LOCAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
177
In this connection I would beg you to read the most fasci-
nating and illuminating address delivered to one of our societies,
the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, by Mr. Lamplugh, when he
was its President in 1906—an address which protested forcibly
against the unhealthy distinction between amateur and pro-
fessional, and put forward a plea for the need of the amateur
spirit in scientific work.
If I have succeeded in this address in making a practical
suggestion that embodies the spirit of his appeal, I may hope in
some measure to repay the debt that I owe to one who has
always inspired me with the example of true and undivided
allegiance to the call of pure science.
It may well be that my views are visionary, and that those
who know better than myself the constitution and the work of
the Local Societies will pronounce the co-operation which I have
suggested to be impracticable. Yet when I remember how
many persons I have met in my own limited experience who
were burning with the desire to do something in the way of
scientific work, and only wanted encouragement and guidance,
I feel sure that they are to be numbered by thousands. It is
not enough to tell such people what they have to learn and bid
them go away and learn it, or when they ask for work to give
them words.
Have we not in the Local Societies the agency which can
get at these people and organise them as workers ? If not, where
is such an agency to be found ?
I think it a duty incumbent upon those of us who have had
the opportunities, and have tasted the rare delight of scientific
research, to lend a helping hand to those who desire to share
both its toil and its treasure, but have not been able to reach
these by the well-recognised path that we have ourselves
pursued.