PROCEEDINGS 
 
 irtg- 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE UTH MAY, 1864. 
 
 . J.Ju pujto, Jftmflf |>f ototUtt 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1864 II
 
 HON. W. PORTER, 
 
 JOHN FAIRBAIRN, 
 
 HON. MR. JUSTICB WATER- 
 
 MEYER, 
 MR. PROFESSOR CAMERON, 
 
 R. BAYLEY, ESQ., 
 
 GEORGE FRERE, ESQ., 
 
 (Treasurer), 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ., 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ., 
 MR. PROFESSOR NOBLE, 
 MAJOR LONGMORE. 
 
 I J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 A True Copy: 
 F. MASKEW, Librarian.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The Committee in 
 presenting their report of the last year's proceedings, 
 have much pleasure in recording that, by the liberality 
 of the inhabitants of this city, they have been enabled 
 to complete, in a manner suited to its value and impor- 
 tance, their arrangements for the reception of the 
 Library presented by His Excellency Sir George 
 Grey, and that the " Grey Library " was opened to the 
 public on the 23rd of April last. 
 
 The Committee have also much pleasure in congratu- 
 lating the subscribers to the Library, and the public 
 generally, upon the very valuable addition that has been 
 made to the literary stores of this institution by the 
 presentation of the " Porter Collection." Your Com- 
 mittee had more than ordinary pleasure in accepting 
 this trust for the public ; for the gentleman in whose 
 honour it was presented, and whose name it bears, has 
 been intimately connected with this institution ever 
 since his arrival in the colony, and has always taken a 
 lively interest in the welfare of the Public Library. 
 The fund for the purchase of this useful collection of 
 books, consisting of several hundred volumes in Law, 
 Literature, and Science, and which in a measure fills up 
 deficiencies hitherto existing in several departments, 
 was raised by public subscription among the friends 
 and admirers of Mr. Porter, as a mark of esteem for 
 the many services rendered by him during his residence 
 in this colony. 
 
 The books were selected by a joint committee of the 
 " Porter Testimonial Fund" and the Library, with the 
 A 2 
 
 1223284
 
 kind and able assistance of Mr. J. van Rees Hoets, 
 and when the collection is open to the public it will be 
 available for use in the same manner as the other books 
 in the Library, excepting such rare and costly works of 
 reference as it has been usual for the Committee to 
 withhold from the risks attendant on circulation. 
 
 The Committee are also greatly indebted to Messrs. 
 McMillan & Co , of Cambridge, for the zeal and 
 interest with which they have gratuitously co-operated 
 with Mr. Hoets in the selection and purchase of the 
 books which form the " Porter Collection." 
 
 The accession of books during the past year has 
 been as follows : 
 
 Vols. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 12 
 
 Political Economy, Jurisprudence, &c. 11 
 Science and the Arts ... ... ... 23 
 
 Works of Amusement ... ... ... 106 
 
 Belles Lettres, &c 50 
 
 History 49 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... ... 44 
 
 Biography ... ... ... ... 30 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ... ... 14 
 
 Total 339 
 
 Amongst them will be found several valuable works 
 presented to the Library by the Royal Society, the 
 Royal Geographical Society, the Society of Arts, 
 London (through their Chairman, Wm. Hawcs, Esq.), 
 Bishop Colenso, Drs. Hutchinson and Eveleigh, 
 George Hodgskin, Esq., of London, Edward Chiappini, 
 Esq., of Natal, and T. B. Bay ley, Esq., to all of whom 
 the thanks of the subscribers are due. 
 
 A handsome and valuable collection of Medallions, 
 presented by Dr. Ross, of Cape Town, calls also for
 
 the acknowledgments and thanks of the supporters and 
 friends of the institution. 
 
 The Treasurer's account now submitted gives the 
 Receipts and Expenditure for the past year, showing a 
 
 balance in hand of 29 2 3 
 
 The subscriptions subsequently received 24 10 
 
 53 12 3 
 
 To this may be added the proportion of 
 the Parliamentary Grant of 600 
 a year, payable June 30, amount- 
 ing to 200 
 
 253 12 3 
 Against which must be charged for 
 
 general purposes ... ... ... 60 
 
 Leaving 193 12 3 
 
 Which amount will be at the disposal of 
 the Committee about to be appointed, 
 for the purchase of books required 
 to fill up the various departments 
 of the collection.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, In attempting to 
 perform the duty which your committee has assigned 
 to me, at this your annual meeting, I have thought 
 that I might usefully direct your minds to what I 
 would describe as the Social Tendencies of Literature. 
 Any observant person who watches the things which 
 are passing in the world and going on around him, 
 must have noticed the increasing influence which 
 printed speech is exercising, and must sometimes have 
 asked himself to what purpose it was tending, and in 
 what results it would end. Books of all sorts, on all 
 subjects; magazines and serials, in all shapes, and of all 
 prices, for men of all ranks and occupations; newspapers 
 great and small, enter our houses, attract our notice 
 in the public streets, expect to travel by railroad with 
 us when we make a journey, and well nigh insist to 
 share our beds at night as well as our tables and our 
 chairs by day. What does this mean ? As long as 
 literature was content to wear a grave and unobtrusive 
 aspect, we could place it on our shelves and regard it 
 with that calm respect which might sometimes seem to 
 be indifference ; but what are we to do now ? When the 
 vast folio is jostled out of its place by bustling little 
 books which put in a claim for popularity, when the 
 Classics are asking for a seat within our pockets, when 
 Waverley is sold for one shilling, and some of the first 
 authors of the day, illustrated by some of the first 
 artists, discourse to us in " Good Words " for sixpence, 
 and the book of Common Prayer is sold for two-pence 
 by tens of thousands, and the events which happened
 
 yesterday throughout the world report themselves at 
 daylight for a penny, it seems time that we should 
 call this great though subtle agency before us, and 
 request it to make known, with some explicitness, the 
 nature of that work which it is doing, or ought to do 
 for nations and men. And it will not, I think, be 
 indisposed to tell us ; for freedom has been the nursery 
 of literature, and there are no secrets in that region 
 of openness and candour in which literature loves 
 to dwell. 
 
 The work which literature does is wide and great. 
 A man walks into a public reading-room, where he 
 meets with literature in its lightest and most transitory 
 form. He takes up the Times, or some other London 
 journal, which was printed while the day was breaking, 
 and which does not only tell him all that has taken 
 place within the capitals- and chief towns of Europe as 
 late as last midnight, or even later, but shows him, as 
 in a mirror, the battles which were fought and the 
 things which were done across the wide Atlantic some 
 week or fortnight previous, as well as the facts which 
 the busy mails have carried from India, China, and 
 Southern Africa within some very short and incon- 
 siderable time. The current actions of the world are 
 thus as in a map before him, and in a few minutes he 
 takes in the existing state regarded, no doubt, from 
 an outward and superficial point of view, but still the 
 actual and existing state of that great whole which 
 we call humanity. Moreover, he finds in this epheme- 
 ral thing, which will have flown like a bird and be 
 forgotten before to-morrow, the criticisms and reflec- 
 tions of quick and ready minds, hasty, and having 
 only such worth as may belong to average and first 
 impressions, yet not without some weight and impor- 
 tance, which, observing this passing history as it 
 moves across the stage of time, speak out opinion freely
 
 and shout applause or condemnation. Now, we neeu not 
 follow out the thoughts which such a thing of print 
 suggests to all their consequences; but we may ask if it is 
 more than truth to say that the minutes which the man 
 has thus spent have made the world his country ? In- 
 fluences such as this, at work continually, penetrate all 
 lands and leaven all persons, drawing all together. 
 Kings upon their thrones, statesmen in their chambers, 
 senates in their halls, feel them and acknowledge their 
 power. The nations of Europe and America, through 
 all their leading persons, acting as it were in each 
 other's presence, and beneath the frown or the smile of 
 each other's judgments, imbibe unconsciously each 
 other's thoughts. And even Asia and Africa, aliens 
 though they be in race, and thought, and feeling, are 
 being drawn within the magic sphere of such an influ- 
 ence, which moves from one centre to a circumference 
 which includes the world. 
 
 The same man, or another whose pursuits are some- 
 what different, walks into a public library like that in 
 which we are now met. The books of former genera- 
 tions, venerable with age, look down on him from those 
 seats of wisdom which issue the decrees by which the 
 thoughts of men are governed. But on the table which 
 fills the centre of the wide apartment, he sees the varied 
 colours of those more alluring reviews and serials which 
 court his more immediate attention, and profess to save 
 his busy time. There on that table, within the paper 
 covers tinged with every hue, he may get a bird's-eye 
 glance of all that is worthiest of notice in the books 
 which have been written throughout the world in 
 England, in America, in Germany, in France, and 
 wherever else men think and write during the last 
 few months. That which the journal does especially 
 for man's actions, the review performs for man's 
 thoughts and books. History, theology, philosophy,
 
 oiography, science, art, mechanics, busy in all civilized 
 countries, have been putting out their thoughts in 
 writing during the year, or the quarter, or the month 
 which is just passed. And whatever they have pub- 
 lished to the world, the narratives of the historian, the 
 pictures of the biographer, the thoughts of the divine, 
 the speculations of the philosopher, the observations 
 and deductions of the man of science, the elaborations 
 of the artist, the inventions of the discoverer, the 
 creations of the poet; weighed, analyzed, dissected; 
 turned inside out and outside in by the several minds 
 which look at them from all sides in all conceivable 
 aspects; criticized by the discriminating, flattered by 
 the interested, mangled by the hostile ; the cream or 
 the scum of recent thought, may be found there 
 within those books of many colours, gathered and 
 spread out before the world, by critics of all schools, 
 and all degrees of worth or worthlessness, who, having 
 dived into this sea of print, bring up with them to the 
 surface the things which they regard as most to be 
 noticed and observed in it. In fact, such is the present 
 state of literature, and so refined and elaborate are its 
 provisions, that as there are men who write books 
 that the world may be amused, or edified, or elevated, 
 or instructed, so there are men who read for the world 
 as well as write for it ; and those who are too busy or 
 too idle to read themselves have been provided with 
 that most useful kind of caterer, who reads or digests 
 for them, and then hands over to them the result for 
 good or evil of this literary digestion. Here, too, it is 
 needless to pursue the phenomenon into all its many 
 consequences. But it is evident that all this manifold 
 system of review and criticism may be regarded as a 
 vast apparatus by which the world is enabled to carry 
 on its thoughts in simultaneous motion. The man of 
 thought was always more or less of a cosmopolite, for
 
 10 
 
 thought overleaps the bariers of time and space, and 
 claims affinity with thought wherever it is met with ; 
 but it remained for the present age to invent that 
 complicated machinery which, catching up the thoughts 
 of men as fast as they were written, and the books of 
 men as fast as they were published, should first break 
 them up into their main elements, and then publish 
 them again in all civilized countries, translated into 
 such a shape that millions should swiftly apprehend 
 their meaning, and either at once adopt them into the 
 substance of their own mind and understanding, or else 
 reject them as unpalatable food, which they were not 
 disposed to use for nourishment. If an author who 
 publishes a book to-day knows that the world will have 
 sat as a jury over it, and have delivered an approving 
 or condemning verdict before half the year is over, he 
 thinks and writes with the eyes of the world imme- 
 diately upon him, and he feels, too, that he may influence 
 the world as quickly and directly as he is himself 
 influenced by it : so that the man of thought and the 
 men for whom he thinks roll along the groove of thought 
 together, each subserving the purpose of the other and 
 moving in union to the same common end. 
 
 If from the lower levels of literature we ascend to 
 those productions of the press which are the fruits of 
 more careful deliberation, and aim at more permanent 
 effects and influences, we shall find that their tenden- 
 cies, if less decided and apparent, are still one and the 
 same. It is their object, by discussion and reason, or 
 by expression of universal feelings and emotions, to 
 draw men into agreement on the basis of nature and 
 truth. Indeed, books have always been a common 
 ground on which the men of all countries have met as 
 on a neutral territory, that, laying aside their national, 
 political, or other differences, they may communicate 
 their thoughts and exchange with each other the fellow-
 
 11 
 
 ship of wide and universal sympathies. By means of 
 books, the men not only of many lands and diverse 
 origin, but of all ages, have assembled as it were within 
 the halls of one world-embracing parliament, there to 
 deliberate on things which touch the welfare of our 
 race, and to express as men to men their deepest and 
 most general emotions. " By the aid of literature," 
 says a thoughtful writer of our own day, " across the 
 wide seas, and from the very depths of time, men 
 stretch out their hands to one another, being brethren 
 in soul. If to think the same in matters of govern- 
 ment has always been considered a stern bond of 
 fellowship, what must be that communion which arises 
 from agreement on matters of deeper concern than any 
 politics, and still more perhaps from that harmony in 
 the lighter touches of thought, expression, and feeling, 
 which constitutes the very essence of personal friend- 
 ship? With men whom we have never seen, we may 
 thus have a dear and intimate communion : and could 
 these friends from afar enter the room, though it might 
 be in a strange garb and speaking a strange language, 
 we should welcome them at once as old friends, and 
 should always think that we knew many of their most 
 familiar ways." It is true, indeed, that the intercourse 
 which comes from literature is not always of a quiet or 
 harmonious kind, and that many a wordy and contro- 
 versial war is fought from time to time by literary 
 combatants ; but the strife of authors is a strife of that 
 reasonable kind which has agreement at least for its 
 professed object, and from which, if reason can but 
 exert its loyal and commanding influence, truth should 
 be the last issue and peace the legitimate result. Such, 
 at any rate, is the conclusion which will be looked for 
 by all who have any faith in human nature, or who 
 believe that good alone can ultimately follow from that 
 full comparison of differences, and that freedom of
 
 12 
 
 intercourse and discussion, which dissipates the mists 
 of blinding prejudice, and brings every judgment and 
 opinion to be tried in the light of day before the bar 
 of truth. If truth be that thing which " showeth best 
 by day," as Bacon has said for it, the publication of 
 thought must end in the victory of truth. And among 
 the fruits of this victory, unity is not the least certain ; 
 for truth enters upon warfare only that it may win a 
 peace. 
 
 The remarks which have been made, sketchy as they 
 are, and are designed to be, have shown us (1) that 
 literature is a chief means of intercourse between man 
 and man in all quarters of the earth ; (2) that, as such, 
 it tends to draw mankind together and to unite the 
 world in one society; (3) that the popular form which 
 it has taken upon itself in modern times, and especially 
 in the present day, indicates a vast increase of its force 
 and an extraordinary enlargement of its influence. 
 Literature is not a new thing, for it is almost as old 
 as human nature ; but it has assumed a shape in which 
 we hardly recognize the older agency. At the very 
 time when a mistaken analogy might have led us to 
 expect decrepitude, we find the intensity of strength. 
 When the world is growing old, and we might have 
 thought that the powers which move mankind would 
 have decayed or languished, literature stands up before 
 us, ruddy with the bloom of youth, and, telling us with 
 all her tongues that the barriers of time and space are 
 giving way before the growing energies of human 
 nature, announces that she is entering on u career of 
 conquest in the domains of intellect and knowledge, 
 which shall at once make earth obedient to man's pur- 
 poses, and unite men with each other while they com- 
 bine to subjugate the earth. The causes of this must 
 now be hastily examined ; and wo shall see not only 
 that literal ure is being now at last repaid for the ser-
 
 13 
 
 vices which she has rendered to the arts and sciences, 
 but that these her foster-children are now acting in alli- 
 ance with her, and are co-operating under her guidance 
 to the accomplishment of that common work which has 
 been given them by God to do. 
 
 The present condition of literature is mainly owing 
 to the extraordinary development of the arts which we 
 call practical, during the half century which has follow- 
 ed the wars of the French Revolution, and the peace 
 which was won at Waterloo. Nothing in all the history 
 of man is more remarkable than the achievements of 
 scientific industry in that calm but eventful period, 
 unless it be the like outburst in the province of intellect 
 and speculation which accompanied the revival of letters 
 a few hundred years before. It would seem, too, that 
 the first of these epochs was the infancy of which the 
 time in which we now live is the maturer age. Then 
 the mind of Europe, awakening as from a long sleep, 
 and inhaling that atmosphere of freedom which Chris- 
 tianity had produced and cherished, even while it seemed 
 to fear and to repress it, ransacked the treasures of the 
 ancients, and, gathering from them all that they could 
 teach of man and art, went out into the world, under 
 the guidance of that true religion which Greece and 
 Rome knew not, to achieve new conquests, and, with 
 all the eyes of observation, at once to question nature 
 and search out the lessons of the earth. And what has 
 been the consequence? Knowledge on innumerable 
 points is still dark and uncertain. Facts as yet observed 
 and examined have still left many things obscure, which 
 curiosity would fain discover. Secrets are still buried 
 beneath the earth's crust, or covered by her flowing 
 streams and unfathomed ocean, which time may yet 
 reveal, or which may never discover themselves to man's 
 inquisitive researches. The space above our heads, 
 sounded at a few points, is still an abyss which we must
 
 14 
 
 call wondrous and unsearchable. But we have learnt 
 enough from nature to enlarge our control over her, and 
 every gain which we have made has brought men 
 nearer to each other; not, indeed, by lessening this 
 wide earth, or narrowing its huge dimensions, but by 
 increasing the stride of him who marches over it, and 
 now, with lordlier voice than in former ages, demands 
 to be acknowledged as its king. 
 
 The chief helper in this work of conquering discovery 
 has been the art of printing, which has not only multi- 
 plied readers and carried education into the meanest 
 cottage, but, as a consequence of this, has in every way 
 increased the power of knowledge and intelligence, and 
 substituted the force of mind for that of brute strength. 
 The full results ofthis cannot now be more than glanced 
 at. Speaking generally, it has increased the power of 
 mind over matter, has established in the world a repub- 
 lic of letters, has brought out into prominence the com- 
 mon and universal as distinguished from that which is 
 separate and individual in human nature, and, on the 
 whole, has tended to unite mankind on the ground of 
 common knowledge and sympathies. The growth, too, 
 of commerce, expanded as it was by the discovery of 
 the compass, and conducing to a more general inter- 
 course between the members of the human family, has 
 led to interchange of thoughts as well as produce, and 
 has contributed essentially both to the increase of 
 knowledge and of that power over nature which know- 
 ledge has always for its fruit. The power, however, 
 which has most accelerated the advancing influence of 
 literature, and has given to it its present most modern 
 characteristics, is that of steam, which, both directly by 
 the aid which it has lent to printing, and indirectly by 
 its effects on commerce, and the intercourse of man 
 with man, has applied that new stimulus and infused 
 that fresh vivacity, which seems destined to increase the
 
 15 
 
 collective knowledge of the race in a ratio which no 
 former data can at all enable us to calculate. Litera- 
 ture was an influence of no mean kind when the simple 
 traditions of a family or people, treasured by memory, 
 were handed on from age to age in poetry and song. 
 Its influence received a new impulse when spoken 
 speech was written ; for language and thought acquired 
 by that a fixity, and were able fromt hat hour to speak 
 as to a larger audience, and to the future periods of 
 time. That influence attained its manhood when print- 
 ing perfected the power of writing, and added to the 
 sum of human knowledge as much as it took from the 
 painful and laborious drudgery of human eyes and hands. 
 It is attaining now its ripeness when steam, wedded to 
 all the arts of peace, so that they work into each other's 
 hands and develope each other's spheres of agency, carries 
 men from land to land with calculable speed and accu- 
 racy, and draws out the gifts of God to all countries 
 by exchanging with hot haste at once the thoughts and 
 the productions of every varying clime. It is hard to 
 say how much we owe to that great inventor by whom 
 steam has been given to us as the mightest instrument 
 in aid of every art which civilizes man. If the ancients 
 were right in thinking that inventors were entitled to 
 the highest place in human honour, and if the greatness 
 of its results is to test the worth of an invention, the 
 fame of Watt must be great indeed. Steam rolls with 
 noisy whirl the multitudinous wheels of all our busy 
 manufactories. Steam has given us the railroad, which 
 carries our letters, our persons, and our commerce for 
 us, at a cost and speed which a former age would have 
 supposed incredible. Steam has almost mastered both 
 the fickleness of winds and the proverbial instability of 
 seas. But, above all, it is steam which, by these and 
 other like influences, abolishing the barriers which 
 separate men and nations, knits the world together,
 
 16 
 
 hastening the very course of history, while it crowds 
 actions into a briefer compass, and makes thought itself 
 swifter, by at once bringing it in contact with all minds 
 and men. 
 
 I feel that my subject is out-growing its legitimate 
 dimensions, and that I fail to represent to you all that 
 I am anxious to point out; but you will gather, I hope, 
 from all these hints and intimations that literature is 
 the chief of many agencies, which acting and reacting 
 upon us and upon each other, with a force which was 
 unknown in former ages, are enabling us to ieel that a 
 gracious Providence, working in ways which are not 
 less vast than mysterious, is using man and man's arts 
 and inventions for that purpose which, if man could 
 rule his own destinies, should be the dearest to him, 
 because the most conducive to his real good. If any- 
 thing may be learnt from man's own nature, it is the 
 fact that man is meant for society, and if meant for 
 society, that he can find the perfection of his own 
 individual happiness only in that union with others 
 which makes the good of all the good of each. This 
 we should conclude from man himself, and from the 
 being of Him who made man. And now, proceeding, 
 not from principles, but from the facts which are the 
 boast of a somewhat self-sufficient era, we see that all 
 the forces which are at work around us, and which every 
 one desires to foster and stimulate, are bearing us 
 onward to this mighty consummation, and seem hastening 
 that brighter day when the race which so many bound- 
 aries divide and separate may yet feel and see that it is 
 one. These schoolmasters, who are abroad in every 
 village ; these public journals, which are so eager to 
 receive and publish all news ; these penny magazines 
 which are written for the poorest reader ; these cheap 
 Bibles and religious publications ; these writings upon 
 art and science and inventions, as well as on the graver
 
 17 
 
 subjects of the more ancient kinds of literature, which 
 issue from the press as thick as leaves when autumn la 
 passing, what are they all, and what are all the influ- 
 ences which co-operate to their growth and distribution, 
 but so many subtle threads of sympathy and thought, 
 which, woven together into strong cables, are tying all 
 the nations of the world together, giving them at once 
 that strength which is found in unity, to the end that 
 they may subdue nature, and giving them also that 
 unity itself which is better even than the strength. 
 " It is not," says Bacon, " the pleasure of curiosity, 
 nor the quiet of resolution, nor the victory of wit, nor 
 faculty of speech, nor lucre of profession, nor ambition 
 of honour or fame, nor inablement for business, that 
 
 are the true ends of knowledge; but it is a reinsti- 
 
 tution of man to the sovereignty and power which he 
 had in his first state of creation." He makes dominion 
 over nature the end of all knowledge. And all things, 
 literature especially, are tending to restore that sove- 
 reignty, and, as we hope, at the same time to make us 
 all one. Man pursuing his ends, unconscious, too, it 
 may be, of their real issue, is working out a purpose 
 which is too great for his own conception or his own 
 accomplishment, and is moving the vast force of an 
 immense and ponderous machinery which a higher 
 wisdom controls and guides. 
 
 It may be objected, indeed, to the view which has 
 been taken, that it overlooks those darker portions of 
 the picture which sadden the heart, as we observe the 
 evil blended with the good, and at times obscuring all 
 the prospect. Certainly in the world's literature, 
 which is only a reflection of the world's character, and 
 in everything which combines with literature to move 
 and influence our race, there is much which is of no 
 worth, and much also which is purely worthlesss 
 Indeed, the press teems with words which make us 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 feel, as we think upon them, that the pen no less than 
 the tongue may be a "world of iniquity," and force upon 
 the mind that saddest of all considerations, that God's 
 best and highest gifts become, when abused, the worst 
 scourge and the most terrible of curses. The only 
 satisfaction left for us in looking upon such writings, 
 is that which may be found in the reflection, that they 
 are either so light that, like feathers thrown to the 
 wind, they are soon blown into oblivion, or so heavy 
 that, mingling with the river of literature, like the mud 
 which is washed out of the soil in rainy weather, they 
 sink as it flows on, defiling for a time the stream, but 
 forming no acknowledged part of the clear, pellucid 
 waters. Writings of this kind at best are vile trash, 
 and at the worst are deadly poison. But acknowledging 
 to the full the evil which literature may do and does, 
 and admitting, as we must, that the co-ordinate agencies 
 which help to create and to distribute printed writings 
 I allude particularly to locomotive forces, have had 
 their origin, not so much in any high benevolence or 
 philanthropic spirit, as in the spirit of civilization, and 
 that thirst for gain which is insatiable, the fact remains 
 still that men are being brought closer to each other, 
 >that divisions and separations are giving way before the 
 powers which insensibly remove them, that the thoughts 
 of men are disseminated with extreme rapidity, and that 
 intercourse in every form, drawing out the gregarious 
 tendencies of human nature, is awakening now at last 
 the hope that all who share that nature may think 
 together and feel as one. 
 
 Every modern invention points in that one direc- 
 tion; every modern influence distinctly tends in no 
 other way. If there is any discovery which seems far 
 removed from any such bias, it is that of gunpowder, 
 the fiery messenger of war and death. And yet no one 
 who thinks at all can fail to see that by making armour
 
 19 
 
 useless it increased the importance, politically no less 
 than physically, of the ranks which supplied the common 
 soldier, and combined with other influences to associate 
 the classes of society in new relations with each other, 
 surrounding high and low with nearer bands. Dr. 
 Arnold, on one occasion, when a railroad was opened, 
 is said to have exclaimed, " there goes the feudal 
 system," as the first engine flew from the station 
 dragging the vast weight of men and things whick 
 streamed behind it. If he meant that the ranks of 
 society must all be brought to one level by this and 
 kindred influences, I should venture to differ from him, 
 for I believe that social gradations belong essentially to 
 human nature, and that the changes of the times, when 
 they are working safely, are rather lifting all to a higher 
 level than drawing high and low to one middle point ; 
 but undoubtedly the feudal system, in many of its 
 features, is already a thing of the past, and the first 
 shot which issued from a gun announced and sealed its 
 departure. Superiority of influence, which wealth and 
 physical strength had before given, began then to move 
 to intellect ; and the wisdom which illumines the senate 
 took then the place which had been occupied by that 
 might in arms which shone upon the battle-field. If 
 the chief agent in destruction has thus promoted union 
 of classes by increasing the power of the weak and 
 adding to their relative importance, we can but expect 
 that like results should follow from discoveries which 
 especially belong to arts and agencies of peace. Some 
 of these have been already noticed. But it may just be 
 pointed out further, that new means of locomotion have 
 softened the distinctions of society, by the very same 
 facilities which have promoted intercourse. The time 
 was when the journey of a noble person was an affair of 
 some dignity, and the insignia of his rank at once 
 encumbered and adorned his progress when he moved
 
 20 
 
 with stately steps throughout the land. Now, royalty 
 itself journeys with but few distinctions, and the first 
 subjects of the kingdom move but as the unnoticed 
 units of a vast company, who enjoy the same advantages 
 and travel at the same speed. The spirit of a former 
 time, combined with the growth of commerce and 
 manufactures, had already abolished the distinctions of 
 dress, which were once as marked as the gradations of 
 society. In our own time, this new power has set the 
 world in motion, and, moving all ranks together, adds 
 another influence, which makes them feel as one. 
 Things like these, tending as they do to other changes 
 and to gatherings and combinations never before 
 possible, for instance, to those great exhibitions in 
 which the arts and productions of the earth are displayed 
 before a world which meets to observe and learn from 
 them demonstrate that the evils which may exist to 
 mar the course of civilization, and to corrupt the 
 literature which at once fosters and reflects it, do not 
 so mar as to arrest its progress. "Whatever authors 
 may intend, whatever art and commerce may be 
 seeking, observation and experience tell us that man 
 and all his works are but the instruments of a mighty 
 purpose which is moving to some great event. The 
 world is not what it was once. It was but a few centuries 
 ago that a continent was not known, and that oceans had 
 never been traversed. In our own day the sea is white 
 with ships which spread their sails over it, or ploughed 
 by the all-furrowing steam. 
 
