BRITISH ASSOCIATION

Marlborough Express, Volume LX, Issue 230, 29 September 1926, Page 8

BRITISH ASSOCIATION

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. SCIENCE IHE HOPE OF THE WORLD. BRILLIANT SCENE AT OXFORD. LONDON, Aug. 11. Twice only iti a century has there bcoii a Royal President of tlic British Association whicli is now holding its conference at Oxford. No bet•ter setting could have been selected ifor the deli very of the Prince' s address than the Sheldoniun Theatre. Admirable for acoustic properties, the theatre vvhen dressed as it was u ith men in brilliant gowns and woujon in gowns no less brilliant, mad© a wonderful speetaele. It suggest©d in such cireumstanoes a pageitnt "reculling eeuturies of work and effort. The Prince, in delivering liis address, was at liis ease. Reading it, in acoordanee with ipreeedent, from manuseript. iie suoceeded in conveying to ' all who lieard him that his interest in science was genuine and sinoere, and l'rom the first few moments he gripped his audience as few presidents have sucoeeded in doing. His immediate audience numhered 8000 of the world's scientists, but niicrophones in front of lrim carried his words by wireless to the largest audience that a man can address. There was no trace of nervousness in his manner. His voioe was clear , Idi'irect, and forcefuk He is the youngest president the association "has known since its Origin in 1831, and his youthfulness was emphasised by the contrast with the grey-haired professors who surrounded him. A BRILLIANT SCENE.

The scene was brilliant. Women were as numerous as men in the audience, and young women profes,sors, of whom there wero many, did not disdain beauty in the pursuit of knowledge! They werte ooiffured and gowned in the lieight of fasliion, but in the color effect they were outr sliono by men. In the assembly of scientists alone the mai© plumage was raore apparent than the female. Robes of scarlet, crimson, gold, pink, blue, turquoi.se adorned the learned professors. No mere women could compete in prominence with the highest prders. "In factories, workshops, mines, railroads ; in oontact wi th tho evervday problems of education, health, land settlement, agriculture, transiport, or housing, it has been borne in 011 me that if ci'vilisation is to go

on it can only progress along the road of whioh the foundations have been laid by scientific thought and research. I have come to' realise that the future solution of praetieally all the domestic and social difficulties with whioh we liave to grapiple will only be found by scientific methods." Tliis was the text of the Prinoe's speeclr. He .spoke for an hour, and even those who listened to him in their homes could not help feeling that,.. though he read his speech, his personality was behind his words. Iie amused ias well as interested his audience. At the outset he told the story of the very cavalier treatment of the men of science by Oxford at its first reoeptjion of the British Association in 1832, when such giants of the era of scientific knowledge as Brewster, Dalton, and Faraday were lumped together as a "hodge podge of philosophers." The Prince' s iftain theme was the relations of the State to> science, a choice which enabled him to tell a wonderful story of the application of scientific knowledge to almost every ruatoria! interest of mankind. His final not© was a highly appreciated reference to Sir Oliver Lodge's achievement at the British Association meeting in 1894 in givin'g the first demonstration in this country of electro-magnetic waves in their application to wireless eignalling. Sir Oliver Lodge was among the Prince's audience. SCIENCE AND COMMON THINGS.' He was not unmindful of the vast nnseen audience. "It can scaroely he questioned," he said, "that industrial Britain i nlierits a legacy of discomfort in the housing of its (workers, with all which that implies, dating from a period when the building of the liome lacked soientifilc as well as aesthetic guidance. We need that guidance no less to-dav, when the saving of labor is one of the main objectives of the ideal home and its fitments. Other directions of research which fouch upon commonplaces of our daily life are those conoerned with fuel, with illumination, with the deterioration of fab» lics, and the fading of colored stuffs, and- — perhaps most homely example of all — with the application of scientific methods in the laundry industry. This will be wood news to those of us who mav have suffered, or mav even be suffering to-night, from the tortur© of a collar which oomes back from the wash with an edge l.ike a surgical saw. "It must l>e clearly understood that the few instances mentioned represnt only a small fraction of the present activities of science in co'oporation with the State. And expressed as they are here expressed, thev may ^ppear to wear an aspect even of triviality, because they deal with comrnon things. But it is precisely because they do deal with comomn things that thev are not trivial. "There may be matter for amusement in the fact that science is concerning itself with the contents of the clothes basket ; but there is olso matter for congratulation , and there may, in the future, be matter for sincere gratitude. Scientific research, properlv applied and carried out, is never wasted. It may prove Hhat a thing can be done, or that it Cc'in not be done; but even the proof of a. negative may save the waste of further effort." AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH. He spoke of agricultural research. "Until 1908 ihe only agency for agricultural resarch in Great Britain was the classical experimental stat;tion at Rothamsted, a private benefaotion ; and the expenditure of the State on this prime factor in national economv was trifling. Sinoe 1908 tho Rothamsted Station has been expnnded to cover the whole field of nutrition and disease in the plant, while other 'nstitutes have been foundf d tp deal with other aspects of agriculture, such as plant breerling, the nutrition aiul diseases of animals, agricultural machinery. and the ©oonomics of the industry. These institutes provide knowledge for our oavu farmers and form a training ground for agriculture 1 exiperts required by tlie Dominions, India. and the Crown Colonies. At the plantbreeding institute at Cambridge, Sir Rowland Biffen has provided s'everal jiew wheats, of which two are generally grown tluoughout the country : tlie extra vield and value of these wheats must already have morb tliau repaid Ihe vvliole expenditure on agicicultural research since tlie- insti-

