396 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
pursuits by which wealth is more easily obtained, in order to de- 
vote himself entirely to the education of the young. 
Moreover,nothing shows us more clearly than teaching that we 
have only put our foot on the first step of the ladder leading to 
knowledge. We remain students our whole life ; and I trust that 
noneofourgraduates willever overratethestep gained, but that they 
will consider that thedegree obtained has only given them aninsight 
into the dominion of Knowledge, and has shown them how much 
they have still to learn: and that in fact they have become 
masters of the art how to learn to the advantage of themselves 
as well as of others. 
Before entering into the subject I have chosen for to-night’s 
address, I wish to make only a few remarks upon the develop- 
ment the University of New Zealand ought to take, so as to 
satisfy the present and future wants of our population. It was 
only to be expectcd that in the beginning its founders should 
have been guided by the curriculum of the great centres of 
learning in Great Britain, although even then some of the newer 
improvements were not adopted; but I may point out that 
under the different circumstances in which we live in a Colony, 
we ought to have more cosmopolitan views, and profit by the 
experience of those states and communities which our conditions 
resemble most. In fact the University of New Zealand ought 
to be eclectic, and to select for assimilation in its constitution 
the best as to manner and matter of teaching from all parts of 
the world. 
According to my views it ought not to be at present the 
highest aim of a university course to offer a mass of knowledge 
of a chaotic character in a number of subjects, but to make the 
student acquainted with the general principles of the stock of 
knowledge possessed by the world and its application to life ; 
to know in what direction that general stock is most deficient, 
and in what manner it can be augmented and made more useful 
both intellectually and practically. 
The study of Philosophy, in its highest and most general 
acceptance of the term, is one of the greatest wants for any 
university that intends to educate thinkers, men and women 
who not only wish to use their acquired knowledge for earning 
their daily bread, but to advance the human understanding. 
Advancing to the subject upon which I wish to address you 
to-night, I have thought that some remarks on the progress 
Geology has made and is daily making would not be inappro- 
priate. I should also like to show, though owing to the short 
time assigned to me this can only be done ina fragmentary 
manner, how from an empirical science it has gradually been 
raised to be an inductive science fully deserving, as far as actual 
observations go, to claim the position of an exact science. 
If we consult “the Cyclopzedia, or an Universal Dictionary of 
Arts and Sciences,” by E. Chambers, F.R.S., London, fourlarge folio 
volumes, of which thefirst appeared in177gand the fourth in 1783, 
an excellent work, for which some of the most eminent men of the — 
