324 OPENING OF THE ESSEX MUSEUM, ETC.
evening primarily as a member of the Essex Field Club, an association
founded twenty years ago, and which has been carrying on active work
throughout this period. We have with us to-day Professor Meldola,
the first President of the Club, who, if I mistake not, in his inaugural
address, contemplated the establishment of a museum which should contain
collections illustrating the natural history, geology, and pre-historic archaeo-
logy of our county. This original idea of the founders of this Club has never
been lost sight of, but for various reasons it has hitherto been found impossi-
ble to bring it to a practical issue. A few years ago an attempt was made to
establish the Club's Museum in Chelmsford, and it is perhaps to be regretted
that this attempt could not be successfully realised. An Essex Museum would
have found an appropriate home in the county town, and I may perhaps ven-
ture to take this opportunity of expressing the hope that the nucleus of a
museum which is in existence they may yet be developed in conjunction with
the Essex Field Club. For I am convinced that museums are destined to
play such an important part in education in the future that no town of any
importance will be able to be without an institution of this kind. But one of
the chief reasons why this part of the Club's work has not hitherto been
practically realised is because the establishment and maintenance of a museum
requires considerable financial resource. However zealous the members of a
county Natural History Society may be, their aims and objects rarely rouse
popular enthusiasm to the extent of raising an adequate fund for such pur-
poses. In some counties private munificence has compensated for the lack of
public interest. In other cases—and I am glad to be able to quote as an
example another Essex town, Colchester—an enlightened Town Council has
enabled an excellent local museum of archaeology to find an appropriate
home. And, again, in other instances some of the County Councils have
given financial aid from the Technical Instruction Grant—quite a legitimate
expenditure as it appears to me, and, if I may express a personal opinion, a
most valuable way of assisting in the spread of that knowledge which is the
core and essence of all sound education—a knowledge of nature at first hand
as distinguished from the knowledge imparted through books, or didactically
taught in the class room. But I am afraid that we, as a nation, have hardly
yet risen to that high water mark of scientific culture which should charac-
terise a great civilisation. I do not mean to imply that we are lacking in
scientific ability, or that we are devoid of originality, or that we have failed
to contribute our share of knowledge to the sum total of human progress.
But I fear that the spirit of modern science has not sunk into the public
mind ; it has not permeated the rank and file to that extent which is required
by the age in which we live, the century of science par excellence. Our
purses are ever open, and have always been open, in the names of charity and
philanthropy, religious endowment, and missionary enterprise, political
organisation and popular sports. (Laughter.) But science, upon which the
national warfare and our position in the scale of nations ultimately depends,
has to go begging for her tens, while thousands are forthcoming for other
objects. (Applause.)
With regard to the particular Museum which I have been asked to open
to-day, it is with special pleasure that I am enabled to point to this practical
realisation of the scheme of the Essex Field Club as the outcome of private