 At the same time, it is well that we should fully 
 recognize these blighting influences of evil, and learn 
 from them that literature and its co-partners in the 
 work which it is doing, depend for their full glory and 
 efficiency upon the aid of that highest knowledge which 
 is man's true life. Theology is, in fact, that master- 
 ecience which, having God for its subject, establishes
 
 21 
 
 those ultimate principles which are the ground of alt 
 truth and the light of all light. Hence, it is the 
 business of religion to preside over all thought, and, 
 while it cherishes freedom, at once intellectually and 
 politically, to leaven every social influence, and hallow 
 all arts and all human agencies by the pervading 
 presence of divine truth. The Bible thus takes its 
 place upon the throne of literature as the book of 
 universal ti'uth, which is written for all ages ; and the 
 principles which it lays down become the guide-posts 
 of all intellect, as the lowly freedom of its spirit should 
 give a healthy tone at once to all thought and all life. 
 Such, without any doubt, is the true province of reli- 
 gion, and it is scarcely less doubtful that what is best 
 in this modern condition of society has grown up 
 beneath the shadow of its influence, and by reason of 
 its salutary power. The exact debt which civilization 
 owes to Christianity may not be easily determined. 
 The great civilizing agents which have wrought such 
 changes in society in the course of a few hundred years 
 may indirectly be the fruit of Christian faith, though 
 perhaps it would be truer to say that they have been 
 put within the reach of man when the soil of free 
 thought and act had been prepared by that faith for 
 their reception. But, certainly, they will do their 
 allotted work, and attain their own full perfection and 
 development, exactly in proportion as they consent to 
 take religion for their master, and to acknowledge 
 themselves as servants of God and truth. Literature 
 and civilization will do a great deal, for the hand 
 of God is overruling them and bowing them to His 
 great purpose for the ends of unity and social welfare ; 
 but they will do it the sooner and the better if they see 
 and recognize their work. Let us hope that they will 
 thus fulfil their mission. When man was made, his 
 Maker gave the earth to be his kingdom, and ordered
 
 him to rule'and subdue it. The presence of evil has 
 shaken his power, and stunted the growth of his 
 authority ~;^but the work of reconquest has been going 
 on throughout the course of ages. And now in this 
 autumn of the world's year the seed long sown and 
 slowly" growing ripens into fuller power and larger 
 knowledge, till hope, long silent, at last anticipates a 
 triumph, and the signs of time tell us that men uniting 
 among each other to obey the command of their 
 Creator may yet fulfil their mission, and draw from 
 Nature, willing to give up her secrets, the powers which 
 are able to subdue the earth. 
 
 I have endeavoured thus to show the tendencies of 
 literature and other civilizing agencies, which cannot 
 be separated from it, and by so doing to indicate that 
 we are living in a great era, when seeds long sown by 
 providence are ripening to their fruit. If I had had 
 the time for more thought, and a more lucid arrange^ 
 nient of my thoughts, I might have placed the facts 
 more clearly and convincingly before you. As it is, I 
 can but apologize for the mode of the performance, and 
 request you to supply the deficiencies by your own in- 
 telligence and thought. And I will ask you to listen 
 to me but a little longer, while I further call your notice 
 to some few points which are not without importance, 
 and which may show the bearings of that which has 
 preceded on things which interest ourselves. 
 
 First, then, if all that has been said is true, or some- 
 thing like the truth, there is a good deal to make us 
 hopeful in these present times. Not that there is any 
 need to boast, or to congratulate ourselves upon our 
 great enlightenment. Few things are more painful 
 and offensive than that spirit of pride, which seems as 
 if it stood upon the shoulders of the men who lived before 
 us, only that it might trample upon all to whom we 
 owe our elevated place. As well might the ripened
 
 23 
 
 grain of summer boast over the green seed time, or the 
 child over the parent, to whom he owes his life. But 
 it is something to turn the eyes from things which 
 breathe of vice, or selfishness, or meanness, or frivolity, 
 and forgetting the lies, and the follies, and the emptiness, 
 which blacken and corrupt literature, to see that liter- 
 ature it may be without consciousness, and almost in 
 spite of itself, but still really and effectually is work- 
 ing out the mighty sc heme of Providence ; so that our 
 journals, and our serials, and our reviews, and all the 
 cloud of books which fill the air around us, busy with 
 their own ends, and often, alas I forgetful of any high 
 purpose, still are knitting men together, interpreting 
 man to man, and publishing those facts and truths of 
 nature, which some can so use as to show that pos- 
 session of knowledge is acquisition of power. With 
 thoughts like these before us, whether we read or write, 
 we shall so act that nothing on our part may dim so 
 bright a prospect, and that our little mite may in some 
 way be offered to aid in the accomplishment of so high 
 and privileged a work. 
 
 Thoughts, too, such as these may surely teach us how 
 to examine nature, and what to keep before us as the 
 end of all investigation, when using past knowledge we 
 search the still unuttered secrets of the earth. One of 
 the chief distinctions between ancient and modern liter- 
 ature is the prominence which the last hast given to 
 those sciences which investigate material objects, and 
 probe the deeper things of outward nature, that they 
 may find her laws. Great practical results have been 
 gathered out of this new field of observation, and more, 
 no doubt, will be derived still. It is well, however 
 that we should bear in mind, as Bacon has already 
 shown us, that the pleasure of curiosity is not the end 
 of such knowledge, but sovereignty over the world of 
 nature. Nature may be searched for the mere pleasure
 
 24 
 
 of inquiry, or for the sake of those charms of ingenious 
 speculation which have so great a power to fascinate. 
 But philosophy such as this is neither man's business 
 nor the sure way to truth. We come into the world 
 with a commission. Our Maker sent us here to tame 
 the patient soil and rule obedient nature. And nature 
 will obey us, and place all her latent powers beneath 
 our feet, if we ask her to reveal them for the purposes 
 which they are designed to serve. She will hide them, 
 as other and even higher truth is hidden, if we regard 
 ourselves as wise and prudent. She will reveal them 
 if we come to her as babes. 
 
 While we learn this respecting nature, we learn also 
 to look up from nature to nature's God. If we consider 
 the literature of the day and the spirit of the age as 
 seen upon its darker side, we see a leaning, not, I 
 think, to a blank atheism, or a barren deism but, to 
 those subtler errors of a heartier aud more alluring 
 nature which, confusing between God and the things 
 on which His will operates, make of all things God. 
 The school of Carlyle, and others of a like spirit, 
 though not owning him as master, looking into 
 the world and seeing the forces which are working in 
 it and upon it, with an energy which increases in an 
 accelerating ratio, such as opinion, with the press for 
 its organ, steam with all its mighty consequences, and 
 other like powers, which man makes and uses, tell us 
 to believe in other things than God's person, and tell 
 us that will, and energy, and thought, and other such 
 abstractions, rule and direct the world. But this is not 
 what we shall really learn from the phenomena which 
 may be seen around us. Everything leads us rather to 
 a personal and present God. Who that sees the chains 
 by which the past and the present are united, who that 
 marks the preparations which were made in ages long 
 past for results which only now become apparent, who
 
 25 
 
 that perceives how earth and man have had their seed 
 time, and summer, which is now being followed by 
 that autumnal season, as Bacon calls it, in which pro- 
 phecy foretold that many " shall run to and fro, and 
 science shall be increased," can fail to discover in this 
 unbroken chain of cause and consequence, that first 
 cause, that pervading presence, that almighty Person to 
 whom past and present and future are one everlasting 
 now ; who Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 for ever, counts a day as it were a thousand years, and 
 a thousand years as one day ? If an infinite Mind 
 is so directing everything that is and breathes, 
 matter in its shapes wherever matter is, and 
 spirit in its formless essence wherever spirit exists, 
 so that all things execute His purposes and 
 work out His wise will, while even evil with all its 
 contradictions pays Him homage, nature becomes 
 intelligible, and man can understand himself. On any 
 other supposition, Creation is one inscrutable enigma, 
 and fate, whatever fate may be, is the sole ruler of the 
 universe, the blind monarch of a benighted and bewil- 
 dering realm. It may require faith to perceive the 
 presence of Him whose glory the heavens are telling, 
 and whose power shines within His works; but it 
 requires a larger faith to believe that the purpose by 
 which all nature is directed is only nature's self. As 
 well might we believe that a ship could reach its 
 harbour without the purpose which gave it its direc- 
 tion, or the mind which presided over its helm. 
 
 And from this we may yet advance but one step 
 further. We have dealt to-day with facts, and facts 
 only. We have asked both art and literature to come 
 before ua and tell us by their acts their ends. From 
 these, the common things of daily life and observation, 
 we have been led to look with hope upon the future, 
 and to see that unity among ourselves and power over
 
 26 
 
 the realm of nature is no mere dream of poets and 
 enthusiasts, but an actual and veritable possibility, 
 which may some day be brought into existence by some 
 such things as the papers or books which we daily 
 handle, and the ships which go to and fro upon the 
 travelled sea. But now, from experience and fact, let 
 us go back to take but one glance at revelation, and 
 see what prophecy and psalm have got to tell us of 
 things so deeply touching upon the highest interests of 
 man's race. The great subject of the Bible is love, 
 unity, and peace. Poetry glows into its finest heat 
 and most exalted language, when it speaks of that divine 
 kingdom stretching to the world's end, when abundance 
 of peace shall be as long as the moon endureth. 
 Prophecy paints its fairest picture, as it ushers in that 
 jewelled age when the wolf and the lamb shall dwell 
 together, and the little child shall both find the asp 
 harmless and rule with gentle sway the savage beast. 
 The King of that empire, of which things like these are 
 the development, left as his legacy behind Him the 
 unutterable blessing which man has named peace. 
 And the last writer of the Bible speaks and thinks of 
 little else but love, which is the flower of Christianity, 
 and unity, which is love's fruit. Is it, then, that this 
 Kingdom of God is about to come forth into its fall 
 distinctness, and that an age is drawing nearer and more 
 near, when the dross being consumed which now is 
 mingled with the gold and silver, the pure metal shall 
 shine out in all its brightness ? Is it that the dreams of 
 universal empire which conquerors and armies have 
 striven to realize is soon to be exemplified beneath the 
 sway of Him who is the Prince of Peace ? We know 
 not what may follow, and we cannot now know. 
 Prophecy was given rather to interpret things which 
 happen, than to show us plainly things to come. We 
 can but observe the times and seasons, and read the
 
 27 
 
 signs which are in them. Certainly, it would be 
 easier now to rule the earth from one centre, than in 
 the days of old to rule the iron empire when Rome was 
 the navel of the earth. Certainly, the powers which 
 -Jiow exist, the press, steam, the telegraph, developed, 
 as time will no doubt develop them, out of that 
 infantine condition in which some of them at least as 
 yet are, in comparison with their as yet unknown and 
 scarce imagined capabilities, might realize that, in 
 fact, which once would have seemedr^ntirely visionary. 
 This very earth, purged of the evil which now hinders 
 its perfection, might yet become an universal Paradise, 
 and the glories of Eden might cease to be a lost dream. 
 But, dropping speculations such as these, which are 
 meant rather as hints at possibilities than as anticipa- 
 tions of a future which yet is hidden in the womb of 
 time, we may still, I think, be led from them to see 
 that meetings such as these are not without their uses 
 and advantages. These annual reports, which tell us 
 what our Library is doing, may suggest to us thoughts 
 of Him who gave us speech with all its mighty 
 consequences. And the hour which we spend here, 
 with books above and around us, may lead us to think 
 of the dead whose minds still live upon our shelves, 
 watching as it were the result of their efforts and the 
 fruits of their labours, and may induce us, solemnly 
 reflecting upon our own responsibilities and duties, so 
 to read or so to write, that we may do our part in 
 making Literature that which it was meant to be the 
 voice and utterance of love, the bond by which love 
 should unite society, the chief among the influences by 
 which men, united with each other, should rule and 
 subdue the earth. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMOX AND CO., PRINTEBS, ST. GEORGE'S-STREET.
 

 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 -sktfr Jtraitesari) peethtg 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 13TH MAY, 1865. 
 
 in the Ckair. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1865.
 
 
 
 Ho*. W. PORTER, 
 Hox. MR. JUSTICE WATER- 
 MEYER, 
 
 MR. PROFESSOR CAMERON, 
 GEORGE FRERE, ESQ., 
 (Treasurer), 
 
 R. BAYLEY, ESQ. 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ., 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ.. 
 MR. PROFESSOR NOBLE, 
 MAJOR LONG MORE, 
 DB. DALE. 
 
 I J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 A True Copy: 
 F. MASKEW, Librarian.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The period for the 
 Annual Meeting of the South African Public Library 
 having arrived, the Committee, in calling the subscri- 
 bers together to surrender their trust, are induced to 
 hope that its interests have been carefully attended to 
 during the last twelve months, and that the accessions 
 to its literary stores have been marked with a due 
 regard to the tastes of all classes of readers. 
 
 During the past year an application was made by the 
 Committee of the Mechanics' Institute for the purpose 
 of ascertaining upon what terms the Library could be 
 made available for the use of its members ; who at 
 present are debarred from enjoying the advantages 
 offered by this Institution, the hours during which the 
 Library is at present open to the public precluding 
 them from attending, and also to ascertain whether 
 some arrangement could not be made for opening the 
 Library in the evening. 
 
 Your Committee gave this subject their most serious 
 and attentive consideration ; and, however much in- 
 clined at all times to extend the usefulness of this 
 institution, they regret that on account of the heavy 
 additional expenditure it would entail they could not 
 accede to the request of the members to open the 
 Library as proposed. They, however, decided to pro- 
 pose to the Committee of the Institution to lower the 
 rate of subscription in their case to Ten Shillings per 
 annum, payable half-yearly in advance ; provided that 
 not less than twenty members availed themselves of 
 the privilege. This offer was acknowledged by the 
 Committee of the Mechanics' Institute as liberal and 
 
 A 2
 
 satisfactory ; but they regretted that in consequence 
 of members not enrolling themselves in sufficient num- 
 bers to comply with the conditions prescribed, they 
 could not for the present avail themselves of it. 
 
 The Committee have also had under their consider- 
 ation draft of rules for the management of the "Grey 
 Collection," which was submitted by the Trustees, and 
 which in their opinion appeared suitable for the re- 
 quirements of this collection. These rules, with some 
 slight modification, were adopted by the Committee, 
 and are subject to your approval. The rules are as 
 follow: 
 
 Rule 1. Sir George Grey's Library, forming the 
 "Grey Collection" in the South African Public 
 Library, is open to the public during the same hours 
 and under the same rules and regulations as the other 
 parts of this Institution ; but no book or manuscript is 
 to be taken out except by order of Sir George Grey. 
 
 (2.) No books shall be taken from the shelves with- 
 out the permission of the Librarian of the "Grey 
 Collection," or the person in charge during the absence 
 of the same. 
 
 (3.) Books of particular value and manuscripts will 
 only be accessible to the public under the personal 
 inspection of the Librarian, who will be in attendance 
 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. 
 
 (4.) In the absence of the Librarian of the "Grey 
 Collection," from leave of absence or on account of 
 illness or other causes, the Librarian of the Public 
 Library will undertake the duties incumbent on the 
 Librarian of the " Grey Collection" under these rules. 
 
 (5.) The Librarian has discretionary power in grant- 
 ing or refusing permission to use any of the books or 
 manuscripts in the collection. He is also to give such 
 specific directions regarding the manner of handling 
 the books and manuscripts as he may find necessary.
 
 5 
 
 (6.) Transcribers are iiot to lay the paper on which 
 they write on any part of the book or manuscript they 
 are using. As a general rule they are not allowed to 
 use ink but pencil. No tracings are allowed without 
 express permission. 
 
 (7.) No person is on any pretence whatever to write 
 on any part of a printed book or manuscript belonging 
 to the collection. 
 
 (8.) It may be sufficient merely to mention that 
 silence is absolutely requisite in a place devoted to the 
 purpose of study. 
 
 In their last Report, the Committee stated that a 
 certain amount out of the Parliamentary grant would 
 be available for the purchase of books required to fill 
 up various departments of the collection. They have 
 now much pleasure in acquainting you that they have 
 added several valuable works to the Library of Refe- 
 rence, which ought long ago to have had a place on 
 your shelves, but which the limited means hitherto at 
 their disposal prevented them from procuring. 
 
 The accession of books during the present year by 
 purchase as well as by presentation has been as 
 follows : 
 
 Vols. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 9 
 
 Political Economy, Jurisprudence ... 10 
 
 Science and the Arts 27 
 
 Dictionaries, &c. 43 
 
 Works of Amusement ... ... ... 133 
 
 Belles Lettres, &c 44 
 
 History 46 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... ... 33 
 
 Biography ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 Miscellaneous 9 
 
 Total 405
 
 Amongst them, the committee have the honour re- 
 spectfully to acknowledge a volume of the Speeches 
 and Addresses of His late Royal Highness the Prince 
 Consort, graciously presented to the Library by Her 
 Majesty the Queen ; also three volumes in folio, en- 
 titled " Waring's Masterpieces of Industrial Art and 
 Sculpture," the gift of His Excellency Sir P. E. 
 Wodehouse, and several other donations of books from 
 the following gentlemen : Messrs. James Hogg & Son 
 and Mr. Geo. Hodgskin of London, Sir Thomas 
 Maclear, Messrs. T. B. Bayley, TV r . H. TFathen, W. 
 Hiddingh, P. B. Borcherds, T. W. Bowler, and W. 
 Y. Eldridge. 
 
 The Treasurer's account will be submitted, which 
 will show the income and expenditure during the 
 past year. 
 
 Your Committee, in closing their Report and surren- 
 dering their trust, have, with their retrospect of much 
 that has been pleasant and progressive in the history 
 of the Library, to make reference to one special loss 
 which they, in common with their fellow-colonists 
 throughout the country, have sustained. To the chain 
 of associations which already connects the memories 
 of many good and great men with this Institution, they 
 have now mournfully to add another link. The name 
 of JOHN FAIRBAIEN will long be familiar to the ears 
 of all, not only as a lover of literature and patron of 
 education, but as of one whose pen contributed, in 
 language graphic, earnest, and truthful, many a stir- 
 ring page to the literary treasures of the Cape ; and 
 when time shall have mellowed the remembrance of the 
 man as he moved amongst us, his memory will be 
 chronicled amongst the names of the South African 
 worthies.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It has seemed to me 
 that at our meeting of the Library we might suitably 
 occupy an hour in endeavouring to form some estimate 
 of contemporary literature and art. Though the South 
 African Library, more than most of a public charac- 
 ter, contains fair specimens of what our forefathers 
 have left us as a rich inheritance of knowledge and 
 wisdom, yet we possibly prize its privileges most of all 
 because it puts us in possession of the works which the 
 best authors in Europe or America are now giving to 
 the world. We are all, perhaps, more interested in 
 the life that is throbbing in our own day, than in the 
 most memorable epochs of history, and that not because 
 we excel our forefathers in either virtue or skill, but 
 because we have a sympathy with present events and 
 the out-pourings of living teachers which no penchant 
 for historical or antiquarian studies can overcome. 
 We may be thankful, however, that we are not called 
 upon altogether to separate the moral and intellectual 
 life of past and present days. For the wise sayings 
 and mature thoughts of our ancestors repeat themselves 
 in the literature which we now enjoy. This age, 
 whicli has produced so much of its own worthy of ou r 
 admiration, has been distinguished by a reverent 
 regard for ancient writings, and has bestowed no little 
 pains in determining their true meaning, and preserv- 
 ing, and in some instances rescuing from mistaken 
 scorn, the reputation of their authors. Though our 
 living writers cannot reproduce the individuality of old 
 authors, they are, without being plagiarists, not only
 
 8 
 
 penetrated with their spirit, and the better for their 
 knowledge, but the very form in which their thoughts 
 were clothed unmistakably reappears, though with 
 the tone and colouring of a new age. It is most won- 
 derful that amidst the emigrations and conflicts of 
 centuries the literature of the old world has been to so 
 great an extent preserved. When the Gothic night 
 descended upon Europe, and almost every form of 
 mental exercise gave way to the roughest type of brute 
 force, there were sheltered nooks and corners where 
 the sacred fire still burned. When the barbarian 
 hordes overran Europe, until they were stopped by the 
 Atlantic, that Providence which has in its good keeping 
 the thoughts as well as the souls of men seemed to 
 guard the mountain passes opening to Southern Europe, 
 where the civilization of the world lay cradled, and in 
 the vales of Thessaly and the Italian peninsula, what 
 existed in the world of art and literature was sheltered 
 from the ruthless assault. 
 
 When we are speaking of the literature of the day, 
 we are describing the literature of all past ages, as it 
 has entered into the thinking and speaking of the pre- 
 sent age, with the manner in which living teachers 
 have employed it and added to it. Both the repro- 
 ductions and additions of our own day seem to us so 
 significant and important as to deserve a prominent 
 place in the history of literature. When the reign of 
 our beloved Sovereign comes to be reviewed by the 
 historian, we shall, I believe, stand amazed at the 
 immense additions to our scientific knowledge and the 
 general literary activity which it has witnessed. M ore- 
 over, amidst the profusion of prose and poetic contri- 
 butions to literature, and a certain uniformity of power 
 which undoubtedly obtains, there are substantial and 
 clearly marked characteristics and consummate excel- 
 lence in certain branches which cannot fail to attract
 
 9 
 
 his attention. The same remarks may be made, with 
 added emphasis, of most branches of the fine arts. 
 Our modern artists, from Turner to Millais, need not 
 shun comparison with the greatest workmen in colours 
 the world has ever produced ; while in the rendering 
 of delicate and subtle spiritual meanings they stand un- 
 rivalled. There is thus abundantly sufficient in the 
 present characteristics of literature and art to justify our 
 attention to the subject of literature and the fine arts in 
 the reign of Victoria. We do not promise to give 
 anything like a comprehensive analysis of its character 
 in the limits of this' paper, but we shall count ourselves 
 fortunate if we are able to indicate its salient features, 
 and above all to mark its tone and spirit. 
 
 Mr. Craik, in his " History of Literature," remarks 
 that in the three great epochs of English literature 
 the Elizabethan, that of Queen Anne, and the present 
 century the reviving impulse has come from a 
 foreign source : the first from Italy, the second from 
 France, and the last from Germany. This remark, 
 though strictly true, must not blind us to the fact 
 that English literature, like English liberty, has had 
 a growth of its own. Nay, in each of these three 
 instances we can trace elements silently at work in our 
 own country, leading us in the same direction as the 
 "reviving impulse" from abroad; nor must the element 
 of reaction be lost sight of in these changes and 
 revivals. The polished, clever feebleness of the Specta- 
 tor writers stands in contrast with the agonizing 
 earnestness of the 17th century literature, and the 
 national and social life underwent a similar change. 
 The reign of formality which followed could hardly 
 have lasted much longer if the influence of German 
 literature had not lent its aid to the last revolution. 
 
 The literature of our own time receives its most 
 characteristic colouring from the spirit which Words-
 
 10 
 
 worth and Coleridge infused into English thought and 
 feeling ; and in their day the influence of German 
 philosophy, poetry, and scholarship began to be felt 
 by English students. The epoch immediately pre- 
 ceding had been from the days of Queen Anne an 
 almost unbroken reign of formalism. Addison and 
 Steele, and even Bishop Berkely, though they wrote 
 with an affected familiarity and with great clearness 
 and simplicity, manifested such concern for precision 
 and polish, that true emotion had little chance of 
 finding its way through their nicely-balanced periods. 
 Pope, with all his power and brilliance, erred in the 
 same direction. His carefully-balanced antitheses 
 and flowing rhythm are never broken by genuine pas- 
 sion or homely wisdom. We are not surprised to hear 
 that he was passionately fond of the stage. His charac- 
 ters are all actors in brilliant dress, his scenery like the 
 familiar pasteboard that moves on wheels ; his lights 
 are mimic fire, and not from the clear heavens ; and 
 his wisdom the conventional stock of the grey wigs. 
 Byron, with his long passionate wail on human destiny, 
 and his free and sometimes coarse treatment of men 
 and manners, did something to bring this formalism 
 to an end. But he did not and could not satisfy the 
 awakened longings of that day. Men turned to the 
 wonderful and passionate discoursings of Coleridge, 
 piercing and stirring up the depths of their being, and 
 more slowly but not less surely to the calm philosophic 
 depth and the pure, exalted spirit of William Words- 
 worth. If the literature of Germany had been 
 unknown in the history of the world, we cannot doubt 
 that these men would have exercised a profound in- 
 fluence on literature ; but they happened to follow 
 a time of intense mental activity on the Continent, 
 the influence of which can be clearly traced in their 
 writings. Since we cannot now open a lexicon or
 
 11 
 
 scientific treatise, or a critical commentary on a classical 
 author, or even on Holy Scripture, without finding 
 abundant reference to the labours of German scholars 
 and teachers, and the whole tone of our literature is 
 more or less affected by them, we must stay a minute 
 to inquire what this German influence was, and in 
 what manner it affected the thinking and writing of 
 educated Englishmen. 
 
 The writing of Locke, Condillac, &c., and indeed 
 the general course of an empirical system of metaphy- 
 sics in England, though I am not unmindful of its 
 modification in the acute discourses of the Scottish 
 Professors had led to the conclusion that " there is 
 nothing in the understanding which has not arrived 
 there through the senses." To this Leibnitz replied, 
 "Yes, there is the understanding itself." Modern 
 German philosophy may be said to have started from 
 this proposition, and commencing with a searching 
 examination of the part which the mind played in 
 giving form to phenomena, it aspired to grasp the 
 science of all being through the soul of man, and to 
 make him both the measure and the interpreter of the 
 Universe itself. Kant was content with admitting 
 the reality of both the external world and the mind, 
 but gave a more important place than the great 
 English philosopher to the mind in determinating and 
 regulating the impressions of sense. According to 
 his system, matter only furnished the rough shapings, 
 and mind itself gave the forms and tone. External 
 nature without mind, according to his theory, may be 
 compared to the coloured pieces of glass in the kale- 
 idoscope, which fall into order only at the glance of the 
 soul. Kant, moreover, made a most important dis- 
 tinction between the operations of the mind receiving 
 phenomenal and moral and spiritual impresions the 
 well-known distinction between the verstandt and
 
 12 
 
 vernuft the understanding and the reason. We 
 employ the one in reasoning by sense, and the other 
 in reasoning beyond sense. The one is confined to 
 the objects and relations of the outward world ; the 
 other to those of the spiritual world the one relates 
 to the forms under which we view the finite and con- 
 tingent ; the other relates to the forms under which we 
 image to ourselves the infinite, the absolute, the eter- 
 nal. Fichte considered the foundation of Kant un- 
 sound, inasmuch as he started from the separate exis- 
 tence of mind and matter, and in his search for truth 
 presupposed the reality of each. He maintained the 
 absolute supremacy of individual consciousness and 
 impression. There might or might not be an external 
 world distinct from the spiritual: we knew it only as 
 it appeared to us, and our own souls contained the 
 Alpha and Omega of all knowledge and existence. 
 Schelling, like Fichte, warmly criticized his predeces- 
 sors. Revolting from the man-worship to which Fichte's 
 system inevitably led, he considered it an error to 
 make man's mind the sum and standard of all truth ; 
 and, asserting the separate existence of phenomena and 
 spirit, he deduced from them an independent and 
 absolute existence, revealing itself through each. 
 Hegel in turn pursued a different course from each of 
 his predecessors, and, with all his wonderful powers, 
 strove to show the identity of thought and existence, 
 flatter, in all its varying forms, was but the ever- 
 present action of spirit and life, and the highest mani- 
 festation of it was man himself. The union of soul 
 -and body in man was but the type and mirror of 
 universal life and order. "We know no life beyond 
 this ever-present and eternal action. 
 
 It forms no part of my design to estimate the value 
 of these speculations. It may have been it surely 
 was that in exploring that inner world, with the
 
 13 
 
 wondrous scenery of which we are so little familiar, 
 the mirror which reflected far-off divine glories was 
 mistaken for the eternal substance. The truth of the 
 whole matter, as we have received it, itself accounts 
 for the mistakes. "In the image of God," says the 
 Holy Book, "made He man." The mirror is dimmed 
 and broken ; but even in the scattered fragments there 
 are flashes and colourings of divine beauty, which, 
 having lost their tone, place, and order, make the 
 beholder imagine he has come upon the great eternal 
 light of which they are the imperfect yet beautiful 
 reflections. 
 
 Nor must it be imagined that these growths of 
 mental energy were transplanted to English soil; 
 There was no attempt, except in Coleridge's wonderful 
 and impassioned reproductions of the Kantian philo- 
 sophy, to impose a formal exposition of them, except 
 indeed for scholastic purposes, upon the English mind. 
 There is a physical energy about the Anglo-Saxon 
 character which stands in the way of an absorbed, and 
 as some may think, morbid contemplation of mental 
 and spiritual phenomena. Whether M. Victor Cousin's 
 complimentary theory be correct, that from our insular 
 position all our thinking and speculation is imperfectly 
 carried out, and never, even in the hands of our 
 philosophers, reaches its legitimate results, it is certain 
 that we are impatient of theorizings that cannot be 
 readily translated into the practice of life. Even where 
 we seem to trace in English authors a high and 
 ennobling reflection of the Platonic doctrines, we find 
 an intense mental action, that allies itself with human 
 sorrow and need, rather than a pure reflective spirit, 
 that is content to tell its dreams to an audience of 
 thinkers. The general result of the continental influ- 
 ence as it then passed into English literature may be 
 thus described. As the tone of teaching most familiar
 
 14 
 
 to Englishmen had regarded man merely as receiving 
 the lessons of nature and experience, the new teaching 
 insisted on the gifts which man himself bestowed upon 
 these great educators of our race. We were told and 
 made to feel what he gave to nature, and how he 
 surrounded it with the glory of his own being rather 
 than what nature gave to him. The crown was taken 
 from sensuous impressions and placed upon the soul by 
 which they were largely moulded. The spiritual 
 faculty through which men yearned after, and to some 
 extent realized, eternal things, was separated from all 
 mere mental processes, and held to contribute a glory 
 of its own in every field of contemplation. In other 
 words, Aristotelian impressions had, as in the days of 
 the Alexandrian schools, to give place to the richer 
 influence of Platonic doctrine, modified by new chan- 
 nels of inquiry, and at least in one case made to do 
 true service for mankind. It is true, indeed, that 
 strange visitors were introduced into that presence 
 chamber of the soul consecrated to the service of the 
 King of kings and all His train of invisible wonders, 
 and the mere sentiment of devotion often took the place 
 of the true worship of Almighty God ; but on the whole, 
 the fact that the higher relationships of life and being 
 -were more truly recognized, was in itself a pledge of 
 better things. It was a necessary result of this greater 
 concern for the spirit of literature, as distinguished 
 from its form, that objective themes were less cared for. 
 And this was the chief characteristic of Wordsworth's 
 poetry. In his prologue to " Peter Bell," he complains 
 of the eternal grandeur of the themes which the poets 
 require to inspire their songs. They are, he says, 
 for ever jaunting to moons, and planets, and suns, 
 while as rich or richer material was to be found in the 
 hedgerows in a quiet morning walk or in the simple 
 joys and sorrow of every-day life. The very fact that
 
 15 
 
 such great themes were required suggested to him the 
 criticism that there was a care for mere externals in 
 literature inconsistent with the flow of a genuine 
 inspiration. In accordance with these feelings, when 
 he would describe a hardened sensuous ruffian, he uses 
 the now familiar words, 
 
 " A primrose on the river's brim 
 A yellow primrose was to him 
 And it was nothing more." 
 
