SCIENCE TEACHING IN ENGLAND. 
81 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF SCIENCE 
TEACHING IN ENGLAND; 
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BOTANY. 
Address tc the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical 
Society, as Retiring President, by 
W. HILLHOUSE, M.A., F.L.S. 
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, MASON SCIENCE 
COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM). 
When you did me the honour—thirteen months ago—of 
election to the office of President of this Society, I entered 
upon its duties with much inward trepidation, knowing that 
I was following immediately in the wake of a gentleman as 
much distinguished for urbanity of manner as for energy in 
work, as much characterised by scientific ability as by 
willingness to place his knowledge at the disposal of others. 
Relying, however, upon a courtesy which I had then never 
known to fail, and upon the warm co-operation of officers who 
had in many cases grown grey in the active service of the 
Society, I entered upon my task with the firm determination 
that during my term of office the interests of the Society 
should be ever present in my thoughts; and that, if I could 
not occupy a position upon a level with my predecessors, I 
would at least allow myself no cause for shame at the extent 
of the gap which separated me from them. 
It is now my duty to follow a custom which time has 
consecrated, to place a memorial stone upon my year of office 
by addressing you upon some topic with which I may feel 
myself to be more or less at home. If I have selected as my 
subject '‘The Present and Future of Science Teaching in 
England, with especial reference to Botany,” it is because I 
feel, not that I have anything to say which is new or striking, 
but that, as botanist and as educationalist, my qualifications, 
whatever they may be, are here likely to meet on common 
ground. 
We have all read the wondrous story of creation’s dawn 
as pictured in Mosaic writ. The account there given of the 
evolution of Cosmos from Chaos—the starting up of sequent 
myriads of organised beings at a Creator’s word—is one which 
appeals strongly to an imagination overwhelmed with a sense 
of the vastness and grandeur of the universe, and the nothing¬ 
ness of the foremost of its denizens. But, nevertheless, it 
leaves a void behind. With all its poetic beauty, there is in 
it no sign of the eternal fitness which alone can give to it a 
