LOCAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
175
Up to the present, however, I have left out of sight the
really great educational advantage that science possesses over
all other subjects, namely this: That science is not only
talk and thought, but action ; that there is always ready
to hand, not only something new to be described or
narrated, but something new to be actually done by both
teacher and pupil. Either some natural object or occurrence to
be seen that has never been seen before, or some experiment to
be made that has never been made before. It is this which fires
the enthusiasm and stirs the imagination, and makes scientific
research so enthralling ; and the educational work which the
Local Societies can best perform, because they are dealing not
with children but with men and women, is the encouragement
and direction of original research. A good deal is already done
by some of them ; but on the whole how little compared with
what might be done by some co-operation between scientific
workers and the societies, and some organisation of the societies
themselves. Education requires teacher and pupil ; it would not
be enough in general that the members of a society should be
interested by the address of a specialist and then be left to their
own devices to imitate his work and endeavour to research for
themselves. This would only, in general, lead to discouragement
if not to disaster. After he has stimulated their interest, they
need his guidance and advice. Let him then address them, with
the object not of advertising his own researches, but of enlisting
the services of fellow-workers. I believe that many a scientific
investigator could attract an army of willing workers through
the Local Societies if he were given the opportunity of
interesting them in his own researches, of suggesting to them
lines of simple investigation which they could profitably pursue,
and of continuing to guide them by advice and criticism. Some-
thing of the sort is occasionally done in the study of the local
flora and fauna. That it is not done more widely and in other
branches of science is due to the prevalent and growing idea that
none can take up any original work without the preliminary of an
orthodox scientific training. This I believe to be a great mis-
take when the teacher is concerned with intelligent people who
are no longer children, and who come to him with the desire
for work.
In an address delivered this year to the Public School Science
Masters' Association, I ventured to illustrate this aspect of
education by relating my own experience with a young French-
man whose previous training and previous work were in the
subjects of philosophy and theology, but who desired to have
some personal acquaintance with scientific work. I found it
possible with him to begin at once with a definite problem of
original scientific research (even in a highly specialised branch
of science), and to make that the introduction to the general