xlvi Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



and perhaps the chief, criterion of success in the teaching of science 

 is its leading to new discoveries. To promote this end the univer- 

 sities probably can do nothing more useful than to increase the 

 number of persons employed, under whatever name, in the teaching 

 of science, taking care at the same time that whilst such duties are 

 assigned to them as may prevent their offices from being sinecures, 

 they shall be left with time and energy enough to carry on original 

 work. We consider this to be a point of great importance, and we 

 should regret to see any scientific office whatever established in 

 either university without its being understood that it is expected 

 from the holder that he shall do what is within his power, not 

 only for the diffusion, but also for the increase of scientific 

 knowledge." 



The second class of persons with which the Society ought to have 

 community of interest is the class of professional scientific specialists. 

 These are well known in the Colony, where many of them have been 

 at work — so many, in fact, as to lead to the presumption that this has 

 been the Government plan for supporting research. Not a few of 

 them, however, have been men to whom only one definite practical 

 problem was set — in geology the examination of an auriferous area, 

 in bacteriology the investigation of a particular disease. Now, 

 isolated work of this latter character could scarcely meet with the 

 approval of a scientific society ; and it is almost equally questionable 

 whether from a purely financial point of view it would secure the 

 favour of practical men. There can be little doubt that if the separate 

 sums which the Colony spent up to 1893 in obtaining reports from 

 geological experts had been devoted to the maintenance of an 

 organised survey, the results would have been infinitely more 

 satisfactory. Fortunately the day of disconnected efforts in this 

 particular subject is over, and it is so far pleasing to know that the 

 Society had a hand in bringing about the desired change. It is, 

 however, still important that the public should be got to recognise 

 generally the fact that in science it is plodding, continuous, skilful 

 effort that eventually pays ; and that nature does not as a rule yield 

 up her secrets to those who make only sudden and short-lived assaults 

 upon her citadels. For what may be termed perennial scientific 

 specialists — the whole tribe of them, from Her Majesty's Astronomer 

 downwards — a Society like ours could have no feeling but cordial 

 goodwill and sympathy ; the more of such men the better, provided 

 they be imbued with the spirit of research and be whole-hearted, 

 zealous workers, bent on extending the boundaries of their science. 



The third class of contributors to the advancement of knowledge 

 is that rf the men unconnected with a scientific profession but 



