178 MEETING OF CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES'
has branches even in our Colonies, already has a membership of
630,000, and its income is nearly £20,000 a year. A British
Science League of 500,000 with a sixpenny subscription would
give us £12,000 a year, quite enough to begin with."
It was suggested that in the formation of such an organisation
the Corresponding Societies might take an active part.
" The present moment [said the President] was very opportune for the
formation of such a body, because you have throughout the kingdom, from
Land's End to John O'Groats, a great number of councils—county councils, city
councils, town councils, district councils, parish councils, and goodness knows
what—and it struck me, if we could manage somehow to influence the debates of
these bodies, it would be very much better for science, and ultimately, I think,
very much to the benefit of the Association. I am a very humble person, a very
hardworking man, and I have been working for the last forty years to try in my
little way to get adopted some better views of science in this country. Well, I
am a miserable failure, and all the people who have made similar endeavours are
like me—miserable failures. We have clone absolutely nothing. So far as my
experience goes, all the attempts made by individuals during the last forty years—
I can go back forty years in my own work—have been practically of no effect,
and that was the reason why I thought it was possible that by some such
organisation as I sketehed last night we might do something better. That
'something better' is, to put it plainly, looking after votes. Unless we can
control votes in the House of Commons and in the councils throughout the
country, science will not be any better. If we can control votes science will be
benefited; and scientific bodies working with a goal in view from one end of the
country to the other would be a most important factor in our future national life.
Of that I am perfectly convinced; but I am only an individual, and therefore I
asked permission to come and listen to you, gentlemen, who have had more
experience than I can claim to have, representing as you do different societies,
and familiar with the conditions in your own localities, and therefore able to say
whether it is possible to catch votes, to influence councils, and gradually to infuse
a scientific spirit into the county councils, the town councils, and the district
councils of England."
These remarks, coming from so high an authority as the
President of the Association, were felt to have much weight, but
the discussion revealed, as might be expected, certain difficulties
of a practical character, and some divergence of opinion as to the
objects which should engage the attention of the local societies.
Professor E. H. Griffith, of Cardiff, in an excellent speech,
doubted the expediency of starting with the avowed object of
catching votes, and rather dwelt on the necessity of bringing
home to the working-man the value of science in its industrial
applications.
"Let us appeal," he said, ''to the 'man in the street' on the
facts which must convince him that science is of abiding benefit