The President's Address. 
97 
nerve tubes and cells tlian has been hitherto known. I need 
not tell you, perhaps,, that there is yet much to be learned 
with regard to the functions of the nervous system ; and that, 
whatever advances the physiologist may make in this direc- 
tion, the real relation between function and structure will 
only be made by the microscope. Here, then, is a subject 
for some of our younger friends to pursue. The fact is, in 
whatever direction we turn our eyes, there is still work to be 
done ; and I have often thought it would be possible for this 
Society to imitate the proceedings of the great French Aca- 
demy, and appoint committees to report on researches or on 
subjects demanding research, which would give an impetus 
and direction to an amount of activity and energy that is 
now too often unproductive. It has been the reproach of our 
country that, whilst undoubtedly we have the finest instru- 
ments in the world, our contributions to micrological science 
are not at all in accordance with our superior opportunities 
of observation. 1 hope our Society, as it increases in num- 
bers, will do more and more to wipe away this reproach. I 
hope to see our ' Transactions ^ increasingly enriched by papers 
that will bear the stamp of the excellence of our instruments 
upon them, and that the pages of our ^ Journal ' will have dimi- 
nishing space for foreign contributions, on account of the 
value of those from our home market. 
In my address last year, I brought before you the subject 
of the desirability of rendering the microscope available in 
our natural history and other museums. No one knows 
better than you that he who sees with his naked eye alone 
sees but half the world that God has made. With this im- 
pression, r suggested the manufacture of a museum micro- 
scope on a plan that I find was not at all new, and which has 
been now at work in the South Kensington Museum for 
nearly twelve months. It has so far answered its purpose 
that, whilst thousands have looked at the objects to be seen 
by its aid, the instrument has not sufi'ered in its arrangements ; 
and the Committee of Council on Education have ordered 
four of them to be placed in various parts of the Animal 
Product and Food collections at the South Kensiugton 
Museum, for the exhibition of objects which cannot be seen 
by the naked eye. The only way to gain for society the full 
advantages of science is to bring the popular mind, by educa- 
tion, into a condition in which it can comprehend the principles 
involved in the application of its truths in the manifold 
directions of art, industry, and health. The discoveries of 
science lose the higher part of their value, unless they become 
appreciated and applied by an educated public. It is for 
