1919 .] 
New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 
251 
and so too with the methods of teaching. Certainly the sooner education 
becomes an exact science the better for the nation, so that less time be 
wasted in teaching useless subjects or. using bad methods. The use of 
standards in the elementary school may be necessary, but it is biologically 
unsound, as it assumes that all the scholars are equal in intellect. At one 
time — and the custom is not extinct by any means here in New Zealand— 
every girl in an English middle-class school was taught music, no matter 
the degree of tone-deafness with which she was afflicted. How many, 
too, I wonder, are there in our schools who are forced to study subjects 
for which they have no aptitude ? 
There is room for much research in New Zealand history, young though 
our country may be. The splendid gift of his library to the people of the 
Dominion by the late Mr. A. H. Turnbull should certainly stimulate historical 
research. With this end in view we may cordially welcome the establish¬ 
ment of an historical section by the Wellington branch of our Institute. 
One more example out of the many subjects crying aloud for research 
in this country and I have done. Our cultivated plants of all kinds are 
subject to attacks of parasitic fungi, the majority of which are considered 
identical with those affecting similar plants in other countries. For the 
suppression of such fungi many fungicides have been devised, especially in 
France and America. Now, that these methods have been successful on 
trees in the country of their origin does not say that similar methods will 
serve equally well here. A certain apple-tree growing in California will 
probably differ from the same variety grown on the clay soil of Nelson. 
The effect of the fungus on such a New Zealand tree and the life-history 
of that fungus must be studied in New Zealand ; so, too, must be investi¬ 
gated the use of the fungicide. This method of attacking the pests 
of fruit-trees by means of fungicides and insecticides costs the State of 
California alone about £400,000 per annum. At best it is a rather clumsy 
way of dealing with the pests. It is exactly a case in point with regard 
to pure and applied science. Pure science paved the way by first classifying 
and then finding out the life-histories of the fungi; pure science had also 
to devise by aid of much experiment the beautiful technique with regard 
to pure cultures, and so on, which can now be learnt in the laboratory. 
Then pure science devised fungicides, and finally applied science is brought 
into the orchard in the form of the spray pump and its contents. But 
is science content to rest at this stage ? Is she not eagerly seeking to find 
out more about the relation of fungus and host, more about the cause of 
parasitism ? Here comes in the plant-physiologist, who seeks to find out 
more about the actual life processes of the plant, whose ultimate aim is 
perhaps to discover what is life itself. This latter problem seems well- 
nigh hopeless, but long before the problematical success is achieved science 
will know so much about the plant that new methods of combating disease 
will be in the hands of every orchardist. The Cawthron Institute of 
Scientific Research could easily spend all its income on investigations with 
regard to plant-diseases, but it would not be performing its full scientific 
duty if it were not carrying out plant-physiological researches with regard 
to the living tree as it grows in the orchard, and thus working not for the 
present day alone but for posterity. This, I take it, is also the attitude of 
the New Zealand Institute and should be the attitude of this Dominion. 
Not for the present alone but for the future must this New Zealand of ours—- 
our beloved country — strive with might and main if she is to become truly 
great. 