 Wordsworth, in his intense dislike of shallow brilliance, 
 seems to us to have gone to the opposite extreme. 
 He was in danger of falling into the very error he 
 exposed, namely, that of magnifying the objects of 
 poetry, when he thought he could find it in a spade 
 and a brick-wall. But those pure and lofty medita- 
 tions by the Cumberland Lakes, though they may 
 never be popular, did far more to influence the tone 
 of English literature than the passionate discourses of 
 Coleridge. 
 
 It is not difficult to show that the spirit of Words- 
 worth has been inherited by the leading poets of our 
 time Tennyson and the Brownings with the hosts 
 of lesser lights who have contributed a rich store of 
 true poetry to the literature of the day. And in 
 giving the first place amongst men of letters to our 
 poets, we are surely following the true order. It is 
 an utter mistake to speak of the poetry of a nation as 
 the amusement of its refined and cultured men, or of 
 .the work of the imagination as a superfluity of being. 
 National poetry is related to its life as any man's 
 highest ideal is related to his practical work. To a 
 far greater extent than we are willing to admit, the 
 matter-of-fact men are guided by their dreams. Even 
 a little child has floating visions of ideal perfection 
 that guide its entrance into life ; and many a one, as 
 he has plodded on in doubt and despair, has heard
 
 16 
 
 above the roar of the busy world the quiet whisper, 
 " keep to the dream of thy youth." Our dreaming 
 moods, when new purposes take shape to our souls, 
 have more to do with our destiny than our systematic 
 thinkings. Taken altogether, they form the life-ideal 
 at which we are steadily working in ordinary engage- 
 ments. Our eye constantly wearies as we look at 
 exact mechanical work on the painter's canvas, through 
 which no true ideal shines; while every touch ia 
 quickened into brilliance if the " vision and the faculty " 
 are both present. In some such way, the poetry of a 
 nation not only penetrates its literature, but finds its 
 way into its infinitely varied work. Those who have 
 never read a line of an author's poetry are through 
 these indirect channels still under his influence. It ia 
 not too much to say that the poetry of Wordsworth 
 and Tennyson have found their way into Acts of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 Mr. Tennyson much resembles Wordsworth in his 
 subtle entrance into the workings of the inner life. 
 While he deals skilfully with lighter moods, he displays 
 his true strength when he takes us into realms where 
 to think is to suffer. No one has described in richer 
 verse the soul's sorrows and aspirations, the mysteries 
 that sadden it, and the joys that feed it its hope. 
 Instead of giving us fine after-thoughts upon any sjcene 
 of human interest, he lives it by throwing himself 
 utterly into its circumstances and emotions, almost 
 regardless of our power to track his steps. To follow 
 where his own mood leads is to him the only order of 
 true poetry. There is in his poems little external 
 unity, though there is marvellous compactness both of 
 thought and style. The outer world does not so much 
 impress itself upon him as he himself upon it. Its 
 ten thousand forms of life are only the symbols of 
 matchless beauties behind the realms of the seen and
 
 17 
 
 temporal not the realities of being, but the beautiful 
 " veil on which their shadows fall." Thus he wanders 
 on from year to year, singing his sweet moods of love 
 and grief to those that have learned to listen, some- 
 times in a sad strain when he cannot realize the har- 
 mony between the finite form and the infinite life, yet 
 always cherishing the "larger hope," and trusting 
 somehow "good will be the final goal of ill." Like the 
 ideal poet, he describes 
 
 "Ht> saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, 
 He saw thro' his own soul, 
 The marvel of the everlasting will 
 An open scroll." 
 
 The criticism just offered, that Mr. Tennyson for 
 the most part follows the leading of a mood or medi- 
 tation unchecked by considerations of outward unity, 
 may be illustrated by his well-known and matchless 
 poem, " In Memoriam, A. H. H.," when the Laureate 
 reaches his highest though not most popular strains. 
 A writer in the Times has compared this poem with 
 the Lycidas of Milton, and certainly there is so far a 
 resemblance, in that both are prompted by the death 
 of a friend, and a friend beyond the sea, but there it 
 ends. In Lycidas, the history of the hero is kept 
 before the reader by narrative ; but in "In Memoriam" 
 it can be tracked but dimly through the poem. Perhaps 
 most here can remember a time when they have lost 
 a friend as near to them as Arthur Henry Ilallam to 
 Alfred Tennyson. Let them call to mind the sad 
 strange history of their grief. At one time some old 
 forgotten scene associated with their companionship 
 will recur; at another a momentary doubt traverse 
 the soul as they tried to grasp the consolation that he 
 was living in the house not made with hands, then 
 the mysteries of death and sorrow, old as mortality, 
 will brood over the troubled heart. Then the shadows
 
 18 
 
 would be chased away by the Easter notes of triumph 
 from the Saviours open grave and the tender memory 
 of a beautiful life. Such a mood has Mr. Tennyson 
 given us in its severe simplicity in the " In Memoriam,'' 
 unattended by even fragments of history to unite his 
 meditations. At one time he passes the house where 
 his friend once lived, and cannot believe it untenanted ; 
 at another he imagines the sea bearing its solemn 
 freight, motion everywhere but in the still breast that 
 " heaves but with the heaving deep." Then he will 
 recur to experiences of utter friendship which Mr- 
 Kingsley tells us (though we don't believe him) are 
 growing scarcer every year 
 
 " The path by which we twain did go 
 Which led by tracks that pleased us well: 
 Through four sweet years arose and fell 
 From flower to flower, from snow to snow." 
 
 Then, in rapid and unexpected alternations, come in 
 the questionings of doubt and fear, but all ending in 
 the calm repose of faith. 
 
 But a true artist not only reproduces his own re- 
 flections, but tries to throw himself into other people's. 
 Mr. Tennyson does this with the same power and the 
 same carelessness for circumstantial order. He throws 
 himself into the soul of his hero, giving us just enough 
 of plot and circumstances to help us to a picture of his 
 life. And this power has much advantage when 
 outward elements of interest and beauty are wanting. 
 Who besides Mr. Tennyson could have invested the 
 flat wilderness of the Lincolnshire fens with poetic 
 thought? Pope or Dryden would have written a 
 satire on it. Milton would have cried, " ask me not to 
 bring ray muse to such levels; let me go to the moun- 
 tains or the streams. I must sing of the depths of the 
 nether world or the joys of a regained Paradise/' 
 Shakespeare would have filled the plain with life, and
 
 19 
 
 made us feel that the joys and griefs of the common 
 world tenanted those quiet, sombre homesteads. 
 With matchless skill and truth, Mr. Tennyson has 
 put his mourning Mariana in the moated grange, and, 
 looking out upon the " level waste, the rounding 
 grey," " the sluice that slept with blackened waters," 
 the "lonely poplar on the waste," the shrill and 
 wooing wind has thrown the wild reflection of the 
 scene upon her weary soul. 
 
 Mr. Tennyson needs no justification for having ex- 
 plored the soul's hiding-places and tracked its secret 
 wanderings ; but that he has done so suggests the 
 remark that in the moods he seems to fathom, we are 
 all visited by our ripest and richest inspirations, and 
 what of true poetry may dwell in ordinary spirits at 
 such times flows most tenderly. If it be needful to 
 our ideal of a great poet that he must be able to paint 
 every kind of life and enter into every situation of 
 human joy and sorrow, like our own wonderful master, 
 then Mr. Tennyson cannot lay claim to that distinc- 
 tion. But if we think that greatness is as much 
 revealed by the man who moves in fewer paths but 
 leaves a deeper track upon them, and these paths are 
 solemn highways along which all human souls must 
 move, often in pain and always in solitude, then is our 
 Laureate amongst the greatest of our poets. Nor 
 must it be forgotten that he has added richly to our 
 varieties of metre and style of poetic expression. His 
 admirably chosen words fall upon the ear like the 
 clear drop of an evening bell on a summer evening. 
 His painting and packing are in some of his pieces 
 as near an approach to perfection as anything in the 
 language. The " Morte d' Arthur" and many of his 
 smaller poems are gems of delicate workmanship and 
 finish he will probably never more equal, for he 
 already gives signs of painting with a broader brush. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 His last volume proves that his genius has more com- 
 pass and flexibility than many have suspected, and we 
 shall doubtless yet meet him in new fields of song. 
 
 The poetry of the Brownings is of the same order 
 as Mr. Tennyson's, but it has many important differ- 
 ences. With every feeling of admiration for Mr. 
 Browning's wonderful powers, his subtle analysis of 
 opinion, his rich descriptions, and the fine dramatic 
 qualities of his earlier poems, we feel that his strange 
 periods, with their half-concealed meanings, caught only 
 by a strained attention the heart of the people. We 
 wish that the " lines would let their meaning meet us 
 with a more level gaze," and we should like sometimes 
 to rest from our wanderings amongst infinite mysteries 
 for a song of heart and home, or the work of daily love 
 and sorrow. Of Mrs. Browning we must speak with 
 the reverence claimed by the dead. Who wonders 
 that the brain that travailled with thoughts of such 
 wondrous beauty and wrestled with such high problems 
 is now still death. "Aurora Leigh" is alone sufficient 
 to establish her reputation as a great poet. Though 
 written to solve the problem whether man can be 
 reached through the outworks of philanthropy, or 
 whether his soul must be inspired with a new life, 
 which may be left to shape the circumstances of his 
 being, it is full of human interest. It displays a wealth 
 of descriptive faculty and a freedom of power some- 
 times, perhaps, a little wildly, almost uncouthly 
 exercised, which is truly marvellous. But besides 
 these greater efforts, she has thrown herself into the 
 social and even political life of the people in verses of 
 inimitable strength and tenderness. She now sleeps in 
 her own beautiful Florence, her beloved Italy, sleeps, 
 too, in Him who giveth "His beloved sleep." She asks 
 us to remember her, not in the vicissitudes of her 
 suffering life, but passing to the Divine quiet, " where
 
 21 
 
 the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at 
 rest. 
 
 " And friends, dear friends, when it shall be 
 That this low breath has gone from me; 
 
 When round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let one most loving of you all 
 bay not a tear must o'er her fall, 
 
 He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 I have no space to pass in review the labours of other 
 poets of our era who have contributed largely to its 
 literature. They have all, more or less, the character- 
 istics of the masters I have named. The taste for 
 smooth and skilful versification has given place to a 
 poetry that demands freer canons, because it deals with 
 simpler emotions and more subtle meditations. 
 
 Next in order to our poets we may give some atten- 
 tion to writers of fiction, who have made some of the 
 richest and most characteristic contributions to the 
 literature of our time. Amidst a wilderness of trash, 
 turned into the market in bushels, to supply the 
 insatiable appetites of novel readers, we have a number 
 of writings of substantial power that will live as works 
 of art for many a year to come. That so many authors 
 of high merit should choose such a method of conveying 
 their thoughts is not a little surprising, and may be 
 regarded as a peculiarity of our time. But there is a 
 light in which fiction may be regarded as a form of 
 contemporary history. It reflects the passing men and 
 manners of the time with more truth to an eclectic 
 reader than the columns of a newspaper, which can but 
 deal with facts which attract public attention. 
 Writers are busy clothing the dry bones of history in 
 romance, and reproducing in novels the events of 
 common life. Though this age witnesses a sickening 
 amount of plagiarism in the manufacture of new plots, 
 it has produced a class of fiction of higher quality than 
 any preceding era. Richardson and Smollett come out
 
 in clever abridgments, adapted to the change of taste, 
 and under various titles. " Old friends," says one the 
 rapid movement of whose pen soon wore away his life, 
 "revisit us with new faces. Amelia has watched the 
 dying embers for a dozen husbands since Fielding left 
 her ; and Uncle Toby's mellow tones have startled us 
 down a college staircase and through the railings of 
 counting-houses in the city. Gentlemen and heroines 
 from whom we parted many years ago, with slight 
 respect for their attainments, have now taken a scien- 
 tific or serious turn. Lovelace is absorbed in entomo- 
 logy ; and Lady Bellaston is a rubber of brasses." 
 
 The new tone of English fiction may be said to have 
 taken its rise in the labours of Mr. Charles Dickens 
 and Mr. W. M. Thackeray, though both these gen- 
 tlemen belong to a school whose influence is already 
 yielding to higher and more spiritual qualities ; nor 
 can they be described as embodying the characteristics 
 which will make the Victorian era remarkable in narra- 
 tive literature. But they compel a tribute of affection- 
 ate admiration for the manner in which they have 
 employed their great powers. Mr. Dickens has laid 
 bare for us, with wonderful power, the social life of our 
 great cities. He has taken us to the homes of poverty 
 and care, and made us feel the oneness of our human 
 nature, and what high hopes and longings may be buried 
 under a load of misery and ignorance. With what 
 ceaseless energy he has dragged out the last forms of 
 social oppression ! The Fleet prison crumbled at his 
 touch; and even the paupers rejoiced in Christmas 
 cheer, to the dismay and discomfiture of the parish 
 beadle. Mr. Thackeray sang one prose song with 
 many variations, heard first, he tells us, in old days 
 beneath the solemn Syrian cedars, " Vanity of vani- 
 ties, all is vanity, saith the preacher." How remorse- 
 less his satire, yet with what sad earnestness he uses
 
 23 
 
 the knife ; he cuts but to heal. If he regarded the 
 world as a great hospital and all true teachers as sur- 
 geons, it must be acknowledged that the estimate was 
 not an untrue, if a partial one. Mr. Thackeray tried 
 to show us how bad our human nature had become, 
 and Mr. Dickens urged upon us its infinite possibility 
 of good. Both did a true and needful work bravely. 
 With Mr. Dickens we dream of men, women, and 
 children almost too good for this world, yet very help- 
 ful in urging us on to better things. With Mr. Thack- 
 eray we wake in the cold grey of the morning and 
 find our dream vanishing for a while in the cold actu- 
 alities of life and character ; and so our dreams of good 
 and satires on evil will alternate, until the good time 
 when the poet and the workman shall be one. But 
 another class of fiction-writers has arisen, represented 
 in the writings of the brothers Kingsley, the authoress 
 of "Adam Bede," "Jane Eyre," and "John Halifax, 
 Gentleman," and numerous other writers of a similar 
 character. These writers are more spiritual, and paint 
 the deeper aspects of human life. They are more en 
 rapport with the poetic spirit we have endeavoured to 
 describe. They everywhere recognize the higher rela- 
 tionships of life, and regard all its details in their light. 
 Though they have some of the highest qualifications of 
 fiction writers, in their brilliant powers of description 
 and their subtle entrance into phases of human sin and 
 sorrow, they have plainly chosen a narrative style as a 
 means of conveying higher teaching. We are not now 
 concerned to say how far they have succeeded in their 
 task, or what dangers attend it. On the whole, we 
 thankfully recognize the change, and if the most scep- 
 tical on the tendencies of present literature will com- 
 pare modern works of fiction with the productions of 
 such writers as Richardson and Fielding, they must be 
 profoundly thankful for the change. For the first
 
 24 
 
 time, we have writings of great artistic power, realiz- 
 ing the divine deeds of human nature, and scouting 
 a manhood which does not realize its higher destiny. 
 
 " Ten years ago," writes Mr. Maurice, in a paper on 
 Froude's last volume, " an eminent German scholar 
 expressed his astonishment at the amount and the value 
 of the contributions which England had recently made 
 to historical literature. And, certainly, the Victorian 
 era will be as memorable for these contributions as for 
 anything which it has given to literature. That two 
 great histories of Greece should not only have been 
 undertaken, but should have become popular, was a 
 fact which, he says, no experience in his country of 
 books enabled him to account for. He accepted, if he 
 did not suggest, the interpretation that those who 
 were in the midst of political action must feel an 
 interest in political experience, from whatever age or 
 nation they are derived, which the most diligent 
 student cannot feel." Certainly, an age which can 
 boast of Lord Macaulay's splendid fragment, of Mr. 
 Froude's Tudors, Mr. Grote's History of Greece, Mr. 
 Carlyle's Cromwell and Frederick, and the complete 
 labours of Mr. Merivale and Dean Milman, may 
 aspire to take its stand by any period in its loving and 
 laborious concern for the events of past days. Un- 
 doubtedly, our practical interest as a nation in politics 
 has occasioned a demand for books of this kind ; 
 the more so because our politics are not fashioned 
 on a modern theory, but are linked to the history 
 and associations of centuries. To Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh we are largely indebted for the philosophic spirit 
 of recent history. With laborious care, if not in a 
 popular style, he traced the characteristics of modern 
 institutions in the habits of our Saxon forefathers. 
 In the rude expressions of approval or reproach 
 from the spectators at the old Saxon Council he
 
 25 
 
 hears the first murmur of that cry for freedom 
 which has found another expression in the growth 
 of British liberty, and in the rude ordeals of 
 justice the determination that something shall stand 
 between the will of the judge and the fate of the cri- 
 minal. Every reader of modern histories will have 
 noticed what deep concern there has been to make 
 history the biography of a nation, and not to rest 
 content with the chronicle of kingly deeds and great 
 political events. " No trifle," says a graceful contribu- 
 tor to our literature, "has been neglected by the modern 
 historian; a mouldering medal is a letter of twenty 
 centuries. In these wrecks of many storms, which 
 time washes on the shore, the scholar has looked 
 patiently for treasure. The painting round a vase, 
 hieroglyphics on stones dug laboriously from under- 
 ground, the wrath of a demagogue, the drollery of a 
 farce, the point of an epigram, each possesses its own 
 point and interest." Lord Macaulay's brilliant repre- 
 sentations of English social and political life realized 
 his own prediction, that when English history came 
 to be written truly, it would be run after in the circu- 
 lating libraries with the eagerness manifested for the 
 latest novel. Lord Macaulay's rhetorical style, how- 
 ever, almost belongs to a past age. He would be 
 compelled to describe the invader of a hundred 
 cheeses in the same faultless antitheses as the hero of 
 a hundred battles. His utilitarian philosophy, more- 
 over, taints his writings with an indifference to any- 
 thing higher than that which meets the exigencies of 
 the time. We much prefer the style and spirit of 
 Froude. He writes in simple, quiet English, and with 
 a serious spirit worthy of one who is writing of the 
 generations of old. We know nothing in modern 
 literature superior to his account of the dawn of the 
 Reformation in England. Everyone who takes up his
 
 26 
 
 book must feel that it had never been written before. 
 It may seem hardly satisfactory to refer to Mr. Thomas 
 Carlyle as a writer of history, yet he has accom- 
 plished enough in this department to make his name 
 great. If ever we were following the fortunes of men 
 and women, and not merely of events in history, it is 
 in the pages of Mr. Carlyle. With all his wild and 
 wayward eloquence, and his free handling of men and 
 manners, he is rigidly exact in his historical data " you 
 may trust him," says Mr. Kingsley, " to the crossing of 
 a #." On the whole, the spirit which we have described 
 as belonging to the literature of our age penetrates its 
 history. We have the workings of a nation's inner 
 life, and not the outward accidents of its being. Its 
 hopes, sorrows, and struggles are pictured to us as if 
 they belonged to one man. Doubtless, our more serious 
 treatment of human nature has prepared us for this. 
 Just as we have discovered in things physical that 
 
 " Within the smallest dust before the tempest hurled 
 Lie locked the principles which regulate a world," 
 
 so our deeper treatment of one man's experience has 
 broadened into our dealings with the world. 
 
 But we now come to a branch of our literature which, 
 perhaps, more than any other has felt the. influence of 
 Germany our critical and scientific works. We can 
 easily imagine what effect the eager pursuit of meta- 
 physical inquiry would have upon the study of philology 
 in Germany. The mechanical rules of grammar, and 
 the shallow, exact, and artificial scholarship which 
 obtained in central Europe and England, gave place 
 to an exhausting examination of words and forms of 
 speech, which has produced the most marvellous results. 
 Words and sentences were studied as the symbols 
 and forms of thoughts. The governments of a sentence 
 were traced to mental laws, and not merely referred to 
 empirical rules of syntax. The eager study of
 
 27 
 
 comparative philology took the place of pedantic efforts 
 to write elegant Latin sentences, or turn the contents 
 of a newspaper into Greek hexameters. Thus, while 
 the philosophers were giving their absorbed attention 
 to the operations of the mind, the scholars were 
 examining its methods of communication in forms of 
 speech. The history and manners of antiquity were 
 ransacked for fresh light on words and idioms. One of 
 the greatest German scholars, Wolf, enunciated the 
 dictum that our object in the study of antiquity should 
 be to gain a knowledge of men as they existed in 
 ancient times. Other distinguished scholars followed 
 in the same direction, and never perhaps, since the days 
 of the Alexandrian schools, has there been such a scene 
 of earnest study as that which obtained in Germany at 
 the commencement of the century. Many of the 
 most earnest workers, who contributed not a little to 
 the general results, were so poor as scarcely to be 
 able to earn their daily bread. Of course, there was 
 a good deal of wild and dangerous speculation 
 resulting from such unwonted activity. But that the 
 scholarship of Europe was almost revolutionized may 
 be gathered from the fact that almost every dictionary 
 and text-book of authority, and every critical 
 commentary on the text of sacred or profane writings, 
 are founded on the labours of German scholars. 
 The effect on English scholarship is, on the whole, 
 of the happiest kind. The richness and suggestiveness 
 of German commentators never show to such advan- 
 tage as when they re-appear in the terse and tempered 
 productions of English criticism. With every acknow- 
 ledgment to our German neighbours who have sup- 
 plied us with so much of the raw material, we think a 
 good scholarly English work unrivalled for its exposi- 
 tory precision and directness of purpose. No age can, 
 in our opinion, compare with this in the production of
 
 laborious and faithful criticism on the text of sacred 
 and classical writings. We now and then encounter 
 them on a dangerously destructive errand ; but we are 
 nevertheless far too slow in acknowledging the amazing 
 benefits which the critical labours of the last fifty years 
 have conferred upon us. Shades of meaning containing 
 new and delicate turns of thought have been brought 
 to light in the literature of the old world, which have 
 yielded a rich harvest to the student. Our steadiest 
 and most systematic thinkers have greatly benefited 
 by the change, and the most orthodox contributors to 
 the literature of the day reflect the general improve- 
 ment in critical investigation. 
 
 Nor must we forget that by the labours of our scho- 
 lars in the direction of translation, the masses are able 
 to enjoy the great productions of the master minds of 
 all ages and of all countries. "Let me," said Lord 
 Macaulay, "felicitate those who are not so fortunate 
 as to have learned the ancient languages, that by 
 means of the English tongue they may obtain admit- 
 tance to intellectual wealth more precious than the 
 greatest scholars in the days of Charles the Fifth could 
 obtain, more precious than could be obtained even by 
 such men as Aldus, Erasmus, and Melancthon." 
 
 Our age may well boast not only of the amazing 
 advance made in every department of physical science, 
 but in the literature through which it is communi- 
 cated to the world. Our men of science vie with 
 each other not only in the production of rich and ster- 
 ling treatises, but in the annual composition of shorter 
 papers to keep the public abreast of their labours. Nor 
 are we to believe, as some would tell us, that in the 
 march of the physical sciences all faith in the unseen 
 will disappear. The blood, indeed, almost curdles in 
 the veins when we read at the conclusion of one of our 
 most profoundly scientific books, that the nature which
 
 29 
 
 we see is the God whom we seek. But we have no 
 fear that such a blank negation will be the result of 
 our progress. The accomplished author of "Man and 
 his Dwelling-place" has shown us how the discoveries 
 of modern science are opening up to tis infinite vistas 
 both of time and space ; so that while certain scientific 
 investigations may seem to have a materializing ten- 
 dency, they are more than counterbalanced by broader 
 and richer thoughts in another direction. 
 
 I introduce the fine arts at the conclusion of a hasty 
 sketch of this kind, not with the slightest intention 
 of dwelling at any length on the great work of the 
 modern schools, but only for the sake of showing that 
 their characteristics in the Victorian era very much 
 resemble those already described as belonging to lite- 
 rature. Before the pre-Raphaelite innovation, which, 
 with all its exaggerations and extravagances, has been 
 the salvation of British art, and is now its hope, a con- 
 ventional artificialism similar to that which had ob- 
 tained in literature was bringing the fine arts into 
 contempt. Pictures were compared with pictures in- 
 stead of with nature, and there was little attempt to 
 reproduce faithfully the forms and colouring of the 
 outer world. An even conventional tone familiar to 
 the purchaser of French plum-boxes appeared to satisfy 
 the taste of the critics and the public. Before the 
 brotherhood made their famous protest, Turner had 
 already startled the art world by his innovations in 
 landscape painting, and Mulready, Leslie, Maclise, 
 Creswick, Egg, Hubert, Dyce, Anthony, and F. M. 
 Brown had already done much to redeem English art 
 by sterling work. Turner, above all, had covered his 
 canvas with creations of wonderful power, studying 
 nature in all her mysteries, and realizing the great truth 
 that, in all her changes of cloud, sunshine, and mist, 
 she does but mirror the passing moods of the soul. All
 
 30 
 
 must remember the feeling with which they fir<t entered 
 the Turner Gallery. The first impression you receive, 
 as you look quietly round at the canvas, is of power, 
 yet power apparently somewhat wildly exercised; 
 power that revelled in mystery, dealing not with the 
 busy life of men in its pomp, but regarding them in 
 solemn communion with the world they dwell in its 
 light and shade, its mountains hung in mist, its seas 
 driven before storms. While there are strong lights 
 upon the pictures sunshine (not sunlight) as it has 
 never been painted before the prevailing tone is some- 
 what gloomy. Not very much of hope in the hand 
 that painted. The old myths reproduced do not lead 
 us to the golden gates, but bid us linger in the shadows 
 and hear the night wind moan. Death is here death 
 at its very work. The shadows fall sternly on the 
 mountains, and the day dies, not in peaceful rest, but 
 as death in its struggle with life, and scarcely hoping 
 for to-morrow, sunset promising a wild night, rather 
 than peace, far on into the darkness, hushing weary 
 sleepers. 
 
 It is worth while, even with the poor light that shines 
 upon a London roof, to wait in the gallery throughout 
 the day. Some of the pictures want the morning 
 light, others the noon-day summer scald, and more 
 still the low twilight tones. Wait until evening, 
 whatever you do. There, in the far corner of the 
 room, are some fishermen bending over a boat, and in 
 the deepening gloom they stand out as only figures can 
 in the evening light. To the right the setting sun is 
 held in the still depths of the harbour waters, waiting 
 for the fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth. 
 Across the room the very shadow of death is on the 
 canvas on which is painted the burial of Wilkie, off 
 Gibraltar. The ships stand out with spectral vivid- 
 ness, and one strong gleam of light joining the sea and
 
 31 
 
 a troubled sky falls on the lowered shroud. Turner's 
 great work was to paint nature as it was toned and 
 shaped by the life within. In his wonderful skies, 
 giving you the idea of boundlessness more than those 
 of any other painter, he paints that which answers to 
 man's infinite yearnings. His clouds always hollow 
 into the sphere from the strongest point of light, and 
 arch our heads with solemn grandeur. 
 
 Turner having led the way in landscape painting, the 
 brotherhood followed in a less difficult branch of art. 
 We have no intention now of criticizing their labours ; 
 it must suffice to indicate their tendency. Their inno- 
 vation in art precisely answered to that of Wordsworth 
 in poetry. They relied on faithful detail in their work, 
 clothed not with conventional brilliance, but with the 
 subtle toning of a high spiritual ideal. It was to be 
 expected that such an innovation would be attended 
 with a good deal of exaggeration ; but this is fast dis- 
 appearing, and every artist has been more or less 
 influenced by their labours. There is a nameless charm 
 in the atmosphere of their pictures which has always 
 compelled admiration, and a fidelity of detail, as well as 
 a wealth and boldness of colouring, scarcely to be found 
 in any other era. These men have realized, as artists 
 never did before, that there must be the full culture of 
 the whole man before even an artist's work can be true. 
 The pictures of Mr. Holman Hunt burn with a sort of 
 inner fire, and his highest thoughts of life and duty 
 shine on the canvas. But I have no time to speak of 
 them further. But let me ask you, ere I dismiss them, 
 to rejoice with me that these men give hours of valuable 
 time to the instruction of poor artists. Any young 
 man who longs to be a painter, and is too poor to pay 
 for an art education, will have readily and cheerfully 
 afforded him, gratuitously, the best teaching that Eng- 
 land can produce. In referring to these noble and
 
 32 
 
 disinterested labours, I almost seem as if I am abusing 
 a confidence, so unobtrusively and quietly are they 
 rendered. 
 
