Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/47

Rh will be continued by the fact that we have invited Sir William Dawson, of Montreal, to be our next president at Birmingham.

—I can not address you in Aberdeen without recollecting that when we last met in this city our president was a great prince. The just verdict of time is that, high as was his royal rank, he has a far nobler claim to our regard as a lover of humanity in its widest sense, and especially as a lover of those arts and sciences which do so much to adorn it. On September 14, 1859, I sat on this platform and listened to the eloquent address and wise counsel of the Prince Consort. At one time a member of his household, it was my privilege to co-operate with this illustrious prince in many questions relating to the advancement of science. I naturally, therefore, turn to his presidential address to see whether I might not now continue those counsels which he then gave with all the breadth and comprehensiveness of his masterly speeches. I found, as I expected, a text for my own discourse in some pregnant remarks which he made upon the relation of science to the state. They are as follows: "We may be justified in hoping. . . that the Legislature and the state will more and more recognize the claims of science to their attention; so that it may no longer require the begging-box, but speak to the state like a favored child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude for its welfare; that the state will recognize in science one of its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of self-interest demand."

This opinion, in its broadest sense, means that the relations of science to the state should be made more intimate because the advance of science is needful to the public weal.

The importance of promoting science as a duty of statecraft was well enough known to the ancients, especially to the Greeks and Arabs, but it ceased to be recognized in the dark ages, and was lost to sight during the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Germany and France, which are now in such active competition in promoting science, have only publicly acknowledged its national importance in recent times. Even in the last century, though France had its Lavoisier and Germany its Leibnitz, their Governments did not know the value of science. When the former was condemned to death in the Reign of Terror, a petition was presented to the rulers that his life might be spared for a few weeks, in order that he might complete some important experiments, but the reply was, "The republic has no need of savants." Earlier in the century the much praised Frederick William of Prussia shouted with a loud voice, during a graduation ceremony in the University of Frankfort, "An ounce of mother-wit is worth a ton of university wisdom!" Both France and Germany are now ashamed of these utterances of their rulers, and make energetic efforts to advance science with the aid of their national resources. More remarkable is it to see a young nation like