294 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



as I have said, that science is advancing and will continue to advance 

 with accelerated velocity. 



It seems to me, in fact, not only that this is so, but that there are 

 obvious reasons why it must be so. In the first place, the inter- 

 dependence of all the phenomena of nature is such that a seemingly 

 unimportant discovery in one field of investigation may react in the 

 most wonderful manner upon those which are most widely remote from 

 it. The investments of science bear compound interest. Who could have 

 imagined that a curious inquiry into the relations of electricity with 

 magnetism would lead to the construction of the most delicate instru- 

 ments for investigating the phenomena of heat ; to means of measuring 

 not only the smallest intervals of time, but the greatest depths of the 

 ocean ; to methods of exploring some of the most hidden secrets of life ? 

 What an enormous revolution would be made in biology, if physics 

 or chemistry could supply the physiologist with a means of making 

 out the molecular structure of living tissues comparable to that which 

 the spectroscope affords to the inquirer into the nature of the heavenly 

 bodies. At the present moment the constituents of our own bodies 

 are more remote from our ken than those of Sirius, in this respect. 

 In the next place, the vast practical importance of the applications 

 of scientific knowledge has created a growing demand for technical 

 education based upon science. If this is to be effective, it means the 

 extension of scientific teaching to all classes of the community, and 

 the encouragement and assistance of those who are fit for the work of 

 scientific investigation to adopt that calling. Lastly, the attraction of 

 the purely intellectual aspects of science and the rapid growth of a 

 sense of the necessity of some knowledge of the phenomena of nature, 

 and some discipline in scientific methods of inquiry, to every one who 

 aspires to take part in, or even to understand, the tendencies of 

 modern thought, have conferred a new status upon science in the 

 seats of learning, no less than in public estimation. 



Once more reverting to reminiscence, the present state of scientific 

 education surely presents a marvellous and a most satisfactory con- 

 trast to the time, well within my memory, when no systematic 

 practical instruction in any branch of experimental or observational 

 science, except anatomy, was to be had in this country ; and when 

 there was no such thing as a physical, chemical, biological, or geolo- 

 gical laboratory open to the students of any University,* or to the 

 pupils of any school, in the three kingdoms. Nor was there any 

 University which recognised science as a faculty, nor a school, public 



* This statement has been challenged, so far as chemistry is concerned, on behalf 

 of the University of Edinburgh ; but Sir Lyon Playfair informs me that, at the 

 time to which I refer, the practical instruction did not go beyond " mere testing 

 exercises for medical students." (T.H.H. Dec. 10, 1885.) 