tute was fofunded. Among other examiples of the value of research there may be mentioned the _ discovery of a variety of potato immune from the wart disease, investigation of tlie stocks of fruit trees, and inquiries into t-lio production and cleansing the yield of eacn cow by one to two linudred gallons a _yea r. and in freeing milk from the risk of contamination with disease Research into fisheries has heoome a matter of necessity in the light of evidence that even the vast resources of the sea have their limit. Great Britain. acting 'in co-operation with the other nations who share with us the northern seas, has accomplished mucli in ascortaiinng the oauses oi the fluctuating herring snpply, and the study of the methods by which the stocKs of plaice can bo maintained. Research again is active in fiuding methods bv which we ean mitigate one of the consequences of our dense jxipulatioai — the pollution of our rivers and estuaries — and a niothod has been found wherebv great supplies of shell-fish that had been oondemued are' onoe more available as food. Some of my liearers will know, too, of tlie remai'kable results obtained from. -tlie scientific study oi the habits of tlie' salmon. Though' fishing has la en descrilM'd as 'a i'ool at one end of a string and a worm at the other,' the subjeet is not without its personal interest-, I believe, to many learned men. AN EMRIRE WORTH KNOWIXG "Nothing but good can follow from |>erkonal oontact betwelen scientific tvorlvers in different parts of the Empire. Nothing but footl can follow from their resarches if they add, as gradually they must add, to the wider knowledge of the Empire not only among the vorkers themselves, but ultimately among ihe whole body of informal Tmperial citizens'hip ; not only as tlie overseas territoi'ies, but here at Home. For us at Home the Empire is worfh knowing. Our knowledge of it begins with tlie solxool lessons in geography and history — or should do so no doubt the ideal here is yet to be attained. Such knowledge may become later of vital importance to> those who wisli to join the stream of overseas migration. The British Association. in pursuit of its policy of obtaining from time to timo 'reports on the state of science' in one department or another, has recently, through a committee of the Section of Edueational Science, been collecting evklence as to the facilities existing in our schools for training boys and girls for life overseas. In these facilities. at any rate in their partieular Itnperjal application, are not conspicuous. Yet any labor which time allows us to spend, whether in schooklays or after them, upon the

advancement of scientific knowledge of the Empire, of the njeans and manner and environment of life in its component territories, must be well spent. "The British Association has played its part in this advancement since in 1884 it admitted the principle and established the practice of holding occasional meeting overseas. Those of our members who travelled from this country to take part in these meetings have had peculiar opportunities to meet and discuss each his own scientific problems with fel-low-workers in the Dominions— and it should be added, with particnlar referenoe to those tneetings which have been held m Canada, that they have provided almost uniqne opportunities for personal cqntaet between British workers in science and the American colleagues. Our travelling members have been able to see how science is culfcivated in the universities of the Dominions and in many other institutions ; they have gaindd first-hand acquaintanoe with the special problems of one territory and auotber. and when they have returned liome they have talked — as anyone who travels the Empire is talk. .... "It is impossible in the Imperial oonnection to overstate tbe ease for science. Sir William Huggins, in his presidential address to the Royal Society in 1901, said that "assurediy not only the prosperity hut even the existence of this Empire will he found to depend upon the more coiniplete application of scientific knowledge and methods to every department of industrial and national activity." To-day we see that application in much fuller progress than when Huggins spoke only a quarter of a centqry ago ,and already we know how trulv he prophesied. SCIENCE AS A VOLCANO. "The non-scientifilc pnhlic is accnstomed to view vScience as it might view a volcaivo ; prepared for the eruption ©f some new discoyery from time to time, but accepting the effects of the eruption \yithout realising the prooesses which led up to it during the preceding period of quiescenoe. The period of preparation by research hefore Science can offer the world some new benefit may he long, hut the scientific machine is alwiays running quietly in the laboratorv. We recall the intrduction of wireless telegraphy and telephony as a scientific gift of quite recent years . Do we all realise that it was here in Oxford, at the meeting of the British Association ,so long ago as in 1894, that the first public demonstration of wimless signalling by means of electro-magnetie waves was given by Sir Oliver Lodge? "It was the work of Science to develop the methods then demonstrated until they have been brought to jiheir present marvellous uses. On the other hand, it is often the ease, whether m industrial or agricultural, domestic or whatever application, that (Science has knowledge at command, awaiting use, long hefore mankind can be brought actually to applv itr Though we have quickened. we are not yet so quick in the uptake of the results of applied scientific research, as, for instance, some of our oommercial competitors. The public support of scientific research, upon all these grounds, should he accorded freely, with understanding and with patience." At the elose of liis address, which was loudly applauded, the Prince was escorted to his seat by the Bed©11s. and Lord Balfour, in a few graceful words, proposed a vote of tjianks. He .said that he owed the privilege of doing so to the melancholy fact tthat Iie was the oldest living ex-president of ihe nssociation. He entertained the audience with reminiseences of Lord Salisbury as president of tlie association, of Hnxley, of Kelvin, and of "Arthur Balfour" as layimin leeturing men of science from the chair of the association.