 I can imagine some of you, regarding all this wonder- 
 ful advance in science, art, and literature, asking 
 wistfully, Whither is it all leading ? What is the under- 
 current of this tremendous mental activity ? Will it 
 leave us with our old historic faith ; or will the broad 
 open paths in which we are invited to walk lead us 
 away from the old familiar track ? 
 
 There are three solutions of this momentous inquiry 
 offered to us. 
 
 According to one theory, the advance of knowledge 
 will leave us alone in this world with laws fixed, wise, 
 and merciful, daily doing for us their great and 
 beautiful work. There is no reason or love greater than 
 our own, and we must be satisfied with the boundless 
 forms of life by which we are surrounded. Enough 
 for us in death that some new forms of life will spring 
 from our grave and our memory be fragrant when we 
 are gone. So will the ages roll along, with the same 
 experiences. There is no unseen world, and all our 
 stern questionings about destiny and fate will only be 
 answered by the echo of our impatient cries. 
 
 According to another theory, we have a God and 
 Father in Heaven who speaks through every human 
 soul, but has broken the silence in no other way. The 
 tendency of modern inquiry is to exhibit all super- 
 natural history as worthless tradition. All we know is 
 that we have a conscience in our breast and a hope of 
 immortality in our heart, and to these we must be true. 
 
 But, thank God, there is another creed which leaves us 
 at His side in whose person all our reverent love 
 centres, and about whom all our hopes gather. Standing 
 at His side, we are not invited to separate ourselves 
 from the solemn tide of life and progress which flows
 
 33 
 
 along. But rather, do we hear the old Divine words, 
 " All things are yours." In Him we shall inherit all 
 truth, all beauty, and all knowledge, and touched with 
 His redemption they shall but contribute to the glory 
 of His reign. From that new heaven and new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness, which shall descend 
 from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband, with 
 looks all loveliness and movements all grace, that 
 world of whichHe shall be the light and glory, nothing 
 great or beautiful shall be excluded. The Christian's 
 home is no ascetic abode of a few weary pilgrims. 
 " They shall bring the glory and honour of the nations 
 into it." Old forms of power, but partially revealed in 
 the education of the world, shall reappear. Rome shall 
 give back her power, Greece her wisdom, and Venice 
 realize her dreams of beauty. A complete manhood 
 and a perfect world shall complete the redemption 
 which has so long tarried in the weary progress of the 
 years. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., ST. GEORGE'S -STREET, CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 5TH MAY, 1866. 
 
 . Jldtwrate (Hole in the dpuur. 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1866.
 
 to add several valuable works to the library of reference. 
 This year they have the satisfaction of announcing that 
 1 hey have added to the collection out of the grant: 
 The English Cyclopaedia, in 18 vols.,Mdntosh's Took 
 of the Garden, a complete set of S. T. Coleridge's 
 Works, a very valuable work on the " Flora of New 
 Zealand," and a complete set of Walter Scott's, Bui wer's, 
 Trollope's, and Currer Bell's Novels, besides several 
 other works in various departments of literature. The 
 accessions during the past year, by purchase as well as 
 by presentation, inclusive of the abovenamed works, are 
 as follows : 
 
 Vols. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 14 
 
 Jurisprudence 10 
 
 Science and the Arts 21 
 
 Works of Amusement 265 
 
 Dictionaries ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 Belles Lettres 42 
 
 History ... ... ... ... ... 54 
 
 Voyages and Travels 40 
 
 Biography ... ... ... ... 24 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ... ... 33 
 
 Total 521 
 
 Amongst them will be found, Captain Grantham's 
 Map of the Colony of Natal, presented by His Excel- 
 lency Sir Philip Wodehouse ; two rare books, pre- 
 sented by Sir C. Brand, entitled " Sommier van 
 Rechten," printed in 1484, and King James's whole 
 works, printed in 1619; the "Codex Theoeosianus," 
 in 4 volumes folio, presented to the " Porter Collection" 
 by the Rev. Dr. Heyns ; also several works presented 
 by George Hodgskin, Esq., for many years a merchant 
 in this Colony, and now resident in England. This
 
 gentleman, who has ever taken a lively interest in the 
 prosperity of this institution, has during the last few 
 years past contributed many valuable works to the 
 Library, principally relating to South Africa. Several 
 other works were also presented by Messrs. T. B. 
 Bayley, M. Bergh, and Dr. Bleek, to all of whom the 
 cordial thanks of the subscribers are due. 
 
 The Committee have also to acknowledge the presen- 
 tation of a manuscript page of Sir Walter Scott's 
 " Heart of Midlothian," together with several auto- 
 graph notes, the gift of Mrs. Findlay, a lady who has 
 recently left the Colony; these, together with some 
 already in the possession of the Librarian, will serve 
 as a nucleus for a collection of autographs, and the 
 Committee will thankfully receive any further con- 
 tributions. 
 
 The treasurer's account will be submitted, which will 
 show the income and expenditure during the past year. 
 
 In conclusion, the Committee have to express their 
 regret that the exterior of the building in which the 
 valuable collection is deposited should atill be left in 
 the unfinished state in which it this day appears ; and 
 they can only express a hope that the time is not far 
 distant when funds will be placed at their disposal to 
 complete it in a manner worthy of the South African 
 Public Library.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, In one of the most 
 amusing of Lever's military novels is a story of an army 
 doctor who possessed many pleasant qualities, but the 
 smallest possible modicum of personal courage. On 
 one occasion, however, in the Peninsular war, the 
 French cavalry made a sudden attack upon the English 
 forces, and the unlucky doctor, instead of being in the 
 rear, where he ought to have been, and where he 
 devoutly wished to be, found himself in the centre of 
 a square of infantry. The colonel roared to him and 
 asked him what business he had there, and the poor 
 doctor replied: "Arrah now, if you think it's pride 
 that brought me, you're mighty mistaken. I'd be 
 anywhere else if I could." And such, Ladies and 
 Gentlemen, is my position on this occasion ! When so 
 many eminent and able men have year after year 
 addressed you at these meetings, I feel that my place 
 should be " in the rear ;" but circumstances have thrust 
 me forward, and I was attacked so suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly by the Library Committee that I had no time 
 to retreat. 
 
 Having, then, consented to occupy this place, I 
 determined to see upon what subject I could appropri- 
 ately address you : and here again I found difficulties ; 
 for those who had gone before me had taken up so 
 many lines of thought and blocked up the ways, that 
 I could scarcely see a road open to me. At last it 
 occurred to me, while others had instructed you, it 
 might not be distasteful if I assumed the less ambitious
 
 task of trying to amuse you : while others had dis- 
 coursed upon the graver themes of art, science, and 
 literature, I might not inappropriately speak to you on 
 the lighter and brighter ones ; in short, that, having 
 already had the more solid portions of your intellectual 
 feast, you might not be indisposed to take from me the 
 whipped creams, the syllabubs, the omelettes soiifflees 
 in other words, that I should say something about the 
 humorous in literature. 
 
 Man has been defined to be " an unfledged biped :'' 
 an ape comes dangerously near to the definition. He 
 has been called " a cooking animal," and the description 
 is flattering to his sagacity and taste. He has been 
 described as " a laughing animal," and I believe that 
 the definition is perfect, as distinguishing him from 
 every other creature. No other animal laughs not 
 even a hyaena or a Cheshire cat, in spite of the risible 
 faculties proverbially attributed to both. And, surely, 
 so marked a characteristic of our race is not to be 
 regarded lightly. Whether the lower animals reason, 
 has been gravely discussed by more than one philoso- 
 pher of eminence, and it has puzzled the wisest of them 
 'to draw the exact line between instinct and reason. 
 
 " I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 If birds confabulate, or no," 
 
 says one of our poets in reference to the question 
 mooted by the great Swiss enthusiast, whether or not 
 birds and other animals hold conversation and exchange 
 their ideas as men do. But no natural philosopher has * 
 ever asserted that he has seen a dog cracking his sides 
 over a capital joke made by his canine brother, or a cat 
 shaking with laughter at the sight of a rat caught in a 
 trap by the tail, and in the unpleasant dilemma of having 
 to part with that appendage or consent to be eaten up.
 
 Man alone has wit, humour, laughter. You will not 
 name many other things which he so incontestibly 
 possesses, and all the rest of the creation is without. 
 
 Rude ages have produced rude wit ; rude nations are 
 still satisfied with rough and coarse humour; and a 
 few things generally indicate the degree of refinement 
 attained by a people or an individual, more than the 
 humour which satisfies them. Rough horse-play is a 
 capital joke to Hodge, the ploughboy ; a dancing bear 
 still makes excellent fun for a German peasant ; and I 
 have seen a great Kafir chief laugh till he cried at the 
 vagaries of a drunken Hottentot. 
 
 I confess I am astonished to find how little of refined 
 wit and humour the ancient Greeks displayed in their 
 literature at least such as has come down to us. I am 
 not forgetting Aristophanes and his comedies ; but there 
 is more of broad and coarse satire than genial wit in 
 them, though there is an abundance of comic humour. 
 The chorus of Frogs in the comedy of the name is 
 inimitable of its kind. The very language seems to 
 croak, and wants only a bassoon out of tune as an 
 accompaniment. 
 
 Still it is strange that the Greeks, who showed such 
 delicacy and purity of taste in poetry and art, rose little 
 above buffoonery or burlesque in their early comedy. 
 They recognized the need of laughter; for their greatest 
 tragedians, ^Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, wrote 
 what we should almost call burlesques, but which they 
 called Satyric dramas, and which were constantly played 
 after the tragedy. One of these, by Euripides, called 
 " The Cyclops," has come down to our times ; but it is 
 a blending of the ludicrous and the horrible, by no 
 means pleasing to modern ideas, and is apt to make one 
 shudder, as I confess I always do at a burlesque of a 
 Shaksperian tragedy.
 
 9 
 
 But let me read an extract as a specimen of this 
 kind of humour. Ulysses and his companions have 
 landed on the Island of the Cyclops, and that 
 charming monster resolves to eat them all, according 
 to his hospitable custom. He thus expresses his 
 intention : 
 
 Cyclops. I well know 
 
 The wise man's only Jupiter is tbis, 
 To cat and drink during his little day 
 And give himself no care. And as for those 
 Who complicate with laws the life of man, 
 I freely give them te-irs for their reward. 
 I will not cheat my sonl of its delight, 
 Or hesitate in dining upon yoa. 
 And that I may be qnit of all demands, 
 These are my hospitable gifts fierce fires 
 And yon ancestral cauldron, which o'erbabbling 
 Shall finely cook your miserable flesh 
 Creep in. 
 
 But Ulysses partly softens the monster by plying him 
 with wine, which he has brought in his ship, and you 
 will see how the monster shows his gratitude : 
 
 Ulysses. Listen, O Cyclops, for I am well skilled 
 
 In Bacchus, whom I gave of thee to drink. 
 Cyc. What sort of god is Bacchus then accounted f 
 Ul. The greatest among men for joy of life. 
 Cyc. I gulpt him down with very great delight : 
 
 How does the god like living in a skin ? 
 UL He is content wherever he is put. 
 Cyc. Gods should not have tlieir body in a skio. 
 Ul. If he give joy, what is the skin to yon ? 
 Cyc. I hate the skin, but love the wine within. 
 UL Stay here, now drink, and make your spirit glad. 
 Cyc. (lo Silenu8.JWba.t do you put the cup behind me for? 
 
 Sil. That no one here may touch it 
 
 Cyc. Thievish one ! 
 
 You want to drink : hero place it in the midst ; 
 
 And thou, O stranger ! tell how thou art call'd.
 
 10 
 
 J7/. My nnme is Nobody. What favour now 
 
 Shall I receive to praise you at your hands ? 
 Cue. I'll eat you up the last of your companions! 
 
 Altogether, these Satyric dramas do not give men a 
 very high opinion of the Greeks as humorists. Their 
 wit seems clumsy, and yet they were clumsy in nothing 
 else. Greece produced in later times a new school of 
 comic dramatists, of which Menander was the greatest. 
 From the little we have extant of his works, it seems 
 that they were free from coarseness; just as Greece 
 itself was more refined in Menander's days than those 
 of Aristophanes. 
 
 Our ordinary conception of the Koman character 
 scarcely leads us to expect much light and sparkling 
 humour in Latin literature. And yet I almost think 
 it contains as much as the Greek. Plautus and 
 Terence, in their plays, have given us the one, broad 
 humour and ludicrous scenes ; and the other, graphic 
 pictures of the manners of the day, mixed with a little 
 buffoonery, thrown in to please the gallery. In the 
 Augustan age, Plautus was considered coarse : at least, 
 that fastidious gentleman, Horace (who, by the way, 
 sometimes forgets his own good breeding), pronounced 
 him to be so. Horace himself had genuine humour, 
 and of a refined kind. He does not roar with laughter, 
 nor endeavour to make his reader hold his sides ; but 
 he smiles quietly, and keeps one in a constant sense of 
 enjoyment with his polished wit and delicate sarcasm. 
 Sometimes he breaks out into a bit of buffoonery, as in 
 the journey to Brundusium, where he hits off the 
 broad scenes on the road much in the style of our own 
 Smollett, and sometimes he forgets his good manners 
 altogether ; but I fancy that on these occasions he had 
 omitted to add the water to his Falernian. The very 
 word " epigram " suggests the name of Martial ; and I
 
 11 
 
 doubt whether keener, more brilliant, or more compact 
 wit is to be found in the world than in the works of 
 this poet. For terseness and intensity of expression, 
 some of his epigrams are really marvellous. You will 
 find almost every good and decent one translated with 
 wonderful fidelity in some of the numbers of late Cape 
 Monthly Magazine. I know no version which sur- 
 passes that one. All the rest of the epigrams are 
 untranslateable, for they should never have been 
 written. But Martial lived in evil times, and wal- 
 lowed in the filth of a corrupt age. 
 
 But let me read one or two from the translation I 
 refer to, as specimens of Martial's style : 
 
 ON A LADY. 
 
 Yoa'd take Sir James ? You're wise, tis very true. 
 He won't propose ? He is as wise as yon. 
 You give me nought" wait till I'm dead," yon say : 
 If you're no fool, you know for what I pray. 
 
 ON AN HEIRESS. 
 
 John is most warmly wooing Netty, 
 She's very far indeed from pretty, 
 But has one feature most alluring, 
 Her cough is bad, beyond all curing 1 
 
 Paulla would wed me : I would not, I told her ; 
 
 She is too old : I would if she were older. 
 
 ON CINNA. 
 
 Cinna writes satires on me, it is said : 
 
 Pooh I no man writes, whose writings are not read. 
 
 TO A BROTHER AUTHOR. 
 
 Why my last poem I forgot to send ? 
 
 For fear you'd send me your's, respected friend ! 
 
 Leaving the classic ages, and turning to modern 
 
 times, we find abundance of wit and humour in Italian 
 
 literature, and of a kind likely to be pleasing to that 
 
 strange people. The tales of Boccaccio are known to
 
 12 
 
 all the world ; and the author read to his Queen (for 
 whom they were expressly written) stories which at a 
 later period of his life he confessed to be unfit for a 
 lady's ear. In spite of their grossness, however, their 
 wit is undoubted ; and the earliest of Italian prose 
 writers is probably the greatest of Italian humorists. 
 Some half century after him came Pulci, the poet, who 
 seems to have written fun because he could not help it. 
 He did not always select comic themes, but serious 
 ones ; and he treated them earnestly and gravely ; but 
 every now and then the ludicrous side of things seems 
 to have struck him : he bursts out laughing at his own 
 heroes and his own pictures of them, and in the very 
 moment of his triumph over your heart and sentiments 
 he startles you with a ridiculous image or a quaint 
 expression, and leaves you convulsed with laughter just 
 as you were preparing your tears. There is a crowd 
 of less eminent Italian authors, whose works are full 
 of humour more or less good. 
 
 As for German humour, it is something peculiar to 
 itself more apt to be grotesque than merry. The 
 devil generally plays a large part in German fun, and 
 to my mind the devil is not altogether a funny subject. 
 
 I cannot read Russian, but I have a translation of 
 some Cossack tales, written by Nicholas Gogol, who 
 was considered a kind of Russian Dickens. I cannot 
 say that I am much struck with his humour, nor agree 
 in the comparison ; but I will read you a couple of 
 pages from his first tale, that you may judge for your- 
 selves : 
 
 (Here an extract was read from a tale called " Christmas 
 Eve.") 
 
 Why do men always try to make fun out of the devil? 
 Is it because, as children, they have been frightened by 
 old women's descriptions of him, and revenge themselves
 
 13 
 
 for their juvenile terrors by ridiculing him when older ? 
 I confess I think the less we have to do with him the 
 better, and I object to the grim fun of old-bogyism. 
 
 Need I mention Spanish humour ? Need I refer to 
 Don Quixote, or ask what book is better known, more 
 widely read, more frequently quoted? Spanish wit is 
 very apt to assume a proverbial form, and Spanish pro- 
 verbs are some of the most terse and pointed in the world. 
 
 Of Portuguese literature, I confess I know little, 
 except the " Lusiad," and I don't care ever to read 
 that again. 
 
 If I were to strike out the nineteenth century, I 
 should say that France has produced the largest crop 
 of sparkling, brilliant, witty, and humorous literature 
 in the world. Moliere alone the inimitable Moliere 
 would give his country a high place in the world of 
 humour. No comic writer ever hit off more admirably 
 the ludicrous side of human character: no dramatist 
 ever invented more humorous situations : though it is 
 fair to say that he is accused of borrowing the latter 
 from the Italian comedies of his day. Probably Molie're 
 would have answered with Puff in the Critic, when 
 accused of plagiarism : " Two men, you know, may 
 have the same idea only one of them happens to have 
 it first." And if Moliere had never lived, France 
 would have still boasted of one of the greatest of 
 humorists iu Le Sage, whose " Gil Bias " has been 
 read by every one in the original or in some translation. 
 And poor Le Sage, too, was accused of plagiarism not 
 of borrowing a bit of plot here, and a joke there, but of 
 stealing the Spanish manuscript of a refugee author, 
 and turning it into French. 
 
 However, he has been honourably acquitted, both in 
 his own age and by posterity, but he was not altogether 
 a lucky man : the actors seem occasionally to have
 
 14 
 
 combined nut to play his comedies, though they were 
 admirable : he was always being accused of something 
 he had not done and he had the misfortune of being 
 an advocate into the bargain, 
 
 As for Voltaire, in spite of what his opponents may 
 say, he was one of the most wonderful and versatile 
 geniuses, and his wit of the keenest and most brilliant 
 character. No doubt he might have made a better use 
 of it if he had been a better man : though on the other 
 hand, to have mended his morals might have spoilt his 
 wit, as one sometimes cures a horse of his vice and robs 
 him of his spirit at the same time. In these slight 
 glances at the wit of other times and other countries, I 
 am not attempting to give anything approaching to a 
 catalogue of the names of the humorous authors who 
 have adorned them. I point only to a few names as 
 they rise on the surface of my memory. The charac- 
 ter of French wit is sparkling, neat, epigrammatic, 
 and as such suited to the peculiar genius of the people. 
 I never heard a joke miss fire in a French theatre. I 
 have heard half the best things in the " School for 
 Scandal " listened to in Drury-lane without a smile. 
 We are a duller-witted people than the French, though 
 it is unpleasant to have to confess it. 
 
 Most wit loses sadly by translation : none more so 
 than French wit ; for the language is so exquisitely 
 adapted for expressing the cleverest things in the 
 choicest words, that when you attempt to sever the 
 thought from the language, it seems to evaporate like 
 the bouquet of a delicate wine decanted from the flask 
 in which it has mellowed into perfection. The follow- 
 ing, which I have attempted to translate from the 
 French of Alphonse Karr, is a specimen of quiet 
 French humour of the present day ; but I fear the 
 translation does but scant justice to the original :
 
 15 
 
 A lady was announced as a visitor to a magistrate. He was 
 very much engaged, but she was importunate. The magistrate 
 thrast aside the papers which covered his desk, and ordered her 
 to be admitted. He ran over hastily in his mind the different 
 cases which he had to decide, and tried to guess to which one 
 this visit had reference. The lady makes her appearance. She 
 is young and handsome, and apologizes for her importunity in 
 gentle and graceful terms, and with a melodious voice : then she 
 speaks of the occupations, the serious and even terrible duties of 
 a magistrate. 
 
 Meanwhile, the magistrate mentally reads himself the severest 
 lectures. " No," says he, " I will make no concessions to beauty, 
 to charms so sweet, but so deceitful. 1 shall keep my heart 
 closed against the accents which seek to penetrate it. No, I 
 will never lose sight of the sanctity of ray office, the strictness of 
 my duty. No ! nothing shall turn me aside from the atraightest 
 eourse of truth and justice." 
 
 The fair visitor, in the meantime, tries one by one her attrac- 
 tionsshe makes play with her glances she makes play with 
 her voice. She asks the magistrate whether he was at the last 
 ball at the Hotel de Ville whether he has heard Cruvelli sing, 
 and so forth. 
 
 At any other time he would have been angry ; but the voice is 
 so musical, and he is so afraid of hearing her ask something con- 
 trary to bis duty something to which he must reply in the harsh 
 accents of refusal that he lets her go on, but keeps mentally 
 addressing to himself the strictest admonitions. "No," says he, 
 " I will never forget that I am the guardian of society and the 
 instrument of the law. History has quoted as an insolent crime 
 the sword of Brennus thrown into the scale shall I allow the 
 smile of a woman to turn the scale of justice with its weight ? 
 The history of Cambyses, who caused the skin of the unjust 
 judge to cover the cushion on which his successor had to sit, 
 has never been cited as a cruelty, but simply as rigid justice. 
 Injustice in a judge is the highest crime that man can commit.'' 
 
 The fair visitor thrusts forward the prettiest and neatest little 
 foot in the world, and rests it on the fender and she says to the 
 magistrate : " I may refer you to Mr. So-and-so, who is a friend 
 of yours, and is anxious to be mine also, and to Mr. So-and-so 
 and Mr. So-and-so." 
 
 And the judge says to himself, " Nevertheless, I must avoid 
 extremes. It does not follow that because a woman is handsome
 
 16 
 
 and because she has a sweet voice, and because her foot is small 
 that justice is not on her side. Austerity must not blind me; 
 the right is not always on the side of ugly women. 1 have seen 
 hideous ones who were great rogues. In a word, madam, what 
 can I do for you ?" 
 
 "I will lei I y on, sir, in two words: lam invited to a grand 
 ball the day after to-morrow : I have invented the most exchant- 
 ing dress that has been seen this winter something original 
 without affectation, iiew without iccentricty something almost 
 impossible to imitate. It is a white skirt with a complete trim- 
 ming of paroquets' feathers. I have laid all my friends under 
 contribution who possess such such birds : I have taken every 
 feather from the dealers; but each bird has only two or three 
 of the feathers that I require. I know that you have a magnifi- 
 cent parrot. I intreat you, sir, not to refuse me two or three of 
 its feathers, without which my trimming will be incomplete 
 without which all my pains will be wasted without which I 
 shall die of mortification without which " 
 
 "For goodness sake, madam," cries the magistrate, interrupting 
 her, " why did yon not say so at first ? I have been in an agony 
 of suspense. Here, John, carry the parrot to this lady's house. 
 She can send it back if she pleases." 
 
 One very short further extract of a similar kind : 
 
 A man came with his wife from some country district to beg 
 for a situation in a Government office. The man was timid and 
 awkward his wife wanted neither grace nor self-possession. 
 
 "Leave me to make the advances," said she to her husband, 
 " we shall lose everything if you try." 
 
 "But, dear, they tell me the Minister is such an admirer of 
 beauty, and you are so pretty " 
 
 "Nonsense about my beauty." 
 
 " Still you do reckon a little on its effect in securiug our success 
 now don't you f" 
 
 " I scarcely think of it I only rely on our rights and talents." 
 
 " Well, I don't mind yon going to the Minister, but you must 
 leave your attractions at home." 
 
 " How can that be done ?" 
 
 " Easily, if you will let me do as I wish." 
 
 "Well?"
 
 17 
 
 " Well ! let me just slightly paint your nose with red each 
 time you go to him." 
 
 The wife refused ; and there is no wife in the world who wonld 
 agree to such a proposal, were she ever so virtuous and ever so 
 devoted. 
 
 How England acquired the epithet of " merry " has 
 puzzled many people to account for. Frenchmen, who 
 declare that we are horribly "triste" must imagine that 
 the appellation was intended to be ironical. After all, 
 it is about on a level with that of "La Belle France;" 
 for, certainly, France is not a beautiful country, although 
 it may have much beauty in it. And so England, if 
 not merry, on the whole, has produced plenty of merri- 
 ment. From Geoffry Chaucer to Tom Hood, her 
 literature is full of it. And, beyond that, the humour 
 is more varied in its character than that of any other 
 nation. Broad and delicate coarse and refined subtle 
 and grotesque buffoonery and irony all are to be 
 found in the pages of English authors. And in no 
 literature is the progress of refinement more marked 
 by the quality of the humour. The coarse ribaldry of 
 a barbarous age suited the times when chivalry was at 
 its last gasp, and modern civilization had not yet supplied 
 its place; and such jolly ballads as "The King and the 
 Tanner of Tamworth" made our thick-witted and sensual 
 forefathers roar out their approbation in loud guffaws. 
 In the days of Elizabeth, Shakspere, Ben Jonson, 
 and others, living among a set of intellectual giants, 
 made their humour intellectual also ; but the taint of 
 coarseness still clung to most of it, and fat Jack 
 Falstaff, graceful Mercutio, brilliant Benedick, and 
 even charming Beatrice herself, utter witticisms that 
 we dare not repeat in these days, though a virgin 
 Queen then smiled approval, and thought them " most 
 excellent fooling."
 
 18 
 
 At the time of the Restoration, the wit was of the 
 sort just suited to the most immoral court in Europe ; 
 and Butler's " Hudibras," with all its occasional sins 
 against propriety, is almost the only work of the times 
 whose humour is not based on immorality. In Queen 
 Anne's days, a crowd of wits and humorists burst upon 
 us some pure and refined, and others with the dirt 
 still clinging to them. For delicate and graceful 
 humour and fancy, perhaps nothing surpasses Pope's 
 " Rape of the Lock ; " for polished satire, I know not 
 where to find the equal of his " Imitations of Horace ; '' 
 while for the rougher sort of wit at one time coarse 
 and sensual at another keen, pointed, and subtle 
 always powerful and effective, now convulsing us with 
 laughter, and now almost terrifying us with its daring 
 and its bitterness Jonathan Swift stands unmatched 
 in our own or any other literature. 
 
 Let me quote but a few lines from Pope's mock 
 heroic poem. You all know the story. A lock of 
 Belinda's hair has been cut off and stolen by Sir Plume ; 
 the lady relates her injuries to her friends, and an 
 army of drawing-room Amazons determine to avenge 
 her. The battle is described in Homeric style, and an 
 amusing part of it is that it reminds one wonderfully 
 of Pope's own translation of the Iliad, a fact which the 
 little gentleman himself would have indignantly 
 denied : 
 
 When bold Sir Flame had drawn Clarissa down, 
 Cbloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown : 
 She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain, 
 Bat at her smile, the beaa reviv'd again. 
 
 Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, 
 Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair. 
 The donbtfal beam long nods from side to side; 
 At length the wits mount np, the bairs subside. 
 See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies,
 
 19 
 
 With more than usual lightning in her eyes : 
 Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, 
 Who sought no more than on his foe to die. 
 But this bold lord, with manly strength endued, 
 She with one finger and a thumb subdued. 
 Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, 
 A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw 
 The gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just, 
 The pungent grains of titillating dust. 
 Sadden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 
 And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. 
 " Now meet thy fate," incens'd Belinda cried, 
 And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. 
 (The sanae, his ancient personage to deck, 
 Her great-great grandsire wore about his neck, 
 In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, 
 Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown : 
 Her infant grandanyj's whistle next it grew, 
 The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; 
 Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, 
 Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) 
 
 In a very different style is the following bit of satire 
 from Swift's Gulliver's travels. Gulliver is visiting 
 the University of Lagado, and thus describes some of 
 its savans. 
 
 (Extract read from " Voyage to Laputa," but which 
 we need not give.) 
 
 In the more than half century which elapsed between 
 the death of Pope and the commencement of the present 
 century, literature slumbered. It woke up now and 
 then, and produced Goldsmith, who was an excellent 
 humorist as well as a poet ; Cowper, whose " Johnny 
 Gilpin" entitles him to the same remark ; and -Burns, 
 whose every line is a gem, and whose humour is not 
 inferior to his pathos. If I knew how to give him 
 higher praise I would do so. Fielding and Smollett, 
 great novelists, and greater humorists, almost complete
 
 20 
 
 the list of literary names of the first class in the latter 
 half of the eighteenth century. And, truly, if one takes 
 the reigns of the Second and Third Georges (excluding 
 the last twenty of the latter), there was little in the times 
 to foster intellectual development. A formal, priggish, 
 and dissipated life among the higher classes, coarseness 
 and ignorance in the middle ones, and a combination of 
 misery and brutality among the lower orders all this 
 was little calculated to develop the imagination, or to 
 call forth that form of it which we call wit and humour. 
 
