80 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Jan. 



add something to the pile of knowledge ; who cannot pick up a 

 branch here and there ; a dry twig from the trees around. Others per- 

 haps will tie these into faggots, and add them to the pile (and the 

 lowest menials in the service of science can aid in this) and at last 

 some other devout worshipper will come, and touching the heap with 

 a spark of Promethean fire, will call forth all the secret light and heat 

 it contains, to illumine the temple of knowledge. It is only thus 

 by the useful combination of many, that true progress is obtained, 

 and even had our Society not existed, we should have been compelled 

 in other ways to unite the efforts of many, before we could arrive 

 at the solution of our problems. 



It was, gentlemen, with convictions of this kind, that extend- 

 ed education, and the general diffusion of science, more especi- 

 ally as applied to the industrial arts, were among the most 

 effective means by which the social condition of this country could 

 be improved ; that by encouraging the cultivation of the natural or 

 inductive sciences, it was possible to exalt the tastes of the educa- 

 ted youth of this land ; that I was led to consider how far it might 

 not be possible for this Society, through its Council, to aid in facilitat- 

 ing the attainment of this desirable end. In the valuable address 

 delivered from this chair, at the close of the previous year, your 

 President, Dr. Fayrer, remarked on the serious discouragement with 

 which these studies had been met in this country. He truly 

 said : "If ever we propose to educate the people thoroughly, to 

 lead them from lower to higher truths, it can only be by making 

 them acquainted with the subjects included under the comprehensive 

 term of ' Physical Science' * * * by imbuing them with a 

 a comprehension of those general laws by which all physical pheno-, 

 mena are regulated." He went ontosay, " It is not here, though, that 

 the elementary knowledge could be imparted, but in the schools 

 where the youthful mind is trained to observation and comprehension 

 of laws, the results of whose operations are recorded and verified 

 here," Entirely agreeing as I did in these views and in the opini- 

 on that this was a subject worthy of the consideration of the Society, 

 I lost no time, on taking your chair, in urging the Council to aid 

 in this good cause. I am happy to say, the proposition met with 

 their earnest support. A committee was selected, and entrusted with 



