Auckland Institute. . 457 
For myself, it would be much more agreeable to me to occupy a position of 
less prominence than that in which it has pleased the members of this 
Institute to place me, for I cannot but feel that much more will reasonably 
be expected from the President than I can hope to fulfil. I should, therefore, 
have declined the proffered honour, but, well knowing the difficulties that 
promoters of such an institution have to encounter in its establishment, and 
unwilling to refuse assistance in any capacity in which my colleagues con- 
sidered that I could be serviceable, I, adversely to my own opinions and 
wishes, reluctantly consented to become the first President. I can only 
promise that I will endeavour to compensate in zeal for what I may lack in 
attainments and ability. 
The New Zealand Legislature, in its last session, passed a statute for the’ 
establishment of an “Institute for the Advancement of Science and Art in 
New Zealand,” and conferred on it, together with the societies to be incor- 
porated with it, the privileges of a body corporate. The Act, in the first 
place, provides for the appointment of a “fit and proper person to super- 
intend and carry out the geological survey of the colony, and also to 
superintend the formation, establishment, and management of a public 
museum and laboratory.” This refers to the parent society (if I may so 
call it), domiciled at Wellington; but the services of this gentleman (the 
Act does not give him an official name) are also to be available “to super- 
intend the formation and establishment of any museum and laboratory 
intended to be established by any society incorporated with the parent 
institution.” 
For the management of this Institute there is a Board of Governors, in 
the first instance nominated, but afterwards partly to be nominated and 
partly to be elected. Their powers are defined, provision made for their 
meetings, and for the enactment of rules, by the Governor in Council, for 
the management and regulation of the Institute. Such is the general 
character of the provisions of the New Zealand Institute Act. How far it 
will satisfactorily answer the purposes for which it is intended remains yet 
to be seen. Experience is necessary to settle that question; but I must say 
that I very much fear that some of the provisions will be found cumbersome, 
and difficult to work satisfactorily. We cannot but be struck with the 
similarity of the scheme for the government of science to that for the 
political government of the colony. The General and Provincial Govern- 
ments appear to have afforded models for, and to be reproduced in, the New 
Zealand Institute and those institutions, when established in the provinces, 
to be incorporated with it. The Auckland Institute has been successfully 
formed, and now numbers nearly eighty members. It has not yet been 
associated with the New Zealand Institute. It is competent for us now to 
58 