 But a new and bright era commenced with the dawn 
 of the present century. Probably every age has been 
 disposed to depreciate contemporary literature. I know 
 that it may sound paradoxical to add, that side by side 
 with this tendency has been another an inclination to 
 unduly exalt some few living and popular authors. But 
 the latter propensity is chiefly displayed by those who 
 have read little else than the books published in their 
 own time, while the former characterizes the more 
 learned of the community. It is especially a propensity 
 of old people, but it is not confined to them. No doubt 
 when 
 
 " The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle " 
 sang those marvellous songs, whose collection has ever 
 since been regarded as the greatest epic poem of all 
 time, there were not wanted those among his auditors 
 who declared to the rising generation : " It's all very 
 well all very well, but it's not the sort of poetry we 
 used to hear in my younger days, sir ! " 
 
 We know that Horace speaks of the poet Ennius as 
 " another Homer," and would probably have ranked 
 him far above Virgil if the latter had not been his own 
 friend. And yet, the little that has come down to us 
 of Ennius is but poor poetry, and so inferior to that of 
 the great Augustan bard as (to borrow an expression of
 
 21 
 
 Voltaire) " the tinsel of Tasso to all the gold of Virgil." 
 But Ennius had been dead a hundred and seventy years 
 whenHorace wrote of him, and Virgil was a con temporary a 
 No writer of the Elizabethan age seems to have been 
 conscious of the *genius surrounding him, and even 
 Shakspere was more praised as a pleasant fellow than 
 appreciated as the glory of our literature. In the 
 days of the Restoration, Otway starved, and Milton 
 was regarded as a dull dog ; while in the age of Queen 
 Anne, though Pope was popular and made a fortune, 
 yet the very fact of there having been a party who 
 considered Gibber and Tickell as his rivals, shows how 
 little the excellencies of the inimitable little bard of 
 Twickenham were really recognized by his contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 And in the days we live in, he would be regarded as 
 a rash critic who should declare that England has 
 scarcely produced six greater poets than Alfred 
 Tennyson. Yet posterity may find it difficult to select 
 the six names which shall stand above his upon the 
 pyramid of Fame. But if there is one branch of 
 English literature which has produced finer fruits than 
 another in the present century, it is that of humour. 
 I heartily believe that the last seventy years have given 
 birth to wit not less brilliant, but a thousand times 
 more chaste humour not less attractive, but infinitely 
 more graceful burlesque and farce not less extrava- 
 gantly laughable, but incalculably less licentious than 
 any other age in the world can show. Think of the 
 names of Sheridan, Sydney Smith, Charles Lamb, the 
 Colmans, Canning, the Smiths (of the Rejected 
 Addresses), Tom Moore, Theodore Hook, Hood, Lever, 
 Dickens, Thackeray, Jerrold, Ingoldsby, Halliburton, 
 and many others whose names escape me for the 
 moment, and say if any other era of our own litera-
 
 22 
 
 ture, or of any other literature, can furnish a more 
 brilliant list of wits and humorists. And not one of 
 them has made immorality, indelicacy, or irreligion the 
 theme of his wit; and few have written even a sentence 
 that the purest-minded would wish to* see blotted. I do 
 not know whether I seem to you to dwell too much upon 
 this point ; but while I grant that there may be wit 
 whose very basis is in corruption while I recognize 
 the brilliancy and force of many an epigram which 
 cannot boast of purity for one of its beauties yet, as 
 an enthusiastic admirer of genuine humour and true 
 wit, I do detest to see their prostitution to such base 
 uses; and I am proud of my countrymen in the present 
 century, who have been the first and the most success- 
 ful in showing that the keenest and most laughter- 
 provoking humour needs no aid from immorality, and 
 that there is no more necessary alliance between wit 
 and profligacy than between stupidity and sanctity. 
 
 Another great feature in the humour of the present 
 age is its kindliness and good-humour. It was said by 
 a poet of a past age, that 
 
 " Satire ebonld, like a polished razor keen, 
 Inflict a wound that's scarcely felt or seen;" 
 
 but satire of that kind was rare until the days we live 
 in. Now we read it every day in the pages of Punch, 
 and see it in his cartoons and etchings. Few satirists 
 are keener than Sydney Smith, and yet how generally 
 good-humoured he is : only once or twice did he really 
 get into a rage, and that was when he was scarifying 
 people who had injured his own pocket. Surely, one 
 can make allowances for that even in a clergyman ! 
 Generally speaking, nothing can exceed his good- 
 temper ; and in every line we may fancy that we are 
 listening to that rich, unctuous voice, looking at that
 
 23 
 
 jovial face, and watching that twinkling eye, which 
 used to sparkle with such pleasure as the great wit 
 pointed out to his butcher the exact thickness of the 
 juicy steak that was to be cut for his dinner. Dickens, 
 too, is never out of humour, unless he gets on political 
 subjects, and then he ceases to be a humorist at all. 
 Charles Lamb is as gentle as his own name. Thackeray 
 was never angry in his life, except with a young author 
 who chose to describe his person and his manner and 
 his private conversation at his club and then he fiercely 
 denounced " young Grubstreet ;" but I don't think that 
 fact tells much against his gentleness of disposition 
 generally. As for poor Tom Hood, he had enough of 
 the milk of human kindness to supply a whole dairy. 
 The truculent age of satire is passed it spent its last 
 gasp when Lord Byron, smarting with wounded vanity, 
 wrote " The English Bards and Scotch Re viewers. " 
 I have seen a few professed satires in heroic verse 
 written since then ; but I never heard of one that paid 
 for its printing. 
 
 When Thackeray describes Lady McScrew, with 
 her two gorgeous flunkeys following her abroad, 
 and her half-starved daughters at home, and devoutly 
 wishes that the tall footmen could be cut up into 
 mutton-chops to feed the hungry young ladies, no 
 doubt the satire is bitter ; but think how Juvenal or 
 Swift would have treated the same subject ! It is the 
 difference between the delicate irony of a wit and the 
 coarse railing of an angry cab-driver. 
 
 And when, before the present century, was seen 
 that exquisite blending of the tender and pathetic with 
 the humorous almost with the ridiculous which we 
 we meet with in some of the works of Dickens, 
 especially in some of his earlier Christmas Tales?" 
 " Brave generals lived before Agamemnon," says the
 
 24 
 
 Roman lyrist. Great wits wrote before Dickens ; but 
 which of them, while convulsing you with laughter, 
 ever touched your heart, appealed to your charity and 
 sympathy, and awoke all the gentler and nobler feel- 
 ings of human nature, even in the very moment and 
 through the very agency of extravagant laughter? 
 Ludicrous and burlesque as are the following lines of 
 Tom Hood's there is really tenderness in them at all 
 events, such kindliness that we feel pity and good-will 
 to the old lady they are addressed to, and not the repul- 
 sion we should have felt towards one whom even the 
 polished satirist of the Augustan age had addressed on 
 such a theme : 
 
 O Kate! my dear Partner, through joy an! through strife! 
 
 When I look back at Hymen's dear day, 
 Not a lovelier bride ever changed to a wife, 
 
 Though you're now so old, wizen'd, and grey ! 
 
 Those eyes, then, were stars, shining rulers of fate ! 
 
 But as liquid as stars in a pool ; 
 Though now they're so dim, they appear, my dear Kate, 
 
 Just like gooseberries boil'd for a fool ! 
 
 That brow was like marble, so smooth and so fair ; 
 
 Though it's wrinkled so crookedly now, 
 As if Time, when those furrows were made by the share, 
 
 Had been tipsy whilst driving his plough I 
 
 Your nose, it was such as the sculptors all chose, 
 
 When a Venus demanded their skill ; 
 Though now it can hardly be reckon'd a nose, 
 
 But a sort of Poll-Parroty bill ; 
 Your mouth, it was then quite a bait for the bees, 
 
 Such a nectar there hung on each lip ; 
 Though now it has taken that lemon-like squeeze, 
 
 Not a blue-bottle comes for a sip ! 
 Your coin, it was one of Love's favourite haunts, 
 
 From its dimple he could not get loose ; 
 Though now the neat hand of a barber it wants, 
 
 Or a singe, like the breast of a goose !
 
 25 
 
 How rich were those locks, so abundant and fall, 
 
 With their ringlets of aubura so deep ! 
 Though now they look only like frizzles of wool, 
 
 By a bramble torn off from a sheep ! 
 That neck, not a swan could excel it in grace, 
 
 While in whiteness it vied with yonr arms ; 
 Though now a grave 'kerchief you properly place, 
 
 To conceal that scrag-end of your charms! 
 
 Your figure was tall, then, and perfectly straight, 
 Though it now has two twists from upright 
 
 But bless you ! still bless you ! my Partner 1 my Kate ! 
 Though you be such a perfect old fright ! 
 
 The wit of former times was generally either satirical 
 or convivial ; either it ridiculed and attacked somebody 
 or something, or its moral was epicurean : " Let us eat 
 and drink, for to-morrow we die;" or, at the very 
 utmost, it was merely harmless, teaching nothing par- 
 ticular, either evil or good, and seeking only to excite 
 laughter. We have plenty of these three sorts in the 
 present day ; but we have something much better than 
 all three. We have the wit which keeps us merry ^ 
 and warms us into kindliness towards our neighbour 
 at the same time ; we have the humour which softens 
 the heart without drawing tears from the eyes nay, 
 even while exciting laughter on our lips ; we have the 
 satire which, while it lays bare folly and sin, keeps 
 alive charily; we have satirists who do not stand apart, 
 as though they were superior to the weaknesses and 
 vices they lash, and thunder their denunciations in 
 divine rage as on mortals inferior to themselves in 
 virtue, but who take us by the arm, bid us watch the 
 meanness and polished vices of the world we live in, 
 and then turn round with us to the mirror and say : 
 " Behold us also ! You, my good brother, and me I 
 And are not we also sinners like them?" I don't 
 believe that any one was ever made better by reading 
 
 c
 
 26 
 
 the satires of Juvenal, or Persius, or Swift, or Donne ; 
 but I am sorry for the man who has read Thackeray 
 in vain. 
 
 I do not want to claim too high a place in literature 
 for the humorous. There are higher, better, greater 
 qualities ; but I claim for it a high place, for I regard 
 it as a great instrument of good when wisely used. In 
 the present age it has, I think, been so used by many 
 great masters of it : but it has been abused also ; and 
 to my mind, the crowd of wretched burlesques which 
 have been thrust upon the stage of late years have 
 done much injury to good taste. Their fun is of the 
 meanest sort a silly play upon words, and a distortion 
 of every pathetic incident into an extravagant absurdity 
 I do not go so far as the late Charles Kemble, who 
 said " that a man who would write a burlesque of one 
 of Shakspere's tragedies would commit a murder if 
 you paid him for itj" but I certainly regard it as a 
 wretched, if not wicked, waste of ingenuity to turn 
 what is sublime and beautiful into the grotesque and 
 ludicrous. True wit is imaginative and inventive, and 
 does not need to borrow the golden thoughts of poetry 
 and tragedy to debase them into second-hand tinsel. 
 
 To set about writing a work which should be all 
 humorous, witty, or satirical, would be a hopeless 
 task, perhaps, to the greatest wit that ever lived ; and 
 the work, when finished, would be like a picture all 
 sunshine no shade or repose anywhere. The nearest 
 approach to such a work has been Punch ; but it has 
 required relays of writers to keep it going. And, 
 after all, Punch does not always attempt to be 
 merely funny ; he talks gravely sometimes ; and at 
 others he is dull, even when he means to be witty. 
 But Punch is remarkable with all its defects, as 
 howing what a fund of wit and humour is to be found
 
 27 
 
 in England. I am old enough to remember the appear- 
 rance of the first number, and the prophecies that it 
 would not last six months. Nearly twenty-five years, 
 alas! have passed since then, and Punch is more 
 popular, if not more witty, than ever. On the whole, 
 I believe it has done good, for it seldom is unjust ; and 
 although it occasionally rushes in where, I think, it 
 should fear to tread, yet its sins may fairly be condoned 
 in consideration of the enjoyment it has afforded to 
 thousands, and the pure standard of morals it has ever 
 upheld. 
 
 But I have occupied enough of your time with these 
 rambling remarks of mine. I could wish, for your 
 sakes, that they had been better of their kind, and 
 better put together. In conclusion, I will give you 
 something better than my own ; the words of one, 
 himself a great humorist, on the true place and pro- 
 vince of wit the safeguards by which it needs to be 
 surrounded, the objects for which it should work, the 
 design for which it was bestowed on us, the ends 
 it may attain : 
 
 When wit is combined with sense and information, when it 
 is soltenecl by benevolence and restrained by strong principle, 
 when it is iu the bauds of a man who can use it and despise it, 
 who can be witty and something much better than witty, who 
 loves honour, justice, decency, good nature, morality, and religion 
 ten thousand times better than wit, wit is then a beautiful and 
 delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting 
 spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different charac- 
 ters of men, than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing 
 dignity, unfreezing coldness teaching age and care and pain to 
 smile extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, 
 and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe 
 how it penetrates through the awkwardness and coldness of 
 society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and like the 
 combined force of wine aud oil, giving every man a gkd heart 
 and shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit like this
 
 ia sorely the flavour of the mind. Man coald direct his ways by 
 plain reason, and support bis life by tasteless food : but God has 
 given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and 
 perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to " charm 
 his pained steps over the burning marie." 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., ST. GKOROE'S- STREET, CAPE TOWff.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 eetinj 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 4TH MAY, 1867. 
 
 toetable ^rtjrteon I jrs in fyt 
 
 CAPE TOWN:, 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1867.
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ., 
 
 HON. MB. JUSTICE WATER- 
 MEYER, 
 
 MR. PROFESSOR CAMERON, 
 
 GEORGE FRERE, ESQ. 
 (Treasurer), 
 
 R, BAYLEY, ESQ., 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ., 
 S. SOLOMON ESQ., 
 MR. PROFESSOR NOBLE, 
 MAJOR LONGMORE, 
 DR. DALE. 
 
 I J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 A True Copy, 
 
 F. M ASKEW, Librarian.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, In presenting the 
 annual report of the South African Public Library, 
 your Committee have the unpleasant duty of recording 
 what is already sufficiently known, that owing to the 
 unsatisfactory state of the colonial finances the grant 
 in aid, which by the combined liberality of Parliament 
 and Government this institution enjoyed for the last 
 few years, has during the session of 1866 been reduced 
 by one third. So sudden and considerable a reduction 
 of your Committee's available revenue has placed them 
 in a very difficult position. 
 
 Owing to the firm impression entertained when the 
 grant was first made in 1862, that it was to be a perma- 
 nent one, they were induced to incur sundry heavy 
 liabilities, partly to provide for the special custodianship 
 of the splendid collection presented to this institution 
 by Sir George Grey, and partly for the purchase of 
 standard works to supplement the different departments 
 of science and literature in which "the Library, through 
 its limited means, had until then been deficient. 
 
 In consequence of the decision of Parliament to 
 reduce the grant by one third, your Committee had to 
 choose between the two alternatives of diminishing 
 materially the regular supply of books and periodicals 
 from England, or reducing the already meagre and 
 inadequate salaries of the officers in pro rata proportion 
 to the amounts received by them out of the parliamentary 
 grant. Having a due regard to the wants of the sub- 
 scribers, and the requirements of the institution, your 
 
 A 2
 
 Committee could not adopt the former course, at least 
 to any considerable extent, and therefore, with the 
 utmost reluctance, they have been compelled to fall 
 back upon the latter, and make their chief librarian 
 and librarian of the Grey Collection the principal 
 victims of this retrenchment. 
 
 In the report of last year, your Committee appealed 
 to the public for a more liberal and general support to 
 an institution which, holding its literary stores open to, 
 and available by all, possesses peculiar claims to the 
 countenance of the whole community. That appeal, 
 unfortunately, was not responded to ; on the contrary, 
 indeed, partly through the depression of the times, and 
 partly from the departure of several of its supporters 
 to Europe, instead of an increase, there has been a slight 
 falling off in the receipts from subscriptions during the 
 year. 
 
 Your Committee, however, now take the opportunity 
 of repeating their appeal with greater urgency than 
 ever, and they trust that, during the coming year, the 
 subscribers' list will be sufficiently reinforced to place 
 the Library in a better position, with more prosperous 
 funds, and on a more effective footing even than before 
 the reduction of the Parliamentary grant. 
 
 During the past year an application was made by 
 the Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion to allow their members to subscribe to the Public 
 Library on the same terms as those offered to the 
 Mechanics' Institution on a previous occasion. Your 
 Committee, ever anxious to extend the useful- 
 ness of the institution, readily consented to the 
 arrangement, and they have the satisfaction of stating 
 that twenty additional members are thus enrolled. 
 The Committee will be gratified to have an opportunity
 
 of entering into similar arrangements with any other 
 institutions under like circumstances. 
 
 Among the numerous literary contributions pre- 
 sented to the Library during the past year, your 
 Committee have to acknowledge the receipt from 
 Europe of two cases, containing 281 volumes of Dutch 
 books, forwarded by Mr. Advocate Tydeman, of 
 Amsterdam. This valuable addition to the Library 
 was made by that gentleman on behalf of his late 
 father, Professor Tydeman, of Leyden, who, some 
 forty years ago, undertook, at the request of the then 
 Committee, to make a selection of Dutch books for 
 the Library. In forwarding the books to South Africa 
 one of the boxes was lost, and it is to replace this loss 
 that the present collection has been sent. Mr. Advo- 
 cate Tydeman also expresses a hope that they may 
 prove acceptable to the Cape literary public who still 
 read and understand the Dutch language, and the 
 Committee trust that so splendid a donation will stimu- 
 late others to imitate so generous an example, and 
 especially that it will induce many of the public who 
 have not hitherto even subscribed to the funds of the 
 Library to rally round it, not merely for its support, 
 but for a systematic extension, worthy of the position 
 it has hitherto occupied in the Colonial world. 
 
 To A. Faure, Esq., LL.D., the subscribers and the 
 public are indebted for four volumes of Van der Keesel's 
 Dutch-Roman Law, being an admirably-executed 
 (MS.) copy of the original manuscript of the " Dictata," 
 bequeathed by the author to the Public Library of 
 Leyden. The value of this gift may be inferred from 
 the note of Lorenz, the translator of Van der Keesel's 
 " Thesis," who says : " It is a valuable work, and 
 contains very full comments on almost every point of
 
 6 
 
 importance in law. A treatise of this nature would, if 
 obtainable, be of the highest importance in the Colonies, 
 being the latest work on the subject of the laws of Hol- 
 land as it still obtains in the ceded Colonies; for, with the 
 exception of Van der Linden's ' Institute/ a treatise of a 
 very elementary nature, there is hardly another work of 
 any authority which brings the law down to the period 
 immediately preceding the cession of these Colonies." 
 
 Your Committee have also to acknowledge that, 
 through the representations of E. L. Layard, Esq., the 
 Council of the Zoological Society of London has re- 
 solved that the South African Public Library shall be put 
 on its list for the annual presentations of its Transactions 
 and Journals. The Zoological Society have also kindly 
 presented to the Library the whole series of their 
 Transactions and Journals up to date. 
 
 The Committee have also to acknowledge several 
 presentations made to the Grey Collection by Messrs. 
 Jas. Cameron, E. Sheppard, and Dr. R. C. Dean 
 (United States Navy). 
 
 The accessions of books, by purchase as well as by 
 presentation, are as follows : 
 
 Theology 52 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy ... ... ... 41 
 
 Science and the Arts ... ... ... 107 
 
 Dictionaries ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 Works of Amusement 209 
 
 Belles Lettres 99 
 
 History 59 
 
 Voyages and Travels 43 
 
 Biography 32 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ... ... 22 
 
 Total ... ..681 Vols.
 
 Amongst them will be found, besides those already 
 referred to, several works presented by Messrs. T. B. 
 Bayley and Kunhardt, and the Smithsonian Institution 
 (U.S.), to whom the thanks of the subscribers are 
 due. The Committee have likewise to acknowledge the 
 gift of a bust of the late President Abraham Lincoln, 
 presented by Walter Graham, Esq., U.S.C. 
 
 The Treasurer's statement of the income and ex- 
 penditure during the past year will now be laid before 
 you.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It is, I think, a bad 
 omen for the future education of this Colony that the 
 spirit of retrenchment should have fastened itself first 
 upon the funds of our Library. After wandering about 
 in almost fruitless search for victims ; after entering 
 each department of the public service, and being always 
 arrested by the fierce and agonized cries which its well- 
 meant efforts evoked, retrenchment came into this 
 peaceful building; the walls were silent and unpro- 
 testing, so it was decreed that we at least should not 
 escape its fangs. Nothing can be more unfortunate 
 than the choice ; it is the worst form of a tax upon 
 books. But the act, lamentable as it is, will not be 
 without its bright side, if, in anticipation of the stream 
 of new books being lessened, we should be induced to 
 apply ourselves more earnestly to the treasures already 
 on our shelves, of which no retrenchment can possibly 
 deprive us. I shall venture to-day to direct your 
 attention to one of the subjects represented there in 
 the works of Layard, Fergusson, Kawlinson, and many 
 others. The mention of their names will have pointed 
 to buried cities, such as Nineveh and Pompeii, which 
 have at last been disinterred, and are appearing in 
 palace and sculpture, in villa and fresco, with much of 
 their first glory and beauty left to them. Although 
 long buried, they are not dead. The interest which 
 belongs to their discovery is a fresh and living one ; 
 hundreds of labourers are constantly at work at
 
 10 
 
 Pompeii, yet scarcely more than a quarter has yet been 
 excavated, and until twenty years ago, we are told that 
 "a case scarcely three feet square in the British Museum 
 enclosed all that remained, not only of the great 
 city, Nineveh, but of Babylon itself."* Their history 
 seemed closed for ever. It was known that in the 
 destruction of these latter cities prophecy had been 
 literally fulfilled. Each perished by that which might 
 become its greatest strength or weakness, its noble 
 river. Of Babylon it had been said by one prophet : 
 "A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried 
 up" (Jeremiah 1, 38) ; and history tells us how Cyrus 
 drained off the waters of the Euphrates, so that his 
 army might enter. It was foretold of Nineveh by 
 another prophet;, that the gates of the rivers should be 
 opened, " and an end of it made by an overrunning 
 flood," (Nahum i. 8. ii. 5, 6.) And here, too, 
 history relates that the siege was brought to an end by 
 an extraordinary rise in the Tigris which swept away 
 part of the city wall and admitted the enemy. A 
 drying up is the destroyer in one case, an inunda- 
 tion in the other.f Again, it had been declared by 
 Nahum, of Nineveh, that her <e palace should be 
 dissolved or molten," and Diodorus (as quoted 
 by Mr. Davison) relates that " the King seeing no 
 hope of safety in defence raised a vast pile, on which 
 he consumed himself in the flames of his wealth and 
 his palace." One writer after another upon Modern 
 Nineveh mourns the effects of fire upon some of the 
 alabaster bas-reliefs, which in consequence would not 
 bear removal. But with the account of its burial, Nine- 
 veh, as well as Babylon, vanished from sight. As Mr. 
 
 * Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, Preface xxv. 
 
 f See Rawlinson's Herodotus, i., 487 : DaTison on Prophecy, 459 46 1.
 
 11 
 
 Fergusson expresses it : ' ' Traveller after traveller 
 passed through the land, and saw the Arab pasturing 
 his flocks on the long lines of level plains, and the village 
 of the more settled tribes perched on a mound that 
 seemed to tell of former occupants ; but many believed 
 them natural ; and there seemed scarcely more history 
 to be gathered from these, than there is of former 
 times from the ocean and its wrecks, or the sand-hills 
 that bound its shore."* But the 19th century seems 
 destined to unfold the mystery, to rekindle upon those 
 barren plains the old life of the days when Assyria was 
 the ruling power of the world, to estimate her place in 
 history, laboriously to dig her treasures from the bowels 
 of the earth, and not less laboriously to work at her 
 inscriptions until her records shall be as certain history 
 as that of Greece and Rome. We owe this mainly to 
 two great explorers : the first in order of time was 
 M. Botta, whose collection of antiquities from the 
 Khorsab&d Palace is now in the Louvre, and will, 
 perhaps, yield in interest to nothing which Paris can 
 display to the world even in the year of a Great Ex- 
 hibition. The other is, of course, our own country- 
 man, whose name has become a household word upon 
 the subject, Austen Henry Layard, He has the rare 
 qualification of being able to write graphically about 
 that which he himself understands thoroughly ; his 
 works are full of poetry and exciting interest, which 
 make them as pleasant reading as the best novel which 
 ever was written; and, indeed, their subject is an 
 illustration of the proverb that "truth is stranger than 
 fiction ;" for if the results of the excavations were not 
 in the British Museum, making its collection of Assyrian 
 
 * Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, p. 7.
 
 12 
 
 antiquities the finest in the world, the winged gods 
 and the palaces whence they were exhumed might 
 rank among the fancies of a brain heated by excite- 
 ment and the glare of an Eastern sun. And, then, 
 think for a moment of the difficulties he went through. 
 We find him constantly contending with the official 
 spirit of Turkish Pashas, who put off his ardent 
 desires for help with those most provoking words : 
 "We will see" or "to-morrow." Sometimes their 
 resistance takes a more active form, as when, in order 
 to give colour to the accusation that he was disturbing 
 the graves of the dead, the answer being : " there 
 were no dead," the Pasha had the troops employed 
 on two nights in carting grave-stones to the site of the 
 diggings, that at least there might be no mistake now. 
 At another time he and his companion have inter- 
 mittent fever, but, as he cheerfully owns, on alternate 
 days, so that one is always working, while the other 
 shivers and looks on ; the only medicine for the reco- 
 very of either is a blistering fluid, which had been 
 prescribed for an injured horse. There is throughout 
 such a spirit of energy about Mr. Layard that we 
 feel he deserves to succeed.* We soon take part in 
 the enthusiasm of his Arab diggers at the dis- 
 covery of any fresh sculpture. " Hasten, O Bey," 
 exclaimed one of them, " hasten to the diggers, for 
 they have found Nimrod himself." We are quite 
 ready to share the dreams of one disturbed night, 
 when he says : " Visions of palaces underground, of 
 gigantic monsters, of sculptured figures, and endless 
 inscriptions floated before me." But the ground upon 
 which Mr. Layard works is fertile indeed, for it con- 
 
 * N.I. 65, 137.
 
 13 
 
 tains the remains of the most magnificent city of the 
 ancient world. This is "the exceeding great city 
 of three days' journey " of Jonah, in which,* accord- 
 ing to the most received theory, Nimrud, Koyunjik, 
 Kramles, and Khorsabad marked the angles. Between 
 them was spread the beautiful city with its parks 
 and gardens, all remains of which have perished, 
 their place occupied by sand so shifting that a trench 
 described by Layard is not to be found by Loftus a 
 few years after ; and coffins are laid above ground in 
 trust upon the chances of the winds, which would be 
 as likely to bury them as to keep them buried. The 
 palaces would have met with the fate of the city at 
 large were it not for the vast mounds upon which they 
 were built : " These were of sun-dried bricks, about 
 30 or 50 feet above the level of the plain. Upon it 
 the monument was raised. When the building was 
 destroyed, its ruins, already half-buried by the falling 
 in of the upper walls and roof, remained upon the 
 platform, and were in process of time completely 
 covered up by the dust and sand carried about by the 
 hot winds of summer." It appears, too, that hut- 
 villages were built upon some of the mounds, which upon 
 decay were replaced by others in succession, the mound 
 itself growing in size at each change. A strong sup- 
 porting wall surrounded the mound, and this served as 
 a coating for the sun-dried bricks, f Mr. Layard 
 first opened a trench to the level of the platform 
 and then struck others at right angles to it ; 
 he was soon able to discover whether he was in a quar- 
 ter for ruins. With some of the results of this process 
 most of us are familiar. We have read how in the 
 
 * Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 650; Loftus' Chaldea, p. 4. 
 f Bonorai, p. 89.
 
 14 
 
 wondrous palace of Sennacherib were found the most 
 magnificent sculptures, the winged bulls and lions, the 
 eagle-headed divinities, the bas-reliefs in alabaster, 
 with inscriptions beneath them, commemorating the 
 triumphs of the empire, the carvings in ivory and pre- 
 cious woods all speaking of a state of glory and pomp 
 exceeded by none of the kingdoms of old. And, in- 
 dependently of their subject, the sculptures are no 
 mere monstrosities (such as are pictured in the illus- 
 trations to Stephens's Central America), but works of 
 the highest art. No one can see the colossal figures, 
 the winged bulls and lions, without being amazed at the 
 " strength in perfect repose" which is in them.* There is 
 no fierceness, but simple consciousness of power; they 
 gather up in themselves " the union of the greatest 
 intellectual and physical powers." And there is no 
 mystery such as exists in the solemn monuments of 
 Egypt, whether Sphinx or Eameses, a characteristic 
 of the latter beautifully expressed by Mrs. Barret 
 Browning, when she says, speaking of a child in 
 
 death : 
 
 " She has seen the mystery hid 
 Under Egypt's pyramid : 
 By those eyelids pale and close 
 Now she knows what Rhamses knows." f 
 
 At Nineveh the thought is altogether different ; the 
 wings are quietly folded in majesty upon the back of 
 the Colossus ; but whether in them, or in the vast 
 proportions of its limbs, or in the frankness and open- 
 ness of its human countenance, we find power only, not 
 mystery. 
 
