INTEREST IN SCIENCE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20493, 11 March 1932, Page 13

INTEREST IN SCIENCE.

BRITISH PUBLIC'S keenness. NEW ZEALANDER'S IMPKESSION. Bemarkable keenness and sustained iitareat in scientific matters on the part a the British public was noticed by Professor D. M. Y. Somuierville, of Yietoria University College, who has wttinied after attendjng the meetings of tie British Association in London in September last. To -show the interest taken by the public in the proceedings of the Association, Professor Sommerville instanced an enormous meeting which iu held at Westminster Hall, the subject for discussion bejng "Evolution of the Universe." Admission to this meeting was by. ticket, and there was an attendance of the'public of about 3000. This large audience listened to fliifn—iiwHi of tjm nywt abtruse nature oa some of lie more recent speculations in jihpia and cosmography. Tie was enormous. In, including Sir James u'eans, Sir the American Milli■Bpp'of 'Birmingham, Dr. Barnes; » Sfel Smiitß and Sir Oliver Lodge, f Kfas an atteudjapco of 5000 at the •' (jHSfsf the British Association, ProI w&unmerville continued. There wbs ft wfcprfcentation from all over the Frenchmen, and men P IBM? countries. At the time the ; llpAuwciation was celebrating its i' anniversary, celebrations 1 Bio being held in connexion with ijjtelday and James Clerk Maxwell B'Smuts'a Address. mmerville was very imlenetral Smuts, who. pre- * proceedings of the asdescribed him. as ' 'an wonderful man —very Sfßf'Sympathetic." General Smuta's FWHrt&d address covered a very wide ftty, and went into the most recent ■P&ltions of physical science. He was * statist—a botanist—of no mean dem Wkwing the opening of the prothe meeting broke o up into **u, and most of the discussions a very specialised and Waieal character. Apart from that, WW were a number of general meetone in Westminster Hall deal•V the "Evolution of the Uni,®*";being one -of the most outstandJ* conclusion, Professor Sommerville ■*> tW he really did not feel comcomment on the general ftwife' situation in England. Al"•jfck things were bad there, he said, Ml did not notice it directly in the Ijffinal vorld. Educational grants iylwa* ent down, though, by the W|«aient, as an economy measure, |Sa%w were fewer scholarships belied.