The South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies

Abstract

THE twelfth annual congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, which opened at Woolwich on June 12 and clese ony June 15, was in every way a very successful gattgering. At the first evening meeting, held in the New Town Hall, Mr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S., president, introduced his successor, Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F.R.S., who delivered the inaugaral address. This was an eloquent discourse, mainly on the value of voluntary work in science—such work as is carried on non-professionally by members of local scientific societies constituting the South-Eastern Union. These societies consist chiefly of persons who may be called, in the best sense of the word, amateurs. Exposing the fallacy of the popular saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” the president advocated the cultivation of scientific hobbies, enlarged on the value of acquiring a taste for studies outside the monotonous round of daily work, and showed how science had frequently been advanced by the work of amateurs. Among examples of famous amateurs, he pointed to William Herschel, originally a teacher of music; Gilbert, of Colchester, who was a medical man; and Joule, a Manchester brewer: nor were Spottiswoode, De la Rue, and Dr. Dallinger overlooked, whilst Sir Edward Fry's study of British mosses was cited as a contribution to science by an eminent lawyer. But to an audience at Woolwich the most telling example was that of William Sturgeon, the inventor of the electromagnet, who lived at one time as a shoemaker at Woolwich. Electricity has indeed been to a large extent a layman's science.