 Let us now pass from the ideal to the actual lion, 
 shown in "The Lion-hunt." f An admirable sketch 
 
 *See Pusey on Daniel, p. 112115. flV, 276. JN. II, 77, 1, 129.
 
 15 
 
 of it is given in the second volume of Mr. Layard's 
 first book; he says, " it is probably the finest specimen 
 of Assyrian art in existence." It is a bas-relief in 
 alabaster, and after the eye has become accustomed 
 to the somewhat conventional treatment of the subject 
 which runs through the Nineveh sculptures, we 
 can only marvel at the beauty of the design. Nothing 
 can surpass the excitement of the warrior, who is 
 armed almost as if going into battle, leading us to 
 see that there was the same connection between 
 war and the chase as in modern times between 
 the heights of Sebastopol and the hunting fields of 
 Leicestershire. The horses are intensely eager, their 
 ears thrown back, their eyes dilated. Every detail in 
 the sculpture is worked out with minuteness, even to 
 the armlets of the warrior, the chasing of the quiver, 
 the nocks and feathers of the arrows, and the bosses, 
 reins, and trappings of the harness. Much to be 
 noted, too, is the rage of the king of beasts, who is 
 not now standing in the majestic nonchalance of his 
 winged relation, but rolling on the earth, open- 
 mouthed, pierced with arrows, champing furiously 
 against his fate in an agony of impassioned despair. 
 
 An interesting fact for naturalists seems to have 
 been indicated by this and other sculptures, that the 
 Asiatic lion had a claw upon the tuft of its tail. 
 This was asserted by an ancient Greek, and has 
 been often laughed at and contradicted since ;* but 
 a real claw upon a real tail was produced before 
 the Zoological Society in 1832, and has since been 
 found upon one sculpture after another at Nimrud. 
 Whether this was the rule or the exception, is still a 
 
 * L. N. II, 422; Bonomi, 245.
 
 16 
 
 matter of controversy, and I suggest that we should 
 agree to abide by the decision of one who is as intimate 
 with the lion of natural history as his brother with 
 that of the sculptures the learned Curator of our 
 Museum. 
 
 Another question has been accidentally decided by 
 the sculptures : " How were the enormous blocks 
 used in the largest of the Assyrian monuments taken to 
 their places ?"* Some of them were twenty feet square, 
 and must have weighed between forty and fifty tons. 
 The same thought must have occurred to any who 
 have seen those weird pillars of Stonehenge, whose 
 origin is lost in remote antiquity ; until a few years 
 ago they were almost the only works of man for miles 
 about them, and even now are almost desolate upon 
 the vast plain. Who brought them there, and how ? 
 We have no British bas-reliefs to answer the question ; 
 but at Nineveh a series has been discovered showing 
 the whole work, from the first transport of the huge 
 stone in the rough from the quarry to the raising of 
 the finished sculpture to its place in the palace. On 
 one of them, the block is on its passage down the Tigris 
 in a raft far shorter than itself; cables are passed 
 through holes bored in the stone, and dragged by large 
 bands of men, each urged on by overseers, the head 
 of the party being seated comfortably on the top of 
 the block. Others represent the sledge on to which 
 the block has been landed ; the cables are dragged 
 as before, but wedges and rollers are now used, 
 and levers worked by ropes. Four officers are 
 standing on the stone to give directions, one 
 having what is supposed to be a speaking trumpet. 
 
 * N. and B. 104114.
 
 17 
 
 In the whole series, the sculptor inserts men until his 
 slab comes to an end ; if we except the single appli- 
 ances of the levers, wedges, and rollers, all that the 
 Assyrians depended on was human power. And this, 
 next to steam, would be found now the best adapted 
 to the purpose of transport. Some of you may remem- 
 ber the great delay caused by the procession at the 
 Duke of Wellington's funeral by the huge catafalqqe 
 upon which the coffin was placed becoming bedded in 
 the loose wet soil near Hyde-Park corner. All the 
 horses which could be got were harnessed to the car, 
 but did not drag it an inch. An artillery officer then 
 suggested that soldiers should be substituted, and 
 these giving, at the word of command, one simul- 
 taneous pull, lifted it instantly out of its hole. And simi- 
 larly, the sculptures must always have been dependent 
 upon intelligent human strength. When Mr. Layard 
 wished to remove them from their site, he could only 
 make use of the same means as were employed to take 
 them there ; and when a framework was wanted for 
 keeping the figures erect, on their being brought into 
 position at the British Museum, it was fashioned after 
 the model of that which by the last of the series 
 of reliefs is shown to have been used at Nineveh 
 thousands of years ago. 
 
 Consider, too, the small means possessed by the 
 Assyrians for carrying out their designs. Baked 
 sun-dried bricks, coarse alabaster or gypsum upon 
 which to carve the reliefs of the panelled slabs. These 
 were the materials at hand. No marble, nor ivory, 
 nor granite were near them ; even the limestone and 
 black basalt of which many of the monuments were 
 made had to come from far. And yet because the 
 power was in sculptor and architect, no difficulties 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 would check it. They had " bricks for stone and slime 
 for mortar" in the plains about them, but they conquered 
 by force of will, and their art rose to the highest point 
 of excellence. It is a lesson to us at the Cape of 
 great results from poor means, of the life which springs 
 from intense determination. 
 
 Below the bas-reliefs, upon the walls, were generally 
 found the celebrated cuneiform wedge-shaped in- 
 scriptions, written in a character specially used for the 
 solemn records of the nation.* These records were kept 
 at first in the conquered country itself; a tablet was 
 scooped upon the face of some prominent rock at a 
 depth sufficient to guard it from the weather, upon 
 which a rude picture was carved, and the particulars 
 of the conquest given by the inscription below. A 
 magnificent specimen of this kind found in Behistun, 
 in Persia, and partially deciphered by Sir H. Rawlinson, 
 has been one great help towards the meaning of the 
 cuneiform character. He especially noticed here c< a 
 very extraordinary device, which has been employed 
 apparently to give a finish and durability to the writing. 
 It was, that after the engraving of the rock had been 
 accomplished, a coating of siliceous varnish had been 
 laid on to give a clearness of outline to each individual 
 letter, and to protect the surface against any action of 
 the elements. The varnish is of infinitely greater hard- 
 ness than the limestone rock beneath it."f By degrees 
 inscriptions on the rock seem to have been abandoned, 
 and the walls of the palaces themselves became their 
 home, so that the kings might be surrounded with the 
 records of their national glories.! These tell of the 
 
 * N. ii, 164, 182. 
 
 f Quoted in Bonomi, p. 123, from the Journals of the Asiatic Society. 
 
 j N. and B., 632, 447
 
 19 
 
 public life only of the empire. They are, as it were, 
 diaries of campaigns, and do not enter, as the 
 contemporary books of the Bible, upon the private 
 history of individuals. And both reliefs and in- 
 scriptions speak of triumphs only, not of defeats, an 
 instructive illustration of human nature in all ages. 
 The battle-field is strewn with the slain and their 
 scattered arms ; but they are all enemies. The sculp- 
 tor, to flatter the vanity of his countrymen, does not 
 pourtray a single Assyrian either dead or wounded. 
 Certain accounts which we ourselves have heard from 
 the Free State, telling of terrific fights, with the losses 
 on one side only, may possibly form a parallel. 
 
 Not less important than the wall-tablets are the 
 cylinders. These are made of baked clay, mostly 
 hexagonal or barrel-shaped. They are usually covered 
 with inscriptions, such as records of wars, royal decrees, 
 and lists of gods.* One of them, mentioned by 
 Sir H. Eawlinson, is so minute as to defy analysis, 
 even after examination with the microscope. On 
 Layard's second visit to Nineveh, he found a depo- 
 sitory in the palace for such documents, the remains of 
 which were strewn on the floor a foot deep. The 
 characters were formed upon the soft clay before it 
 was hardened by the fire. Some were in the cursive 
 or running character used in private communications, 
 and differing entirely from the cuneiform, or public 
 writing of the wall-tablets. In one use to which these 
 cylinders were put we find an illustration of our mo- 
 dern custom of placing documents under the corner- 
 stone of our buildings; a perfect inscribed cylinder 
 was found near Birs Nimrud, the site of Babylon, 
 
 * Bonomi, 354. 
 
 B2
 
 20 
 
 commemorative of the founder "standing on one extre- 
 mity, in a niche formed by the omission of one of the 
 bricks in the layer."* 
 
 The work of deciphering the inscriptions was one of 
 immense difficulty. There was an alphabet which, even 
 after having been cut down by analysis, amounted to 
 150 letters, and many of these used to represent different 
 sounds. When the inscriptions were parallel, there 
 was not, as in the case of the Rosetta stone, one known 
 language to serve as a guide to the others ; but each 
 was unintelligible, its meaning only to be guessed at by 
 its relation to some kindred tongue. There are other 
 drawbacks set out at length by Mr. Fergusson, in the 
 chapter entitled Inscriptions ; but notwithstanding, he 
 sums up the results thus : " With an alphabet, so 
 nearly perfect as the one already elaborated, with a 
 certain knowledge of the affinities of this language to 
 others, with which the learned are familiar, and with 
 500 of the most usual words certainly known, it can 
 only require a sufficient amount of industry on the 
 part of those whose philological acquirements fit them 
 for the task, to perfect what has been so well com- 
 menced. When once this is accomplished, we may 
 read these contemporary annals of Assyria and Baby- 
 lonia with as much certainty as we do those of our 
 own Anglo-Saxon kings."f The extent to which this 
 has been already done is a matter of controversy among 
 scholars ; and until the question is absolutely deter- 
 mined, we cannot look for a settlement of some of those 
 vexed questions upon the history and chronology of 
 Scripture which a few years must in all likelihood 
 bring. Some of these have already received light. 
 
 * Loftus' Chaldea, p. ISO. f p. 25.
 
 21 
 
 For instance, the account in the Prophet Daniel, that 
 at the taking of Babylon, Belshazzar was king, was 
 contradicted by Berosus, who said that Nabonidus 
 was king. But on one of the cylinders the puzzle 
 was explained.* It was found that Belshazzar was 
 admitted to a share of the Government in the life 
 of Nabonidus, his father. He therefore ranked as king. 
 This difficulty is at an end ; others may be long before 
 they yield ; but we may well be content to wait the 
 issue patiently. Meanwhile, it is very cheering to see 
 what reverent handling Holy Scripture has met with 
 at the hands of the leaders in Assyrian and Chaldean 
 exploration : they treat it as the book, the authority, and 
 bring the inscriptions simply in illustration. And these 
 are the most valuable there are. The monuments of 
 Egypt throw but little light upon the Bible. There 
 was a repugnance between the Egyptians and the 
 Jews which could never be got over.f Manners, 
 habits, customs, almost all were different. But 
 when we come to Assyria, we find its monuments and 
 sculptured walls full of illustrations of the Israelites, 
 whose remains as a nation are almost entirely in wri- 
 ting, and whose daily life that kingdom bore upon 
 more than any other. The Samaritans, for instance, 
 who lived in their midst in the time of our Lord, were 
 not akin to them, but descendants of those heathens 
 with whom Shalmanezer, King of Assyria, had colo- 
 nized the desolate country of the ten tribes. J They 
 were originally emigrants, as we read in the Book of 
 Kings, " from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from 
 Ava, and from Haneath, and from Sepharvaim." And 
 
 * Sir H. Rawlinson, quoted by Puzey on Daniel, 402. 
 f Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, pp. 86100. 
 j See Dean Goulburn's Acts of the Deacons, p. 221.
 
 we see in the palaces the gorgeous chambers " ceiled 
 with cedar and painted with vermilion," which Jere- 
 miah describes (xxii, 14);* the carvings in ivory, such 
 as the workmen in the Book of Ezekiel are making for 
 the galleys of Tyre (xxvii, 6) ; the " blue clothes and 
 embroidered work " in which Assyrians were skilled and 
 their merchants traded (xxvii, 24); the events of the 
 siege and the treatment of the conquered (xxvii, 7, 12); 
 and the idols carried in procession, as we read in the 
 Prophet Isaiah. " They bear him upon the shoulder, 
 they carry him and set him in his place (xlvi, 67)." 
 These points, and many others like them, bearing upon 
 the accuracy of Scripture, will have been noted by 
 every reader of Mr. Layard's books. 
 
 I will now ask you to pass from the plains of the 
 Tigris to the Bay of Naples, where in one of the 
 loveliest scenes on earth lies the long-buried city of 
 Pompeii. It is in the midst of a volcanic region, 
 where the ancient fables which told that here were the 
 Campi Phlegraei, the Burning Plains, and the Pyri- 
 phlegethon, the river gleaming with fire, and the Lake 
 Avernus, the entrance into the infernal regions, might 
 have taught its people the danger which lurked beneath. 
 The craters of extinct volcanoes near, as well as the 
 volcanic soil upon which their gardens and vine- 
 yards throve, might have been another warning. An 
 earthquake which destroyed parts of both Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii only sixteen years before the 
 eruption which overwhelmed them might also have 
 caused alarm for the future. But we have no traces to 
 show that fear existed. So is it still in the villages 
 along the shores of the bay. Even now that eruptions 
 
 * N. ii, 264, 452, 420, and 378.
 
 23 
 
 have taken place oftener, the inhabitants of Torre 
 del Greco, who live above Herculaneum, have been 
 offered other sites *by successive governments ; but 
 they cling to their home as if nothing would ever 
 trouble them. And, indeed, the whole scene rests in 
 such uttermost calm, that it is difficult to imagine the 
 change of the cloudless sky in to that terrible hour, when, 
 instead of the lazy, thin line of vapour which now drifts 
 upward from the cone of Vesuvius, there arose the 
 vast column which was (as Pliny's letter describes it) 
 " like a gigantic pine," the fire its trunk, the smoke its 
 branches. Then, whilst the flood of lava poured upon 
 Herculaneum immediately below, a cloud of white ash 
 was carried to Pompeii, choking the air, and filling the 
 streets and lanes of the city to a height of some feet. 
 This was followed by the steamy torrent which, forming 
 a strong thick mud as a stratum above the ashes, pene- 
 trated into every nook and cranny, and closing up at 
 once every avenue of escape, engulphed the people 
 with their houses and possessions in an indiscriminate 
 destruction. And for nearly 1700 years the city lay 
 quietly beneath the mass, a new life of vegetation 
 forming gradually upon the volcanic tufa, its site un- 
 known, its history well-nigh forgotten, until an accident 
 revealed it to the world, and its excavations were 
 begun. With varying energy they have been continued 
 until the present time ; at first mostly upon the princi- 
 ple of rifling the treasures and then leaving the walls 
 to perish, so that many precious remains were suffered 
 to become heaps of rubbish. And even if the walls 
 stood, the paintings and frescoes which surrounded 
 them faded on exposure to the atmosphere. When 
 discovered, they were bright and glowing as on the 
 day they were painted, some only half-finished,
 
 24 
 
 the artist himself, it may be, as the poet imagines,* 
 throwing down his brush under which the flowers 
 were blooming, and fleeing for his life ; but the rain 
 and sun have done their work remorselessly, and the 
 Vandalism of man has ruined what the earth preserved. 
 Of late years, however, a great change has taken place, 
 especially since the Italian revolutions. There was at 
 first every prospect of things getting worse. Among 
 the strange acts of the popular idol Garibaldi, during 
 his happily brief career in Southern Italy, was the 
 appointment of the novelist Dumas to the inspectorship of 
 the ruins, about which he cared and knew nothing. But 
 a new regime has been inaugurated by Signor Fiorelli, 
 one of the most accomplished archaeologists in Europe, 
 and now the utmost care is taken to repair any damage 
 done in excavation, to restore as far as possible each 
 building to its old framework ; so that instead of show- 
 ing streets of broken walls, Pompeii will breathe again 
 with its old life. One great change in the method of 
 conducting the excavations results from the use which 
 Signor Fiorelli has made of simple means for what may 
 almost be called the preservation of those bodies which 
 were overwhelmed in the eruption. Of old, the visi- 
 tor to Naples was shown the skeleton head of the 
 good soldier who would not be driven from his post at 
 the river gate, but stood true to the last: if the 
 discovery were made now, he might see the soldier 
 himself. If the villa of Diomed were excavated 
 now, and in its cellar were found tokens that the family 
 took refuge there, we should be able to see, not their 
 skeletons, but the group which they formed as the 
 fiery streams overwhelmed them. For this has been 
 
 * Schiller, vol. 1,387.
 
 25 
 
 done in other cases. It occurred to Fiorelli that, by pass- 
 ing liquid plaster into the hollows where the bodies 
 had been, he might use them as the sculptor would his 
 model. So that now there are the very forms them- 
 selves, seeming as if they wanted but a touch to rekindle 
 them into life. The most marvellous group which the 
 earth ever gave back was placed in 1861 in the new mu- 
 seum which Signer Fiorelli has formed at Pompeii. It 
 seemed to be a family who, having crouched in some 
 corner whilst the city was being enveloped in ashes, 
 were driven out by the liquid mud which followed, and 
 at last engulphed them. One, probably the mistress 
 of the house, carried in her hands such household 
 treasures as she could find ; her keys were at her 
 side, and vases, coins, and jewels close by. Another 
 of the casts shows a man who, despairing of escape, 
 laid himself down on his back to die quietly : he is tall 
 and vigorous, with strongly marked features; the 
 coarse stuff of his clothes, the heavy sandals, one of 
 them torn, the thick ring on his finger, are said to be 
 plainly marked. The other two are supposed to be 
 mother and daughter, poor people, as shown by their 
 clothing. The poor girl struggled hard for life. M. Marc 
 Monier says: " She had covered her head with her veil 
 from fear. She was buried as she ran : her face is towards 
 the ground, and not being able to raise herself, she had 
 rested her fragile young head upon one of her arms. 
 One of her hands is half open, as if she had held 
 something, possibly her veil. The nails of her fingers 
 had pierced the plaster."* Another eye-witness says : 
 " The form of her head is perfectly preserved. The 
 texture of her coarse linen garments may be traced, 
 
 * Revue des Deux Mondes, xlrii, 231.
 
 26 
 
 and even the fashion of her dress, with its long sleeves 
 reaching to the wrists. Here and there it is torn, and 
 the smooth young skin appears in the plaster like 
 polished marble. On her tiny feet may be seen her 
 embroidered sandals."* So that we have here no mock- 
 ery of preservation, such as the Egyptian mummy- 
 cases unfold, no groups of mere statuary, but the very 
 forms themselves as they gathered round each other in 
 the act of dying, every line complete, even to the 
 "clenched hands and lips, stiffened with sorrow."f 
 And seen at Pompeii itself, such a group as this must 
 form the saddest commentary on the life of a city, of 
 which the motto upon one of its villas might serve for 
 the whole " Habitat Felicitas," felicitas meaning the 
 sensuous, butterfly existence which Lord Lytton has 
 set forth in " The Last Days of Pompeii." Except 
 for one sculptured cross, there would be no sign to 
 show that the city was not wholly given to idolatry ; 
 indeed, there is much which tells of a lower state of 
 worship and morals than any which has been declar- 
 ed by the serene divinities of Assyria. Its life is only 
 written as yet in its buildings, paintings, and statues, 
 for no library has yet been found ; but| the papyri 
 of the sister city of Herculaneum are almost entirely 
 of the Epicurean school, which said, " Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die." How little they 
 knew of the way in which the fountain of life would be 
 dried up ! 
 
 And there is no hospital ; perhaps it may be said with 
 truth that there could be none in any Roman town of 
 that age. All systematic care for the sick and suffering, 
 all those blessed associations for living ministry to the 
 
 * Quarterly Review, No. 230. f Plumtrc's Poems, p. 154. 
 
 J Edinburgh Revitw, No. 236.
 
 27 
 
 poor, in which our own time is rich, sprang up from 
 the brotherhood of the Church, when this became fully 
 organized. The pagan world, as a whole, did not recog- 
 nize such sympathy : self was its god. 
 
 It would be tedious to enter at length into the parti- 
 culars of the excavations. The value of them has been 
 principally in the light which they have thrown upon the 
 domestic life of the Romans. The city abounded in such 
 luxuries and elegancies as showed that its people, whilst 
 living in a climate where work is burdensome and the 
 invitations of out-door existence strong, had ample 
 means for gratifying their tastes. Their love of colour 
 was extreme ; their houses built of simple masonry 
 (opus incertum it was technically called) are decorated, 
 even the poorest, by some painting, if the owner 
 could only afford a garland of flowers or a bunch of 
 fruit. Greek artists seem to have lived among them ; 
 but the statuary for the most part is not of the highest 
 kind, although late accounts speak of one or two groups 
 of singular beauty ; and in the Blacas Collection, just 
 added to the British Museum, there is a fresco of 
 which a critic writes : " That it is a composition 
 worthy of a great master." * And of the celebrated 
 mosaic of the "Battle of Issus" (almost the only 
 work of art at Pompeii for which Sir Walter Scott 
 seemed to caref) it has been said that some of the heads 
 are equal to Raphael's. These, however, are the 
 exceptions: the decoration is rather graceful and pretty 
 than full of any deep feeling, and thus corresponded 
 with what we know in other ways to have been the 
 character of the inhabitants. There are tokens to 
 show that they were admirable workers in metal; there 
 
 * Saturday Review^ January 26. f Lockhart's Life, vii, 349.
 
 28 
 
 are vases of exquisite design in bronze and silver 
 necklaces and other ornaments so perfect, that the 
 great Roman jeweller, Castellani, can do nothing better 
 than copy them literally; also bracelets of elastic 
 bronze, the power to manufacture which is quite lost ; 
 surgical instruments, horrible to see, in great profu- 
 tion, said to show the deepest anatomical skill ; one 
 of them was patented in London as a new inven- 
 tion two years before it was discovered in a house 
 at Pompeii. And not in single instances so much 
 as in the whole feeling of the city does the life in 
 death startle and appal us. The baths, with the seata 
 in the waiting-room, as if they had been used yester- 
 day ; the pavements on which the chariot wheels have 
 left ruts, the stones for the riders to mount, and the 
 rings by which the horses were tethered ; the street 
 which was being made, at the end of which is a huge 
 block of stone to prevent carriages from coming down ; 
 the house which was building, where you see the 
 stucco model from which the marble bas-relief 
 was being worked ; the well of which the sides are 
 worn by the cords of the bucket or the hands of the 
 drinkers ; all these things, evidences of common every- 
 day life, upon which it seems as if a hand had been 
 laid for a moment, and then removed, leave an awe- 
 stricken feeling on the mind which it is not easy to 
 escape from. Perhaps, in this point of view, although 
 there are others elsewhere of far greater compass and 
 magnificence, nothing at Pompeii makes the same 
 impression as the Amphitheatre. In it the great mass 
 of the population was assembled at the time of the 
 first alarm of an eruption. The path to it lies for some 
 distance over the still buried part of the city. Every 
 step is taken over that which once throbbed with
 
 29 
 
 life. The building is more ancient than the 
 Coliseum. It is now as it was when 10,000 people were 
 crowded upon the stone seats, and shouting for another 
 combat of gladiators or a fresh victim for the lions. The 
 cells for the beasts are quite perfect, and all the entrances 
 and covered wings for the different ranks of citizens, from 
 the nobles by the arena to the slaves in the galleries. And 
 in the Museo Borbonico are the tickets of admission. It 
 is startling to be shown the door at which the gladiators 
 entered for the fight. A sculpture on one of the tombs 
 represents these deadly encounters, gladiators against 
 each other, or against Thracian captives, or against the 
 wild beasts. But no hint is given of the sacrifice which 
 from other sources we know to have been most frequent, 
 the Christians to the lions. That history is omitted, 
 like defeats from the Nineveh marbles ; no sculpture 
 nor inscription publishes that shame. Yet it must 
 always be impossible not to meditate on the agony and 
 the faith there had been within the walls of the 
 Amphitheatre when martyrs, " of whom the world was 
 not worthy," gave up their lives gladly in hope of 
 the Resurrection. And, therefore, in the Coliseum 
 itself, the centre and home of such deeds of blood, it 
 seems scarcely strange (if symbols have any meaning) 
 to be told of flowers of extreme rarity and beauty 
 blossoming year after year upon its now deserted 
 galleries. 
 
 Let us ask, before we conclude, to what we owe 
 the wonderful preservation of these buried cities? 
 Schiller's beautiful line is the answer : 
 
 "Nichts is verloren,' getreu hat es die Erde bewahrt." 
 
 The lava and ashes of Vesuvius have guarded Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii; the mounds have preserved
 
 30 
 
 Nineveh ; the alluvium of the Tiber has cared well 
 for Ostia ; and each has lain quietly under its burden 
 until the world was best able to profit by its disinter- 
 ment. To use again some words of M. Monier : " It 
 was a great good fortune for Pompeii to be buried 
 under the ashes, but a far greater that it should have 
 stayed these sixteen hundred and sixty-nine years : 
 one trembles to think what would have become of these 
 poor ruins if they had had to submit to the outrages of 
 the thousand invasions which from the reign of Titus 
 to that of Charles III, came one upon another to 
 devastate the miserable kingdom of Naples." She has 
 been indeed our mother-earth, waiting patiently until 
 her children were prepared to listen to the revelation 
 of her secrets. We should as little have expected her 
 to perform this office, as to learn that the most expe- 
 rienced travellers in Polar regions, when over- 
 taken by a snow-storm, invite the snow to cover 
 them up, and as it were build over them, in order 
 that they may be kept warm and living. * Yet if 
 these cities had been above ground they would have 
 been broken to pieces. Mr. Palgrave tells us how 
 in a recent visit to Egypt he saw an " unparalleled 
 granite Colossus which has become a well-nigh shape- 
 less mass," and this although " a thousand steam sledge 
 hammers would have seemed insufficient to effect its 
 ruin." Any part of an exposed city or palace is 
 made a quarry of, goes, for instance, to build a 
 bridge, or repair a miserable village at Mosul :f or 
 some precious relic is smashed to pieces by devout 
 Mussulmen as the idol of the infidels. But the earth 
 restores that which she had hidden, but not destroyed : 
 
 * Homes without Hands, p. 37. f N. and B., xxiv.
 
 31 
 
 we find it preserved from exposure to the atmosphere, 
 and from wanton destruction or ignorant misuse. The 
 Assyrians are present to speak of their wealth and 
 power, and of artistic taste and skill, without which 
 mere material wealth would have been useless. We 
 can imagine each building perfect, each palace rising in 
 its splendour, as Mr. Fergusson's restorations have 
 pictured at Khorsabad and Nimrud. The lions are 
 guarding the portals, the triumphs of war and the 
 chase surround their walls ; we want but the living 
 men, the king with his retinue and state, the troops of 
 armed warriors, and the captives brought from 
 far lands, to complete the grand suggestions which 
 the earth has given us of the power of the 
 empire. And when we turn from the stern simplicity of 
 Nineveh to the growing effeminacy of the Roman 
 people, we find at Pompeii innumerable instances of a 
 highly-polished, civilized, and dissolute city, which 
 Vesuvius had hidden as it were for a moment, and all 
 seems as if hardly a memory, but as if the shows and 
 revels were still present, as if the songs had scarcely 
 ceased or the flowers faded. 
 
 I have now endeavoured to indicate a few outlines 
 of a great subject, which may interest even those, 
 like myself, with whom they must ever remain 
 outlines, as well as those who are qualified to 
 go into their depths. There is a fascination to such 
 as care only for things modern, things which speak 
 of the rushing life of the nineteenth century, 
 for these cities were discovered but yesterday; 
 and to such as love that which is ancient, for does not 
 their disinterment tell us of two of the greatest empires 
 of antiquity ? The old and the new are hand in hand. 
 To us in South Africa there is very special need of
 
 32 
 
 subjects of this class, in order that we may make for 
 ourselves interests which are not naturally forced 
 upon us in our daily life. We have much to 
 rejoice us in our beautiful scenery, in the glories 
 of mountain and cloud, and sea ; but we have 
 nothing which connects us naturally with the great 
 deeds of the past ; nothing which causes the heart 
 to leap or the pulse to beat more quickly, like theirs 
 who feel (in the words of Sir Charles Fellows, used of 
 Greece) that " every peak in every mountain range 
 has its history." We have no monuments of a nation's 
 struggles, nor of its artistic life. We must claim, 
 then, with the greater earnestness, our heritage in the 
 past life of the world ; for we may gather thence, not 
 less from its failures than from its triumphs, new 
 motives for high and noble aims, and these independent 
 of earthly greatness or material prosperity. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMOK AND CO., ST. GBORGE'fl-STREET, CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 Cprtj-mot(f ^nnikrsarg Hiding 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 23RD MAY, 1868. 
 
 fir. frotor f0bJe in % Cfewr. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & Co., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1868.
 
 Committee : 
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. PROFESSOR CAMERON 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ. (Treas.) 
 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ. 
 
