PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



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students are wofully few and far between. If we are to 

 advance as a nation this must cease, and it can only be by 

 the purely scientific worker being recognised at his true 

 value. Men should be attracted to and not driven from 

 scientific investigation. 



Science, however, must mobilise itself if it is to gain the 

 status and importance that is its right. The scientist in 

 Australia is generally working at a matter which no other 

 man is investigating. His subject may be of remote 

 industrial utility, and although it may be of absorbing 

 scientific interest, still the same interest and the same 

 scientific enthusiasm could be obtained upon a work which 

 might appeal directly to the industrial community. It 

 would probably be advantageous if there could be more 

 combination of work among us, for as a rule, no two men 

 see a matter from the same point of view, and it is the 

 little differences in the point of view that suggest experi- 

 ments that open up new lines of thought. 



Combination among workers. 

 It is this combined working that has given Germany its 

 pre-eminence in certain industries. German scientists are 

 less brilliant than those of the allied nations, but they have 

 the faculty of plodding that amounts to genius. They peg 

 away at a subject until they make it a success, and especi- 

 ally have they been interested in industrial science and in 

 making it an economic success. Organisation and co-oper- 

 ation have been the key-note of their economic as well as 

 of their primary military successes. It is up to us to work 

 more together and more in co-operation with our industries. 

 Our scientists are waiting for our industrialists to come to 

 them with their troubles, but it is just at this point where 

 there is a stumbling block. The industries will not admit 

 that they have anything to gain from science, it will 

 require the pinch of poverty to stimulate their perception. 



