THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
Delivered at the Eighteenth Annual Meeting on
March 26th, 1898.
by david howard, j.p., f.c.s. f.i.c.
"The Work of the Essex Field Club During the
Past Year."
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—It is not always easy
to find anything new and startling to say about those
studies which are dear to members of the Essex Field Club,
and perhaps it is well that it should be so, as one of the greatest
dangers to real scientific progress is the fact that what strikes
the attention of the outside public is the magnificence of the
rewards of work and not the work itself. In science it is steady,
patient work that bears fruit; the public see the harvest, but
did not see the tillage. Take as one example, the Rontgen rays,
supposed by many to have been suddenly discovered by accident
by Professor Rontgen. It was not so ; a more brilliant outcome
of patient watching for results could not be found. There is
another side of our work which is not without most valuable
effects, and that is the study of Nature as a recreation and a
rest. In the busy lives of most of us there is of necessity,
endless worry and ceaseless activity, from which we sorely
need some release. Where could we find it better than in
the study of unchanging Nature around us ? Unchanging, I say,
for even the most zealous believer in evolution asks for aeons
and aeons for that evolution. In the infinitely small space of
time in the generations of men, which seem so long to us,
Nature was unchanging, and it is this which makes it such
rest, among the changes of our lives, to turn to the
contemplation and study of that which does not change.
I believe that we cannot too highly value that side of our
work, the curative effect of the study of natural history
and Nature itself, as being just that repose from our busy lives
which we all most need. As Lord Bacon said, "man was made
in a garden," and in a garden we best find ourselves in those
surroundings that are recreative in the highest sense. And
surely we in Essex may rejoice that we have a garden of a larger
size and more beautiful in character than is possessed by any