 MR. PROFESSOR NOBLE 
 
 J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 DR. DALE 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLE AR,KNT. 
 VERY REV. DEAN DOUGLAS 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 ESQ. 
 
 | JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 A True Copy, 
 
 F. MASKEW, Librarian.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The Committee, in 
 submitting their annual report, regret that they are 
 unable to congratulate the subscribers and the public 
 on the improved financial position of the institution. 
 This is to be attributed, in great measure, to the 
 reduction in the amount of the Parliamentary grant, 
 as noticed by the Committee in their last report ; and 
 also to the fact that the expectations of the Committee, in 
 appealing to the public for a more efficient support of 
 one of the oldest and most useful of our colonial insti- 
 tutions, have not yet been realized. 
 
 Your Committee during the past year were induced, 
 in consequence of the limited state of the funds, to pre- 
 sent a petition to His Excellency the Governor, praying 
 for the restoration of the original grant of 600 per 
 annum, and they urged the claims of the Library for 
 additional support, and at the same time brought to 
 His Excellency's notice that certain liabilities were 
 incurred upon the faith that the Parliamentary grant 
 was to be a permanent one. His Excellency was 
 pleased to receive the petition favourably, and forwarded 
 it to the House of Assembly for their consideration, 
 and in the message transmitting the petition stated that 
 this grant, as well as others of a like character, had been 
 reduced solely out of deference to the resolution of the 
 House of Assembly ; but that His Excellency would 
 be prepared to restore to those institutions the sums 
 formerly allowed to them. 
 
 A 2
 
 During the debate on the Estimates the question 
 came under consideration, and your Committee are 
 inclined to infer from the discussion which then took 
 place that, but for the late period of the session, the 
 grant would have been restored. In the full confidence 
 that such was the feeling of the House, your Committee 
 intend to renew their application to His Excellency 
 during the present session of Parliament, when they 
 trust the Honourable House may be pleased to restore 
 the grant to its original amount. 
 
 The Committee have to report that an offer was made 
 to them by the trustees of the Popular Library, Messrs. 
 W. Porter and E. Christian, to hand over to them the 
 cash balance remaining in their hands and belonging to 
 that institution, amounting to 44 8s. 4d., provided the 
 Committee would guarantee any bond fide claims that 
 might be made upon the trustees to the extent of 
 the amounts so deposited, to which they gladly 
 acceded. 
 
 During the stay of His Koyal Highness the Duke of 
 Edinburghin Cape Town, His Eoyal Highness honoured 
 the institution by a visit, and it was a source of great 
 pleasure and gratification to the Committee to learn 
 from His Royal Highness that he was pleased with the 
 general arrangement of the Library, which was opened 
 to the public by His Royal Highness on his previous 
 visit to the Colony. 
 
 The Committee have to acknowledge the bequest 
 made to the institution by their late colleague, Mr. 
 Justice Watermeyer, of one hundred volumes of works, 
 to be selected from his library, which have been re- 
 ceived and placed on the shelves. They have also to 
 record their thanks to the Hon. Dr. Abercrombie for 
 the presentation of 175 volumes of medical works.
 
 This collection Dr. Abercrombie has given to the 
 Library, for the benefit of the profession to which he 
 belongs, with the understanding that the books may be 
 circulated freely under the ordinary rules of the insti- 
 tution. To Charles A. Fairbridge, Esq., the Committee 
 are indebted for the following rare and valuable works 
 presented by him to the Library : 
 
 Demosthenes. Folio. 1570. Paris. From the Duke 
 of Sussex Library. 
 
 Kedi's Works, 7 vols., 8vo., 1778. Naples. This copy 
 belonged to Leigh Hunt, whose signature is on 
 the title page. The volumes are annotated 
 by Hunt, who translated parts of Bacco in 
 Toscana. 
 
 Tristram Shandy. First edition, 12mo. 17601767. 
 Sterne's signature will be found on the first pages 
 of Books 5, 7, and 9, apparently presentation 
 copies. 
 
 The Basilicon Doron of James I. First edition. Very 
 scarce. 12mo. London: 1603. Three small por- 
 traits of James I,, all rare, and highly prized by 
 collectors, inserted. 
 
 The Icon Basilike of Charles I. (or at all events laid 
 to his charge) 12mo. 1648. 
 
 Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano. First edition. 
 London : 1650. 
 
 Callander's Terra Australis Cognita (known as Callan- 
 der's Collection of Voyages, 3 vols., 8vo. Edin- 
 burgh: 1766. Scarce. 
 
 The Committee trust that the good example set by 
 these gentlemen may be followed by others, and that 
 subscribers and the public will duly appreciate their 
 liberality.
 
 The accessions of books by purchase as well as by 
 presentation are as follows : 
 
 Theology 1 volume. 
 
 Political Economy 9 
 
 Science and the Arts 183 
 
 Works of Amusement ... ... 145 
 
 Belles Lettres 68 
 
 History 72 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 61 
 
 Biography 30 
 
 Miscellaneous 11 
 
 Total 580 
 
 Amongst them will be found several works, together 
 with those already mentioned, presented by the Revs. 
 Messrs Kock and D. P. Faure, Messrs. T. B. Bayley, 
 James Backhouse, Wm. H. Orpen, W. Purcell, and 
 J. Currey, to all of whom the thanks of the subscribers 
 and the public are due. 
 
 A descriptive catalogue of the "Early English 
 Printed Books in the ' Grey Collection' " has been pub- 
 lished ; the description of the old manuscripts has been 
 continued, and a correspondence been opened with some 
 scholars in Europe for the purpose of ascertaining the 
 critical value of several of these manuscripts. 
 
 The Committee have also to state that His Excel- 
 lency the Governor having sanctioned the free trans- 
 mission by post of documents forwarded for deposit in 
 the Grey Library, this privilege has been used mainly 
 for the purpose of completing the unrivalled collection 
 of native literature brought together by Sir George 
 Grey. This department of the Library has been en- 
 riched in the course of the year by an addition of
 
 seventy-seven printed books, presented by missionaries, 
 together with several manuscripts. 
 
 The Library is indebted to the Rev. J. W. Apple- 
 yard for thirty-six publications ; to the Lovedale Mis- 
 sionaries for thirteen ; to the Rev. Messrs. A. Kropf and 
 S. Ghysin for two Kafir books each ; further, to the Rev. 
 H. Callaway for twelve, and to the Bishop of Natal for 
 six, Zulu books ; to the Matabele Missionaries for two 
 books; to the Rev, R. Moffat for a copy of his 
 new edition of the Setshuana New Testament ; and 
 to the Rev. G. Kronlein for three Hottentot 
 books. 
 
 The Committee have to record their regret at the 
 departure of Mr. Frere, a member of the Committee, 
 and they deem it but due to him to express their 
 appreciation of the long and valuable services freely 
 rendered by him, both in his capacity as member of 
 the Committee, and as treasurer of the institution. 
 
 The Committee of the South African Public Library 
 have had to record, from time to time, the names of 
 great and good men, whose liberality has enriched this 
 institution, and whose acquirements have shed a lustre 
 over the whole community. The memory of none is 
 dearer than that of the late Judge Watermeyer, whose 
 name will live long in the hearts of those who had 
 learned during his career, so early closed, to admire the 
 varied accomplishments of his intellect and the gene- 
 rous impulses of his heart. He was intimately con- 
 nected with the management of this Library for many 
 years, and was also a trustee of the " Grey Collection," 
 and he gave freely to the public, both in that capacity 
 and in ethers bearing on the education and improve- 
 ment of colonial youth, all the benefits to be expected 
 from a refined and well-stored mind. His colleagues
 
 8 
 
 here to-day record his loss with few words, but with 
 lasting sorrow. 
 
 They have likewise to mention with regret the death 
 of Major Longmore, who for upwards of thirty years 
 was a member of the Committee, and took a warm 
 interest in the prosperity of the institution ; and also 
 of the late Eichard Bay ley, Esq., whose valuable ser- 
 vices as auditor were cheerfully given to the institution 
 during many years.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I appear before you 
 on this occasion in the capacity of a stop-gap. Two 
 months ago, the Hon. Mr. Griffith, the Attorney- 
 General, engaged to preside at this meeting, and deliver 
 the annual Library address, which, by the usage of many 
 successive years, and the sanction of many distinguished 
 predecessors in this chair, has become one of the estab- 
 lished institutions of the Cape. We all looked forward 
 to the anticipated intellectual treat with the keenest 
 zest and interest. Some of us may have differed from 
 the hon gentleman on political or other public ques- 
 tions; and a warm-hearted, generous, impetuous 
 Irishman as he is nothing delights him more than a 
 vigorous conflict with opponents where fair play is the 
 motto on either side, and sentiments are outspoken, 
 and all is straightforward, and manly, and frank. But, 
 in the presidential chair of the Public Library, Mr. 
 Griffith would have appeared in a capacity and a light 
 still more attractive than any we have been accustomed 
 to hitherto. As a scientific student, a keen thinker, a 
 finished scholar, and a man I believe not merely 
 familiar, but imbued, with the generous spirit of our 
 English literature, he would have instructed and 
 delighted us to-day from the treasures of his richly- 
 stored mind, to an extent which only those who 
 know him best can most fully appreciate. To the 
 very sincere regret of us all, however, a few weeks 
 ago he was attacked with an ailment so acute and
 
 10 
 
 serious, that the accomplishment of this particular 
 task had to be abandoned, while the discharge even 
 of his professional duties had to be suspended. Under 
 these circumstances, I have at short notice been 
 " impressed " into the service ; though only on the 
 distinct understanding that Mr. Griffith renews his 
 promissory engagement, and pledges himself to 
 occupy this chair, and deliver the address next year. 
 I will not occupy your time with prefatory matter in 
 the shape of idle apologies. I unfeignedly feel and 
 acknowledge ray inability to discharge the functions 
 which have been assigned to me in a manner worthy of 
 many of the distinguished men who have filled 
 this chair before me. But such thoughts as occur 
 to me amid the press of varied avocations, and in 
 the very limited time at my disposal, I shall endea- 
 vour to submit to you, as plainly, clearly, and 
 practically as I can. My object is to give a rapid 
 sketch of the present position and prospects of the 
 Library itself; of the efforts which have recently 
 been put forth for the advancement of knowledge in its 
 various departments in South Africa ; and of the most 
 characteristic phases and developments of Literature 
 and Science and Philosophy in England within the last 
 year or two, as represented by the accessions of books, 
 magazines, and reviews periodically received at this 
 Institution. 
 
 And first, with respect to the Library itself. It 
 is what Sir John Herschel, with the poetic instinct of 
 genius, pronounced it, " the bright eye of the Cape." 
 It is one of the proudest boasts of our Colony that 
 within these walls are treasured some forty thousand 
 volumes, in which are enshrined the wisdom and the 
 knowledge, the science, philosophy, poetry, and humour
 
 11 
 
 of the centuries that have gone. As you have heard 
 from the report, the year now closed has contributed 
 its fair share of accessions to these stores. Duriug that 
 period nearly six hundred volumes, ranging over every 
 department, have been added to the Library. And 
 what is peculiarly gratifying, is the extent to which 
 individual donors have proved their warm interest in 
 the institution, by individual and most valuable contri- 
 butions. First of these stands the legacy of a hundred 
 rare and valuable volumes bequeathed by will from the 
 library of the lamented Mr. Justice Watermeyer ; and 
 next in time, though not less valuable, the handsome 
 donation from Dr. Abercrombie, M.L.C., comprising near 
 two hundred volumes, and constituting not merely what 
 he modestly called it, " the nucleus of a medical collec- 
 tion," but almost a complete medical library in itself. 
 Besides this, we are all aware of the magnificent collec- 
 tion of books and pamphlets relating to South Africa 
 which Mr. Fairbridge has already gathered, and to 
 which he is almost daily adding, with the intention of 
 placing them shortly in the South African Library, 
 where, side by side with the Grey Collection and the 
 Porter Collection, they will prove an imperishable 
 monument of our friend's learning, taste, liberality, 
 and patriotic feeling. I might refer to another munifi- 
 cent gift of a different kind, which is now being made 
 by a gentleman to whom the Library is already deeply 
 indebted but that his modesty forbids my making 
 mention even of his name. All these facts are ex- 
 tremely gratifying, as attesting the deep interest felt 
 by many in the progress and prosperity of this institu- 
 tion, and their anxiety to contribute their full share 
 towards accomplishing the high purpose set before us 
 by Sir George Grey, when, on the opening of this hall
 
 12 
 
 in the presence of Prince Alfred, seven years ago, he 
 expressed the hope that the civilization of South Africa 
 would more than emulate the civilization of North 
 Africa in the early centuries of our era, and that the 
 Library of Cape Town might, of its kind, be as dis- 
 guished and beneficial as was then the Library of 
 Alexandria. But, at the same time, I cannot help 
 directing attention to the fact, that by the public 
 generally the institution has not been supported as it 
 ought to be. First-class subscribers have degraded 
 themselves into third-class subscribers which means 
 the payment of 1 a year instead of 3. Parliament, 
 in its retrenchment mania, has very deeply degraded 
 itself by retrenching in the departments of literature 
 and science more than in any other department of 
 the public service ! In fact, I believe the only real 
 victims of that abortive retrenchment were the Law 
 Lecturer and the Colonial Botanist, the Public 
 Library and the Botanic Gardens ; and the result is, 
 that during the year the managers of the Library 
 have been so crippled in their resources that they 
 were compelled on the one hand to curtail the supplier 
 of books from England, and on the other to reduce the 
 salaries of their officers which even on their highest 
 scale were most inadequately low. J trust that with 
 the return of better times to the people generally, there 
 will also be a return of better revenues to the Public 
 Library that Parliament will restore at once its 
 character and its grant, and that the institution may 
 be worked on a scale and with a vigour befitting its 
 importance and its real value to the very best interests 
 of the whole community. 
 
 Passing from this topic, let us next briefly review 
 what work has been accomplished for the advancement
 
 13 
 
 of knowledge in South Africa within the last year or 
 two. Foremost, in this respect, must, of course, be 
 classed the series of geographical explorations and 
 discoveries which shed a lustre on the times in which 
 we live. Solving the problem that had puzzled 
 the sages and baffled the explorers of antiquity, 
 Captains Speke and Grant traced the mysterious 
 Nile from its source in Victoria Nyanza. Sir Samuel 
 Baker, accompanied by his noble and heroic wife^ 
 advanced still further, traced the river to another 
 and greater source in the Albert Nyanza ; and by his 
 double explorations in Equatorial Africa and Abys- 
 sinia, proved beyond all question that the White 
 Nile, from the former, furnishes the main supply 
 perennially, while the Blue Nile from the Abyssinian 
 plateaux contributes the periodical inundations to which 
 Egypt is indebted for all her wealth. And now a 
 greater than any of these distinguished men our own 
 Livingstone comes back to us as the living from the 
 dead, his charmed life, defiant of peril, plague, or trea- 
 chery, btill preserved through all his wondrous wan- 
 derings, and within a few months or weeks we may 
 expect to have revealed by him the whole mystery of 
 those most interesting highlands, woodlands, and inland 
 seas of South-Eastern Africa. Entering by the 
 Eovuma, journeying round the south of Lake Nyassa, 
 and thence for more than a thousand perilous miles, 
 he has, unaided and alone, explored the whole country 
 from the Zambezi to the Equator, and may very 
 possibly have traced the sources of the Nile from 
 Lakes Albert and Victoria still further upward to 
 the magnificent expanse of Tanganyika itself, so 
 admirably described to us by Capt. Burton a few years 
 ago. And while Livingstone and others have been
 
 14 
 
 thus upraising the veil which has so long obscured 
 South-Eastern Africa, Charles .John Andersson and 
 others have been performing a similar work for South- 
 Western Africa. Andersson, in his quiet, modest, but 
 most persistent and considering all the difficulties 
 and obstacles he had to encounter I will add, heroic 
 manner, has made us as familiar with the maps of 
 Damaraland and Ovampoland, on towards the Cunene, 
 as with those of the Free State or Natal, or the Cape 
 Colony itself. What could be more touching than the 
 record of his last fatal journey, told so well a few 
 months ago by his friend and fellow-explorer, Mr. 
 Frederick Green ? There, amid the wilds of Ondonga, 
 tended only by his faithful servant, baffled and prostrate, 
 he calmly prepared himself to die ; and for to this 
 complexion must we come at last after farewell 
 thoughts of wife and children and home, he begged to 
 have read to him the Psalms in his native Swedish, 
 which in childhood he had learned, and which in the 
 supreme moment were now his consolation and his stay. 
 The University of Lund have only by this last mail 
 conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
 a fitting acknowledgment of the services he had rendered 
 to the march of civilization and of science ; but months 
 before, he had already passed beyond the reach of 
 earthly distinction, and finished a career which will, 
 however, still give honour to his memory as one of the 
 best and bravest of the pioneers of progress in South 
 Africa. I speak of him as I knew him ; and I could 
 not make mention of his name at all without offering 
 this tribute at once of warm affection and high esteem. 
 And, speaking of Andersson and the splendid ornitho- 
 logical work on which he was engaged just shortly 
 before his death, reminds me of the very valuable
 
 15 
 
 volume on the birds of South Africa published a few 
 months ago by Mr. Layard, and which has met with so 
 eulogistic a reception among naturalists at home, that 
 a second and greatly enlarged edition is now in course 
 of preparation. 
 
 Another South African traveller must not be forgotten 
 in the same connection I mean Mr. Chapman whose 
 very interesting volumes have been received here only 
 a month or two ago. And speaking of him suggests 
 the name of Mr. Baines, whose pictorial representations 
 of the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi, both by pen 
 and pencil, are only equalled by the keen observation 
 and picturesque description he has given us of what he 
 saw through all his journeys, both in South-Eastern 
 and South- Western Africa. 
 
 And while our professed travellers and explorers, in 
 combination with traders and hunters, are penetrating 
 the interior and dispersing the barbaric darkness in 
 which it had so long been enshrouded, our missionaries 
 are exerting themselves in various ways towards the 
 same end, independently of the special and immediate 
 functions of their sacred calling. It is only a month 
 ago that I have received, in a modest missionary 
 magazine printed in Germany, a most graphic and 
 instructive journal of a tour made last year by the Rev. 
 Hugo Hahn, from his station at Otjimbinque, right 
 north to the Portuguese territories on the Cunene. 
 The tour was undertaken purely for missionary pur- 
 poses ; but the observations made of the geology, 
 natural history, and other physical conditions of the 
 country traversed are as complete, careful, and scientific 
 as we might expect from a man of Mr. Harm's high 
 accomplishments. Further, during the year interesting 
 light has been thrown on the ethnological characteris-
 
 16 
 
 tics of the Otjyiherero or Damara people in the collec- 
 tion of MS. tales gathered by the Eev. Mr. Bath (now 
 at Sarepta, Kuils River), and on the languages of 
 those parts by the Damara Dictionary framed by Rath, 
 and the Ovampo Vocabulary prepared by Hahn, and 
 both of which have been presented, with many similar 
 works, to the Grey Collection. The Rev. Messrs. 
 Kronlein and Vollner, too, with the inexhaustible 
 patience and indomitable perseverance characteristic 
 of the Germanic race when engaged even on the merest 
 trifles, have made similar collections of fables, tales, 
 songs, riddles, and proverbs, illustrative of the Hotten- 
 tot mind as it is still to be found in its primitive condi- 
 tion amid the wastes of Great Namaqualand . Turning 
 to the East Coast, we find that a like work is being 
 done for the Zulus of Natal by the Rev. Dr. Callaway, 
 who, at his mission station of Spring vale, has already 
 printed six parts, amounting to a good-sized volume, of 
 " Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus 
 in their own words, with a Translation into English, 
 and Notes." It is, in fact, the same kind of service as 
 has been done so admirably for the Celts of Scotland 
 by Campbell's recent collection of Highland Tales, and 
 for the Scandinavians of Norway by Dr. Dasent's 
 Icelandic Sagas. What, it may be asked, is the real 
 good or interest of all this ? My answer is, Precisely 
 the same interest that attaches to fossil remains for the 
 student of palaeontology. As in the latter, widely 
 separated formations are identified as of the same 
 age, and produced under like conditions ; so from 
 these tales, legends, and riddles, we trace the connec- 
 tion between widely scattered branches of our common 
 human family. In one of Campbell's tales, taken down 
 in Gaelic from the lips of an ancient and unlettered
 
 17 
 
 Highlander la one of the Western Hebrides, there 
 are plots and incidents identical with those of the 
 Merchant of Venice giving proof, therefore, of a 
 common origin, and making conclusive reference to the 
 period in the remote past when the wave of Celtic 
 migration had yet advanced no further westward 
 than Central Europe. By similar indications here of 
 language and of legend, the Hottentots of the Cape 
 may be traced back through their successive migrations 
 southward to their primal ancestry among the Copts 
 of Egypt.* From the missionaries of our own Kafir 
 frontier, valuable contributions have during the year 
 been made to the native stores in the Grey Collec- 
 tion. I need only refer to the grammars, vocabul- 
 aries, scripture translations, and native newspapers 
 presented by such excellent and devoted men as Apple- 
 yard, Boyce, Govan, Moffat, and Stewart. But for the 
 Kafirs proper, and the Hottentots too, the ethnological 
 work done in this respect has been but fragmentary 
 and partial. I am glad, however, to be able to point 
 to men who are perfectly and especially qualified to 
 carry it on to completion. For the Kafirs, there is 
 their own distinguished countryman, the Rev. Tyo 
 Soga, who I know has for some years been collecting 
 a series of most interesting legends, tales, and apologues, 
 which endowed as he is with a keen sense of humour, 
 as well as a power of graphic expression he can set 
 forth in fitting English garb in a style that would 
 
 * See Dr. Bleek's Researches. And mentioning the name of this 
 gentleman, I must add that it is largely owing to the zealous and 
 systematic correspondence carried on by him from his office as 
 Custodian of the Grey Collection in this Library, that so many 
 missionaries and others have been incited to the philological and 
 ethnological research I have referred to in the above. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 render them of the deepest interest to us all. For the 
 further illustration of Hottentot life and character, I 
 need only mention the name of the Rev. Henry Tindall, 
 of Robertson, who should set about that work, for 
 which he is so eminently qualified, without more delay. 
 But there is yet another literary undertaking, and of a 
 still higher order, which now awaits the coming and 
 the fitting man. We thought we had him, first, in the 
 late lamented Justice Watermeyer, whose address 
 delivered from this chair on the early voyages of the 
 Portuguese, whose lectures afterwards read at the 
 Mechanics' Institute, and whose numerous contributions 
 later to the old Monthly Magazine, illustrative of the 
 social condition and strange misrule of the Cape under 
 the dynasty of the Seventeen, marked him out as the 
 historian of South Africa, who could produce a work 
 as quaintly interesting as Knickerbocker's New York, 
 and as philosophical and truly historic as the classic 
 volumes of Prescott and Helps on Mexico and Peru. 
 But it was not to be. When the shadows of death 
 with which in successive visitations he had become so 
 tragically familiar were darkening the closing years 
 of his too short life, he abandoned that, with many 
 another undertaking ; but not until he had consigned 
 or, I may more fitly say, bequeathed it to another, who 
 was in every respect singularly qualified for the task. 
 Mr. William Roger Thomson accepted the duty with con- 
 fident pleasure and hope, and had determined to devote 
 to it the best years and most vigorous energies of his 
 life. But Dis aliter visum. Thomson died even 
 before Watermeyer ; and now, when we think of 
 the shattered columns and broken hopes, the accom- 
 plishments, and gifts, and possibilities of both, 
 which remain to us only in sacred memory, we can
 
 19 
 
 but sorrowfully say of the first and of the last, 
 that 
 
 Cat is the branch that might have grown full straight, 
 And burned is Apollo's laurel bongh. 
 
 Before leaving this department of my subject, there is 
 just one point to which I wish to direct the attention 
 of some of the elders among us. The best preparation 
 for a future history of the Colony is the collection of 
 fitting materials for the structure. Some, like the late 
 Mr. Fairbairn, who were themselves living histories 
 of the last forty years or more, have recently passed 
 away. But many more of them are happily still with 
 us ; and a few of these, like Mr. Howell of the Free 
 State ; Mr. Meurant, of Fort Beaufort ; and Mr. Kift, 
 of Port Elizabeth, have been ransacking the stores of 
 their memory, and bringing forth reminiscences which, 
 for humour, quaiutness, and real historical value, are of 
 the highest interest. Might not an historical club or 
 society of this sort be formed, say, in connection with 
 the Library, meeting monthly, its members contributing 
 each his own share to the common store, and receiving 
 from correspondents all over the country communi- 
 cations, of which those referred to from Howell, Meur- 
 ant, and Kift are merely specimens. I content myself 
 with simply throwing out the hint ; but I feel certain 
 that if it be acted upon, the result will prove not merely 
 interesting, but historically instructive and valuable in 
 a very high degree. 
 
 Turning next to the third department of this address, 
 I shall endeavour to briefly sketch the most character- 
 istic phases and developments of literature and science 
 and philosophy in England within the last year or two, 
 as represented by the accessions we have within that 
 period here received. And first with respect to the 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 general literature of the year. I can certainly point 
 to no great works to scarcely one great work indeed 
 which for breadth of view or power of thought can 
 impress its mark upon the age. (I, of course, except 
 Ecce Homo, as a work trenching on theological ques- 
 tions, on which in this place I deem it inexpedient to 
 enter.) The only books, indeed, which claim any par- 
 ticular distinction, or stand prominently out as con- 
 spicuously the publications of the season, are the Queen's 
 Memorials of the Prince Consort and her Highland 
 Journals; and Mr. Hep worth Dixon's Western America 
 and his Spiritual Wives. The Memorials of the Prince 
 Consort compiled by General Grey, and only annotated 
 by Her Majesty, display something of the stiffness of 
 a bookmaking which is artificial without being artistic, 
 although the original extracts from letters and diaries 
 of the Prince and his Queen-bride, then in the flush of 
 beauty and the heyday of youth and joy, are simple, 
 natural, and often touching to a charming extent. The 
 remaining volumes, now in course of preparation under 
 the more experienced and skilful hands of Theodore 
 Martin, will probably prove far more attractive and far 
 worthier of the dignity of the subject. Of the second 
 book, however, the Leaves from a Highland Journal, 
 it is almost impossible, in one respect at least, to speak 
 too highly. The " Leaves" are fresh and pure and 
 picturesque as are the rustic Highland glens depicted 
 in them. With the perfect artlessness of simple and 
 unconscious truth and reality, they produce all the 
 effect of the most consummate art, just on the common- 
 place but very real principle that beauty unadorned is 
 adorned the most. The view this volume gives us of 
 that happy Koyal Home is such as perhaps never had 
 been revealed by Sovereign to subject before. The
 
 21 
 
 Queen has taken her people into her confidence, laid bare 
 the secrets of her joys and sorrows, and presented them 
 with an example of unaffected goodness, kindliness, 
 gentleness, and enlightened piety, pleasantly diversified 
 with mirth and humour, which in its spirit at least may 
 be imitated alike by the highest and the lowest. What 
 would we not give for such autographic and genuine 
 glimpses at the royal homes and firesides of the past 
 to have, say, the journal jottings of Queen Elizabeth 
 after her address to the troops at Tilbury, or during 
 her memorable visit to Leciester at Kenilworth, as 
 Queen Victoria describes to us what was done at 
 Balmoral when news arrived of the capture* of Sebas- 
 topol, and the splendours of her reception by the Marquis 
 of Breadlabane at Taymouth Castle ! 
 
