GUPPY — VICTORIA INSTITUTE, ETC. 
181 
When I arrived from England in 1892, 1 found the Institute 
in an anomalons condition. It had been practically swamped by 
the Field Naturalists’ Club, a condition in which it continues more 
or less until this day. At that time I was not keen enough to see 
that this state of things was designedly brought about and 
continued, and I set to work to endeavour to alter it and to get 
the Institute freed from the shackles which bound it. In this 
attempt I failed signally whereupon I resigned the post of Secre- 
tary of the Institute, a post I sought and held at much sacrifice to 
myself solely for the purpose of getting the Institute and the 
Field Naturalists’ Club united and the responsible control of the 
Institution placed in the hands of the latter. J ust as it was 
when I was at the head of the Education Department there 
were secret influences at work sapping and undermining all I could 
do for the public advantage, and, as in that case so in this, the hos- 
tile influences were too powerful for me. The very classes I 
essayed to serve were the ones who became the instruments of the 
overthrow of the schemes devised for their benefit. 
Whatever neglect or ill-treatment the Victoria Institute may 
meet with now or later will be the worse for all concerned. It 
must in any case be the Public Museum and scientific Institute 
of the Colony. Neglect or ill-treatment will certainly lead to 
impairment of its usefulness so that when the necessity for the 
existence of such an Institute becomes properly recognized people 
will say, why was such neglect and ill-treatment suffered to be 1 
why was such and such a collection or such and such books, &c., 
&c., not preserved or secured or better looked after ? 
It is perfectly clear from the constitution designed under 
Sir William Robinson for the Victoria Institute that the 
Agricultural Department whether called Board or Society was to 
be a part of the Institute. But the constitution of the Victoria 
Institute provided in the governing body for a minimum of seven 
elected members to a maximum of five nominated members thus 
securing always a majority on the side of popular control. It is 
therefore essentially a popular Institution, and therefore it did 
not command the confidence of the Sugar Planters who conse- 
quently endeavoured to destroy or cripple the Victoria Institute 
and to supersede it by a body in which their influence should be 
paramount. Hence the establishment of the Agricultural Society 
endowed with £600 a year by the Government to which endow- 
ment no exception whatever has been taken while the vote of 
£250 to the Victoria Institute was only very narrowly passed 
after severely hostile criticism and the insertion of a note against 
the item on the estimates of the year with a view to the with- 
