for the year 1875. xli 



which concern hygiene and pathology, and many other 

 subjects of human interest, indeed to those branches of 

 knowledge, abstract or applied, which, although unremune- 

 rative to the student, promise beyond doubt, results of 

 great value to the race. This want may be characterised as 

 a more systematic mode of action in promoting and 

 prosecuting scientific research. I have no proposition of 

 my own to offer, as conducive to this desirable end ; but 

 an observation which has been very recently quoted in the 

 public prints, and which is attributed to the Hon. George 

 Brodrick, seems to contain a germinal idea, such as may 

 sooner or later prove reducible to practice. Speaking of 

 measures for the reform of the Universities, he argues, 

 " that they should be directed to strengthening them, as 

 fountains of educational and intellectual life, by increasing 

 the professorial staff, by extending their libraries, museums, 

 galleries and lecture rooms, by fostering unremunerative 

 study, as well as scientific training for professions, within 

 college walls, by treating both scholarships and fellowships 

 as designed to raise up an aristocracy of education." 



Of how soon the public mind may become ripe for such 

 an advance as this it would be rash to venture an opinion ; 

 but it is certainly some advance towards the satisfaction of 

 our wants to have them clearly expressed. Moreover, we 

 need not altogether despair of advances to be made in the 

 immediate future, while we have symptoms of a daily 

 increasing public interest in all that concerns the higher 

 education ; while we have examples, such as that recently 

 presented here, of a man coming unsolicited to the front 

 with the munificent contribution of £30,000 in his hand 

 towards our University building fund. 



I have spoken pretty freely this evening concerning 

 applied science ; one final word may be added concerning 

 the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and wholly 



d 



