6 



If you are convinced that it is of urgent importance to the parent 

 state to promote the advancement of Art and Science, the soul and life 

 of industry, you will readily appreciate the still more practical value 

 to this new country, which has yet to be subdued and I'eplenished for 

 the use of civilized man, of the Museum, the Laboratory, and the other 

 scientific appliances collected under this roof through the wise liberality 

 of the Colonial Legislature. If the Government and the Institute are 

 agTeed in the desire at once to utilize this establishment by making it 

 for New Zealand what the Ecole Centrale of Paris* is for France : that 

 is, the heart and centre of technical and scientific education for this 

 colony, it will be easy to devise a scheme, by which ])i'omising yoimg 

 men may be selected from every province and instructed here, with very 

 little additional cost to the public, in natural, philosophy, chemistry, 

 and zoology, together with the theory and practice of mining, and the 

 elements of certain arts and manufacturing processes. 



It will not, I hope, be forgotten that I am now addressing yoix not 

 as the Governor of the colony, but simply as a member of the governing 

 body of the Institute. After careful enquiry, the Board has, at the 

 desire of Government, recommended a scheme of this kind in general 

 terms. — (See Report of Board of Governors, for 1870, p. 13.) 



I have ah'eady detained you too long. ISTor, indeed, is it necessary 

 that I should, before the present audience, point to the general want of 

 scientific knowledge, in its simplest and most elementary forms, as the 

 main origin of the speculative manias by which the popiilar mind in new 

 countries is frequently misled ; still less need I enlarge here on the vital 

 importance of diffusing blessings of a sound and practical instrviction 

 throughout all classes of the rising generation of this community. It is 

 the character of the education placed within their reach which will enable 

 them to continue the noble work begixn by the early settlers, who 

 encountered the hardships incident to the first colonization of these 

 islands ; and hereafter to determine the destiny of New Zealand by the 

 manner in which they shall wield the unfettered powers of self- 

 government conferred on this country by its Constitution. 



I will now conclude this imperfect address by quoting the eloquent 



* This is now tlie most celebrated school of applied sciences in the world, and 

 so great have been the services rendered by it, that M. Michel Chevalier once said, 

 ' ' If the Ecole Centrale were not in existence, it would be necessary to create it as 

 the complement of the Treaties of Commerce. " 



