society 

 to boot? Boyle of "Boyle's Law" was born in the purple, for 

 he was the brother of the Earl of Cork; and was not the 

 discoverer of Hydrogen gas, the Hon. Mr. Cavendish, a mem- 

 ber of the noble house of that name, the Dukes of Devonshire? 



Science then became at last at least respectable, even if 

 it was not a profession. Doubtless there had always been 

 a few respectable amateurs who cultivated pure science, 

 for from them indeed under Kingly Patronage had the Royal 

 Society itself actually sprung. 



The instituting of degrees in Pure Science — B. Sc. and 

 D.Sc. — by the University of London did a very great deal 

 to foster the study of pure science in England and give it 

 academic status. But in some nostrils at Oxford science 

 still stinks; and it is still no profession. 



When one says that the man of science is necessary to tlie 

 national life, one generally thinks how science underlies 

 the great trades and chemical manufactures, all the activities 

 of our vastly complicated social system of railways, ocean 

 transport, telegraphs, telephones, gunnery, aviation, and 

 a thousand other modes of activity. But the man of science 

 is as necessary to the national welfare in an infinitude of 

 less conspicuous and more familiar ways. 



We have all heard of scientific farming, the intelligent 

 utilising of the resources of the soil in order to raise the 

 largest crops of the best quality; but in very truth scientific 

 knowledge underlies a proper understanding of so apparently 

 simple a thing as marketing, buying the day's or the week's 

 provisions. 



The woman who knows that the nourishing value of 

 twenty-five cents' worth of green leaves (so called salad) 

 is not the same as that of twenty-five cents' worth of milk 

 or eggs or beef is superior to her who has still to learn it by 

 experience and indigestion. The light of Nature is by no 

 means sufficient to show the purchaser of food what sort 



