Science and Citizenship
inquiring citizen utilise them? How may the crossing*sweeper utilise the President of the Royal Geographical Society? If the inquiring citizen was fortunate enough in his youth to commence a career of travel and exploration, by frequent truancy from school, then, doubtless, he acquired habits of observation which later on became disciplined into a scientific temperament. Doubtless in that happy case he is thoroughly familiar with the resources of geography. But most of us grew up into respectable citizens uninspired by that fear of the school-master which is the beginning of science. And if we have our scientific education still in front of us, we cannot do better than begin it by buying a copy of the admirable annual called the Science Year-book issued by Messrs. King, Sell and Olding, of Chancery Lane.
Of the seven or eight sections in which the contents of this publication are divided, there is one called "Scientific and Technical Institutions." A first glance at the contents of this section might lead one to suppose that the book is of a humorous and satirical kind, for its list of scientific and technical institutions begins with an enumeration of "Government Offices." Saving this lapse, the book is to be taken as a serious manual. It enumerates and briefly indicates the functions of ninety-nine organisations in Great Britain called "Scientific and Learned Societies." These include small new groups such as the thirty oceanographers who constitute the Challenger Society, and meet once a quarter in the room3 of the Royal Society?
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