ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 11 
the house attached to the Physical Laboratory of the University 
of Berlin, armed with an introduction to Von Helmholtz. I was 
contemplating devoting many years, perhaps all my life, to the 
investigation of physico-chemical problems, and [ wished to hear 
what Helmholtz would have to say as to the utility of such an 
undertaking. I presently found myself in a study of extra- 
ordinary neatness and of a sumptuous yet forbidding aspect, and 
in the presence of a soldierly-looking old man. I should have 
taken him for an officer of engineers had I not often seen his 
portrait. I stated my business without preamble. He con- 
sidered awhile, and then declared it to be his opinion that the 
next advance must be made in the border Jand of chemistry and 
physics, especially on the electrical side, and that I could not 
hope to advance our knowledge better than by doing as I 
proposed. He spoke in German, and I in English, for our 
mutual convenience, and gave me an indescribable impression of 
being before all things a man of business-like habits and rapid, 
decisive action—a soldier, in fact, in the best sense of the word. 
It was with something not unlike relief that I bowed myself out 
of his presence, and, as I walked away, I thought I understood 
the man who many years ago criticised the English University 
fellowship system, and regretted that so much money produc 
80 little scientific work “amongst the well-nurtured youth of the 
British Isles,” His theory was that English students had not 
during their training been brought in contact with the “living 
spirit of research,” and he recognised that in physical science 
stagnation means retrogression, and that the man who has not 
the curiosity to attempt to widen our common knowledge is not 
fit to set himself up as a teacher, nor are the pupils of such a 
man likely to receive any lasting benefit. If Helmholtz’s words, 
80 fruitful first through Germany and France, and then through 
England and America, could find even at this late date some 
echo in the Colony, we might be gradually educated up to seeing 
that the commercial value of a teacher is not to be measured by 
the number of hours of lecture that can be dragged out of him, 