 Turning to Dixon's books, the first of them Western 
 America was in every respect a brilliant success. It 
 introduced us to places, men, and institutions closely 
 connected with ourselves, but at the same time widely 
 and eccentrically diverging from the grooves of thought 
 and habit to which we have become accustomed. The 
 Mormons, the Shakers, and all the rest of them, were 
 studied with the eye of a philosopher and depicted with 
 the pen of a poet ; and the whole book was as healthy 
 in its effect as is the prairie breeze or the bracing cold 
 of the Rocky Mountain snows from whence it came. 
 But not such is the second book which, as a supple- 
 ment to the first, has been published two months ago 
 under the title of Spiritual Wives. I find that in the 
 Athenaum last received by the Roman, Mr. Dixon has 
 felt it necessary in some degree to defend himself 
 against the censure it has entailed on him, by showing 
 the real object he had in view. " In this work," he 
 says, "an attempt is made to describe the morbid
 
 22 
 
 growth of certain feelings from their birth in the 
 revival camp to their wreck on the domestic hearth ; to 
 paint, in its diseased activity, one of those passions 
 which control the innermost lives of men ; to show in 
 what subtle and seductive ways the poison of spiritual 
 pride can work into the heart , and in the end to warn 
 the young seeker after a ' newer way ' and a ' higher 
 law,' what perils beset his feet the moment he quits 
 the safe old path of experience on any imaginary 
 ' leading of the spirit. ' . . . . All the men and 
 women whose lives are here traced began by seeking 
 for a higher kind of good. They wandered into peril 
 not through a will inclining them to evil, but through 
 the yearning to live a better and a purer life. They 
 fell by spiritual pride, by wishing to be ' wiser than 
 what is written ;' and they passed into the stage of 
 mental craze and moral death through having set their 
 hearts on a perfection never to be reached on earth." 
 All this may be safely granted, and it is necessary 
 that morbid developments of such a sort should be 
 studied and described; but it should be done in the 
 true scientific spirit plainly and severely, as the 
 physician and the surgeon depict the diseases or 
 gangrenes which they have to encounter and deal with ; 
 and not set forth in the bright hues, and warm, rose- 
 coloured light, and finished elegance of attractive style 
 in which Mr. Dixon has decked and tricked out for 
 ready sale the volumes to which I am now referring. 
 Passing this over, I think I may venture to say that 
 the general characteristic of the literature of the year 
 has been discursiveness, and, in a certain sense of the 
 term, I may add, dissipation. The periodical has become 
 at once the pride and the bane of English literature. 
 I say the pride, because by means of it the best writers
 
 23 
 
 are brought into daily contact with hundreds of thou- 
 sands of readers, whom in larger books they could 
 never reach, and are thus becoming the educators of 
 the people to an extent which almost exceeds the 
 influence of either the schoolmaster or the parson. 
 Thus, for instance, to take but one example, you have 
 in Good Words, price sixpence, the Duke of Argyll 
 speculating profoundly, yet clearly, on the Reign of 
 Law and on Primeval Man ; Mr. Gladstone discour- 
 sing on Ecce Homo ; and the Bishops of Oxford and 
 London types of High Church and Broad writing 
 side by side with men so mutually opposed as Dean 
 Stanley and Dean Alford, and condescending to frater- 
 nize even with Presbyterians like Norman McLeod 
 and Thomas Guthrie. And so it is in every depart- 
 ment. Trollope transfers his tales to his new magazine, 
 St. PauTs, and goes " warblingly " on, as he himself fitly 
 phrases it, almost without end. Miss Thackeray gives 
 her most finished works in fiction to the Cornhill, and 
 Mr. Mathew Arnold in the same periodical continues 
 his perpetual crusade against the Philistines, and calls 
 like Goethe, though he calls in vain, for more of sweet- 
 ness and of light. Wilkie Collins in " The Moon- 
 stone," for All The Year Round, is sensational as of 
 old, and Miss Braddon in Belgravia is far more sensa- 
 tional still. To a certain extent the " periodical " is 
 responsible for this sensationalism. The interest must 
 be kept up from month to month ; and as each instal- 
 ment closes, there must be the mysterious and exciting 
 foreshadowing of the coming event which similarly 
 baffles the reader again in the succeeding number. 
 But other novels than those in the magazines are 
 tainted with the same pestilent curse of sensationalism. 
 Take, for example, Ouida's " Strathmore," which is
 
 24 
 
 about as unhealthy a book as now finds its way among 
 decent society. While on the contrary, even in the 
 magazines, as in MacmillaiCs, we have so thoughtful 
 and graceful and utterly unsensational a tale as that of 
 " Realmah," now being produced by Mr. Arthur Helps. 
 
 But the great writers and the great thinkers, what of 
 them, and where are they, and what great work are 
 they meditating now ? Tennyson, catching the common 
 infection, sends verses for pay to the magazines which 
 are utterly unworthy of his distinguished name. 
 Dickens, finding reading more profitable than writing, 
 makes a magnificent showman of himself, and sacrifices, 
 to some small extent at least, his splendid reputation 
 as a novelist to the paltry fame of what he unquestion- 
 ably also is, a first-class reader and comedian. Thomas 
 Carlyle has been silent in his Chelsea retreat, save for 
 that one terrific growl he uttered de profundis some 
 months ago on " The Shooting of Niagara," or Lord 
 Derby's leap in the dark ; while John Stuart Mill, who 
 is a great philosopher, and should content himself with 
 being such, is squandering his time and wasting his 
 high intellectual force in wrangles about Reform on 
 the floor of the House of Commons and submitting 
 impossible projects for the redemption of Ireland by 
 something which looks uncommonly like a general 
 confiscation ! 
 
 Turning from general literature, where all seems 
 barrenness on the one hand and excessive wildness of 
 evanescent or mushroom growth on the other, let us 
 glance briefly next at some of the achievements and 
 developments of contemporary science. I will not 
 dwell on the magnificent practical applications of it 
 for man's advantage, as in the electric telegraph that 
 now all but encircles the earth; or even on such
 
 25 
 
 beautiful discoveries as those of Kirchoff and Bunsen 
 with the spectroscope, whereby the quivering ray that 
 left the furthest star within our ken it may be ages 
 ago now reveals the secret of its birth and tells the 
 very chemical constitution of the orb from whence it 
 has come, and thus establishes a common connection 
 or feeling of kinship between all the members of the 
 physical universe. My object is rather to point to two 
 or three particular phases of modern science which 
 affect or are supposed to affect prevailing and popular 
 religious opinions and creeds. The first of these is 
 with respect to the antiquity of man. Until a very 
 few years ago no trace of human existence upon earth 
 had been discovered older than the skeleton of Guada- 
 loupe, now in the British Museum ; or, in geological 
 language, more ancient than the Pleistocene or most 
 recent of the geological ages. This seemed to tally 
 admirably with the Mosaic cosmogony, where man in 
 that beautiful poetic parable in the first of Genesis is 
 represented as the latest and highest formed of all the 
 creatures ; and though the geologists and chronologists 
 could not agree as to the extent of time from man's 
 first appearance until now, the battle between them 
 was a drawn one, or the question, in other words, was 
 left in abeyance. But the discovery of human remains, 
 skulls, and arrowheads, and hatchets and other imple- 
 ments at Abbeville, in the North of France, gave it 
 quite a different aspect. There, it was alleged, that 
 indubitable proofs of human existence were found 
 below the drift, or in other words before the glacial 
 period ; and, therefore, not six thousand, but at the 
 very lowest estimate a hundred thousand years bygone. 
 There was much that was suspicious about the discovery 
 of those fossils. There is no doubt that in some cases
 
 26 
 
 wilful deception was practised ; and that at the present 
 moment ante-glacial remains are sold as genuine which 
 have been manufactured in Paris for the occasion, just 
 as relics are sold at Waterloo, rusted to the proper 
 degree by ingenious processes at Birmingham and 
 elsewhere. But making due allowance for all this I 
 think it must be admitted that the balance of evidence 
 is largely in favour of an extremely remote antiquity 
 for man though still, unquestionably, the most recent 
 of creation in his advent on the stage of existence. 
 The " pre-historic " investigations which have been 
 recently carried on so successfully in many lands, the 
 discoveries of the ancient lake-towns of Switzerland, 
 and the primitive stone implements to be met with all 
 over the world not excluding our own Cape Flats 
 and Mr. Fairbridge's garden at Sea-Point go far to 
 strongly corroborate, in this respect, the opinion of the 
 geologists. But what of that, and what serious results 
 are to be inferred from it ? By some it is supposed to 
 be contradictory and subversive of sacred Scripture. 
 I cannot think so. I think it only enlarges our views 
 of the scale and stage on which Omnipotence has 
 wrought. No one dreams now of asserting that our 
 Modern Astronomy is antagonistic to Holy Writ, 
 although in Galileo's time, it was deemed to be fatal 
 to it. We all acknowledge that that astronomy sheds 
 a brighter and a richer lustre on the sacred page and^ 
 if any one doubts it, I would only recommend him the 
 perusal of a tolerably old, yet a most noble book, Dr. 
 Chalmers's Astronomical Discourses. And as we have 
 learned that Scripture was not designed to teach us 
 astronomy, and that in relation to that, it used language 
 suited for the people to whom it was addressed, so 
 also we shall come to admit that the Bible was not
 
 27 
 
 written to instruct us in geology or cosmogony, and to 
 feel that, without being e scientific ' or pretending to be 
 such, it accommodates itself to every philosophy and 
 every age, while it preserves sacred the precious central 
 truths and revelation which it provides as the common 
 heritage of all the ages. 
 
 The next remarkable development of Science within 
 the last three or four years is the prominence given to 
 what has been variously called " the Conservation of 
 Force," " the Correlation of Forces," and " the Law 
 of Continuity." The physical universe, as far as cog- 
 nizable to the human intellect, consists of matter and 
 force or matter and certain affections or potentialities 
 of matter which we call forces. Now, matter is inde- 
 structible. It is as impossible for man to annihilate as 
 to create it. It perpetually changes, but never truly 
 dies. The atom that to-day flutters in the leaflet may 
 to-morow form portion of the human brain. 
 
 Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 
 May stop a hole to turn the wind away. 
 
 Just so with force ; it is equally indestructible, 
 and passes from one form or phase into another 
 in a sort of eternal metempsychosis. A certain 
 measured amount of mechanical force is converted into 
 a corresponding quantity of heat force, that again into 
 a chemical force, that again into magnetic, or electric, 
 or light force an exact " correlation" being thus 
 established between them, a perfect " conservation" of 
 the force in fact, a law of continuity ; so that the 
 identical solar action of the Carboniferous Era now 
 works mechanically to drive our locomotives or speed 
 our steamships across the ocean. The first to expound 
 this theory perfectly was Mr. Grove, Q.C., if I remem- 
 ber rightly, some five or six years ago (though it has
 
 also been beautifully illustrated and confirmed by Pro- 
 fessors Tindall and Faraday) ; and he dwelt on it very 
 fully again in his splendid inaugural address to the British 
 Association in 1866. And there is a further and very 
 interesting application of it in a curious paper in 
 Macmillan y of September last, by Professor Bain. " on 
 the Correlation of Force in its bearing on Mind," in 
 which he discusses the relations between the oxidation 
 of the nerve-material of the brain, and the nerve-cur- 
 rents of what we call the vital force which permeate 
 that mysterious organ, and the intellectual thoughts, 
 emotions, and resolutions, which we speak of as essen- 
 tially the developments of Mind. 
 
 But there is yet another phase of this " Law of 
 Continuity" which is exciting the deepest interest 
 amongst thinkers throughout the world. I refer to 
 what is known as the Darwinian theory of the origin of 
 species. Have the various species, whether animal or 
 vegetable, been created each in successive order per 
 saltum, as separate and distinctive acts of creative 
 energy, or has there been one continuous law of develop- 
 ment from the monad to the man under which the 
 inorganic particle has by spontaneous generation become 
 the organized cell, and that again by slow stages and 
 certain processes developed into the highest organic 
 perfection in the human frame ? The author of " The 
 Vestiges of Creation" wrote a charming book in advocacy 
 of this development theory, and Hugh Miller, in reply 
 to him, wrote "The Footprints of the Creator," which on 
 the clearest geological evidence proved, as it seems to 
 me, beyond dispute, that simply as a matter of fact, 
 there is no such unvarying order of development ascend- 
 ing from the lowest to the highest, nor can the connect- 
 ing links between some of the most contrasted types be
 
 29 
 
 traced. Mr. Darwin accepted the conclusion of the 
 author of " The Vestiges," but objected to the process as 
 unscientific. " The author of ' The Vestiges ' would, I 
 presume, say, that after a certain unknown number of 
 generations some bird had given birth to a wood-pecker, 
 and some plant to a mistletoe, and that these had been 
 produced perfect as we now see them ; but 3 " says Dar- 
 win, " this assumption seems to me to be no explanation, 
 for it leaves the case of the co-adaptation of organic 
 beings to each other and to their physical conditions of 
 life untouched and unexplained." And this is the work 
 which Mr. Darwin has set himself to accomplish to 
 show how, under a law of unbroken continuity, the 
 myriad forms and variations of genera and species can 
 be accounted for by two co-operative principles which 
 he calls the Struggle for Existence and Natural Selec- 
 tion. I think the essence of his system or theory may 
 be found in one paragraph of his introduction : " The 
 Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings 
 throughout the world inevitably follows from their high 
 geometrical powers of increase. This is the doctrine 
 of Malthus applied to the whole animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species 
 are born than can possibly survive, and as, consequently, 
 there is a frequently recurring Struggle for Existence, 
 it follows that any being, if it vary, however slightly, 
 in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex 
 and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a 
 better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. 
 From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected 
 variety will tend to propagate its new and modified 
 form." This is the Darwinian theory in a nutshell. 
 And so far as it goes, it is unquestionably true. It is 
 what logicians would call a vera causa ; but, assuredly,
 
 30 
 
 as accounting for the origin of species, it is hitherto a 
 case of non causa pro causa. There is no doubt that 
 great variations in type are produced in the manner 
 described by Mr. Darwin, both in his first work on the 
 subject published in 1859, and his latest work just 
 issued two or three months ago. But as it appears to 
 me there are two fatal objections to the acceptance of 
 the theory in its entirety. In the first place, no instance 
 has been observed of " spontaneous generation." Several 
 have been imagined and believed ; but now, as the 
 result of the most careful investigation, the general 
 opinion I quote from Grove is that when such pre- 
 cautions are taken as exclude from the substance sub- 
 mitted to experiment all possibility of germs from the 
 atmosphere being introduced, " as by passing the air 
 which is to support the life of the animalculae through 
 tubes heated to redness, and other precautions, no for- 
 mation of organisms takes place." The first step in the 
 Darwinian process is therefore a pure assumption un- 
 supported by any authenticated fact. And in the 
 second place, there is the equally formidable difficulty 
 that notwithstanding all the varieties produced arti- 
 ficially under the control of man as in the case of 
 "pigeons" so elaborately illustrated in Mr. Darwin's 
 last work, or the variations produced in nature by the 
 struggle for existence and natural selection, " the 
 immutability of species is maintained by two unconquer- 
 able laws the ultimate sterility of breeds and their 
 reversion to the type when let alone. Man can influence 
 size, which is a variation of individuals and not of species. 
 Man can modify the flower and fruits of plants within 
 certain limits, and obtain size or flavour or varying 
 blooms ; but specific characters elude his power entirely- 
 Permanent reproduction is the fundamental idea of
 
 31 
 
 species ; and there is no continuous fecundity in breeds, 
 their sterility or reversion being inevitable." (Athencewn). 
 The Darwinian theory has been by many ridiculed as 
 grotesque and absurd, from the days when Lord Mon- 
 boddo described humanity as gradually wearing off its 
 simian appendage by the prosaic process of sitting on 
 it; and the most recent "chaff" of this sort is given 
 in the clever and amusing verses of Lord Neaves, 
 lately published from Blackwood: 
 
 " Have you heard of this question the Doctors among, 
 Whether all living things from a Monad have sprung ? 
 This has lately been said, and it now shall be sung, 
 Which nobody can deny. 
 
 " Not one or two ages sufficed for the feat, 
 It required a few millions the change to complete ; 
 But now the thing's done, and it looks rather neat, 
 Which nobody can deny." 
 
 " Pouters, tumblers, aud fantails are from the same source, 
 The racer and hack may be traced to one Horse ; 
 So men were developed from Monkeys, of course, 
 Which nobody can deny. 
 
 " An Ape with a pliable thumb and big brain, 
 When the gift of the gab he had managed to gain, 
 As a Lord of Creation established his reign, 
 Which nobody can deny. 
 
 " But Tm sadly afraid, if we do not take care, 
 A relapse to low life may our prospects impair ; 
 So of beastly propensities let us beware, 
 Which nobody can deny. 
 
 " Their lofty position our children may lose, 
 And, reduced to all-fours, must then narrow their views, 
 Which would wholly unfit them for filling our shoes, 
 Which nobody can deny.
 
 32 
 
 " Their vertebrae next might be taken away, 
 When tliey'd sink to an oyster or insect some day, 
 Or the pitiful part of a polypus play, 
 
 Which nobody can deny. 
 
 " Thus losing Humanity's nature and name, 
 And descending through varying stages of shame, 
 They'd return to the Monad, from which we all came, 
 Which nobody can deny." 
 
 By others it is angrily opposed on the plea that it 
 leads to Atheism, and banishes the Creator from His 
 own creation. I do not think that either ridicule or 
 indignation is a just or reasonable ground on which to 
 controvert it. There is nothing in the idea of develop- 
 ment by such natural laws as Darwin speaks of which 
 is irrational in itself or inconsistent with the most 
 reverent acknowledgment of the Creator as evolving 
 the scheme of the universe thus naturally and con- 
 tinuously, instead of by successive acts of specific crea- 
 tion. And truth is truth wherever it is met, and to be 
 devoutly acknowledged when proved as such, with utter 
 disregard of all consequences whether real or imagin- 
 ary. I disbelieve the Darwinian system, simply because 
 no sufficient evidence has been adduced to sustain it. 
 On this question, as well as the related one on the 
 origin of Man, I would recommend the careful study 
 of a series of admirable papers now in course of pub- 
 lication by the Duke of Argyll in Good Words. 
 
 I have tasked your attention and wearied your 
 patience too far already ; but there is just one other 
 point to which I must refer briefly, as the practical 
 outcome of all these speculations. Do they not give 
 encouragement to Materialism as the foundation principle 
 of our speculative philosophy ? As a matter of fact, I 
 think it must be admitted that Materialism does derive
 
 33 
 
 
 
 support from them, and that the school of the Positivists 
 or Empiricists represented by its founder, Auguste 
 Comte, and illustrated by such eminent disciples as 
 Lewes, Harrison, and John Stuart Mill, exercises a 
 powerful influence on the cultivated minds of the present 
 age. "What we have to deal with, they tell us, is only 
 the World as we find it, and as intellect enables us to 
 comprehend it. We are to content ourselves with 
 observing laws by which they mean certain invariable 
 sequences and govern ourselves in accordance with 
 these. Final Causes and Existence or Entities of any 
 kind beyond what the understanding can grasp, they 
 deem outside the province of human cognition. To 
 quote from Professor Hansel's exposition* of the phi- 
 losophy of Mill a work which in small compass presents 
 the whole argument with great clearness : fe We do not 
 mean that he (Mr. Mill) consciously adopts the grosser 
 tenets of the Materialists. We are not aware that he 
 has ever positively denied the existence of a soul distinct 
 from the body, or maintained that the brain secretes 
 thought as the liver secretes bile. But he is the advocate 
 of a philosophic method which makes the belief in the 
 existence of an immaterial principle superfluous and 
 incongruous ; he not only acknowledges no such dis- 
 tinction between the phenomena of mind and those of 
 matter as to require the hypothesis of a free intelligence 
 to account for it ; he not only regards the ascertained 
 laws of co-existence and succession in material pheno- 
 mena as the type and rule according to which all pheno- 
 mena whatever, those of internal consciousness no less 
 than of external observation are to be tested ; but he 
 even expressly denies the existence of that free will 
 
 * In his recent book on " The Philosophy of the Conditioned.' 1 
 
 C
 
 34 
 
 * 
 
 which Sir W. Hamilton regards as the indispensable 
 condition of all morality and all religion. Thus, instead 
 of recognizing in the facts of intelligence e an order of 
 existence diametrically in contrast of that displayed to 
 us in the facts of the material universe,' he regards both 
 facts as of the same kind and explicable by the same 
 laws ; he abolishes the primary contrast of consciousness 
 between the Ego and the non Ego the person and the 
 thing ; he reduces man to a thing instead of a person 
 to one among the many phenomena of the universe, 
 determined by the same laws of invariable antecedence 
 and consequence, included under the same formulae of 
 empirical generalization. He thus makes man the Slave, 
 not the Master of .Nature ; passively carried along in 
 the current of successive phenomena ; unable by any 
 act of free will to arrest a single wave in its course or 
 to divert it from its ordained direction." I have said 
 that this Materialism derives support from the develop- 
 ments of physical science within recent years. But not 
 necessarily so. I believe that these are equally con- 
 sistent with what I consider the far higher, broader, 
 and richer philosophy of which in modern times Sir 
 William Hamilton has been the most distinguished 
 expounder. Hamilton rises from the " conditioned " to 
 the " unconditioned ;" sets forth as the cardinal point of 
 his system the absolute necessity of acknowledging the 
 existence of a sphere of belief beyond the limits of the 
 sphere of thought " to show articulately that we must 
 believe as actual much that we are unable (positively) to 
 conceive as even possible." Or, as in another remarkable 
 passage he expresses it, " We are taught the salutary 
 lesson that the capacity of thought is not to be consti- 
 tuted into the measure of existence ; and are warned 
 from recognizing the domain of our knowledge as neces-
 
 35 
 
 sarily co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And 
 by a wonderful revelation we are thus, in the very con- 
 sciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the 
 relative and finite, inspired with a belief in the existence 
 of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all com- 
 prehensible reality." We have, therefore, thus opened 
 before us two distinct realms of contemplation the 
 Natural and the Supra-Natural matter and mind, so 
 far as they are conditioned by the laws of nature and 
 distinctly cognizable by reason ; and mind and moral 
 existence, whether human or divine, as infinities 
 unconditioned by time and space, on which Faith can 
 expatiate as under the light of Revelation it becomes 
 the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen. And thus it is that such a duplex yet exqui- 
 sitely harmonious character is possible as that of Faraday, 
 so beautifully and profoundly drawn in the following 
 words, which I adopt from the Athenceum received a 
 fortnight ago : " Whether standing as the philosopher 
 before the rank and fashion of the land, or as the 
 preacher meeting a few humble and devout men and 
 women to teach them the lessons of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, he was the priest of that high religion which 
 sees a Lawgiver as the cause of every law ; and re- 
 presses the pride of human intellect by showing the 
 weakness of man's mightiest efforts to penetrate the 
 darkness which hides powers unknown, guided by laws 
 undreamt of, beyond which reposes the God of Creation, 
 to whom Faraday ever prayed ' for light, more light.' " 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S-STREET, CAPE TOWN.

 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 Jkfictlr 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, . 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 22ND MAY, 1869. 
 
 gon'ble Mm. primes iriffi% sq., in 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE.
 
 Committee : 
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ. 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR CAMERON 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ. (Treas.) 
 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ. 
 
 MB. PROFESSOR NOBLE 
 
 J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 DR. DALE 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLEAR, KNT. 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 
 ESQ. 
 E. J. JERRAM, ESQ. 
 
 | JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 
 A True Copy, 
 
 F. MASKEW, Librarian.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 At the last general meeting of the Subscribers, your 
 Committee, in their annual report, intimated their 
 intention of again appealing to the liberality of 
 Parliament for the restoration of the original grant 
 made to the Library, and expressed a hope that the 
 Legislature would favourably entertain their appli- 
 cation. 
 
 Immediately on the assembling of Parliament your 
 Committee appointed a deputation of their body to 
 wait upon I [is Excellency the Governor, to request 
 His Excellency to take such steps as might seem fit 
 for securing to the Library the full annual grant of 
 600. The liabilities of the Library and the very 
 small amount available for the supply of new books 
 were also brought to the notice of His Excellency, 
 who was kind enough to express his willingness to do 
 as he had done before in the matter, and transmit by 
 message to the House of Assembly the representations 
 of the Committee, and to place the amount on the 
 supplementary estimates. Your Committee have now 
 the satisfaction of stating that the message sent by 
 His Excellency was favourably entertained by the 
 House of Assembly and the grant restored to its 
 original amount ; in consequence of which your Com- 
 mittee have been enabled to restore to the officers of 
 the institution the salaries formerly enjoyed by them. 
 
 Your Committee, whilst congratulating the subscri- 
 bers on the success of their application to Parliament, 
 are sorry to observe that the appeal so often made to 
 the public for a more generous support of this institution 
 
 A2
 
 has not been responded to in that spirit of liberality 
 which they had reason to hope. 
 
 Upon an application, received from the Members 
 of the Royal Naval Club, at Simon's Town, your 
 Committee were induced to extend the usefulness of 
 the institution, by allowing the members of that Club 
 to subscribe to the Library upon the same terms as 
 those offered to the "Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion," Cape Town, but your Committee are sorry to 
 state that, owing to the recent changes that have 
 taken place at the Naval Station, this arrangement 
 which has been in operation for a period of only six 
 months, and which during that time worked very 
 satisfactorily, is likely to cease. 
 
 The accessions of Books during the past year, by 
 purchase and presentation, have been as follows, viz. : 
 
 Theology 19 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy ... ... 9 
 
 Science and the Arts ... ... 61 
 
 Dictionaries 39 
 
 Works of Amusement ... ... 146 
 
 Belles Lettres 44 
 
 History 65 
 
 Voyages and Travels 36 
 
 Biography 28 
 
 Italian Works 66 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ... 58 
 
 Total 573 Vols. 
 
 Amongst the above, your Committee have the honour 
 respectfully to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of 
 " The Early Years of His Royal Highness the Prince 
 Consort," and "Leaves from the Journal of our Lives 
 in the Highlands," graciously presented to the Library 
 by Her Majesty the Queen ; and His Grace the Duke
 
 of Buckingham and Chandos, in the dispatch accom- 
 panying these volumes, states that they are presented 
 by the Queen, both as tokens of the interest with 
 which Her Majesty regards the development of insti- 
 tutions which tend to the spread of knowledge and 
 intelligence in her colonial possessions, and because 
 she believes that these records of the earlier days of 
 their Sovereign and the Prince Consort will not fail 
 to be valued by her subjects in the Cape of Good 
 Hope. 
 
 Your Committee have also to acknowledge the pre- 
 sentation of a valuable collection of Italian and German 
 books, dictionaries, &c., numbering 255 volumes, which 
 were presented to the Library through Mr. Charles 
 Bell, by the heirs of the late Thomas Bowles, Esq. ; 
 also several works presented by the New Zealand 
 Government, the " Smithsonian Institution," United 
 States ; Drs. Addey, Abercrombie, sen., Laing and 
 Thornton, Messrs. T. B. Bayley, J. W. Ebden, T. W. 
 Bowler, S. Solomon, and Lange, to all of whom the 
 best thanks of the subscribers are due. 
 
 During the course of the past year, the collection of 
 Native Literature has received presentations of fifty 
 additional books. Among the donors of these are the 
 Rev J. W. Appleyard, who has sent nine Kafir books ; 
 the Rev. H. R. "VVoodrooffe, who has presented his 
 translation of the English Book of Common Prayer 
 into Kafir, and the Rev. Tiyo Soga, from whom we 
 have received the " Pilgrim's Progress " in the same 
 language. A translation of this work into Zulu by 
 the Bishop of Natal is one of the four Zulu books 
 lately presented by him. A portion of the New 
 Testament in Zulu, by the Rev. J. L. Doehne, was 
 presented by the author ; and the whole of the New 
 Testament in Zulu is among the books received from 
 the American Missionaries, the Rev. A. Grout, who
 
 6 
 
 has sent thirteen, and the Kev. D. Rood, whom we 
 have to thank for seven Zulu books. A fine map of 
 the Zulu country (lithographed for private circulation 
 only) has also been presented by the compiler, Capt. 
 Walmsley. 
 
 From the same Colony, Mr. John Sanderson has 
 furnished a manuscript, entitled " Suggestions towards 
 an Alphabet of the English Language," which does 
 not directly refer to South African philology, but 
 contains, among many nice observations, some on the 
 nature of the clicks, the existence of which in English 
 the author proves by quotations from Shakespeare. 
 
 The Rev. J. D. M. Ludorf, of Potchefstroom, has 
 sent three Serolong books ; Dr. Steere, of the Zanzibar 
 Mission, a copy of his " Collections for a Hand-book 
 of the Shambala Language;" and the Rev. F. W. 
 Kolbe, his " Brief Statement of the Discovery of the 
 Laws of the Vowels in Herero." A manuscript 
 English-Otyiherero Vocabulary has been supplied on 
 request by the Rev. J. Rath. 
 
 A few Bushman drawings have been copied for 
 the Library by Mr. W. H. Piers. Contributions 
 have also been received from Mr. William Hertzog 
 (Champollion's " Precis du Systeme Hieroglyphique des 
 Anciens Egyptiens "), Mr. "William Coates Palgrave 
 (an old plan of Madrid), and Mrs. Sophia Snellman, 
 who presented the New Testament in Finnish. 
 
 The Treasurer's account, showing the income and 
 expenditure during the past year, will now be 
 submitted. 
 
 WM. HIDDINGH, Chairman.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 The Hon'ble WM. DOWNES GRIFFITH, Esq., then 
 delivered the following Address : 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 Much as I feel the honour done me by the request 
 of the Committee of this Library, that I should take 
 the chair at this meeting, and deliver the customary 
 address, I could nevertheless heartily have wished that 
 their choice had fallen on some other person. All men 
 are not fitted for all things, and while I feel that men 
 should specially devote themselves to those pursuits 
 and should undertake those duties and offices for which 
 their nature and education have fitted them, at the 
 same time I am conscious that of all the many works 
 which a man can undertake, that of addressing a mixed 
 audience on a widely general subject is one of those 
 for which I am least qualified, and which I conse- 
 quently should most unwillingly have undertaken, had 
 I not feared that my motives for refusing would have 
 been misconstrued, and that a course of conduct really 
 suggested by a consciousness of my own shortcomings 
 should be set down to ungraciousness, or indolence, or 
 vanity on my part. Rather than incur such charges, 
 though unfounded, I prefer to exhibit my own inca- 
 pacity, and can find it in my heart to bestow my 
 tediousness upon you, trusting tfcat you will let the 
 blame fall where it is due, and lay it rather on the 
 shoulders of the Committee, who have passed sentence 
 on you, than on mine, who have anxiously endeavoured 
 to escape from becoming your executioner. Tedious 
 as I expect to be, however, I will not take up your 
 time by descanting in vague terms on the advantages 
 of literature, a theme by this time so hackneyed as
 
 8 
 
 to have become almost disgusting, useless at the best 
 of times as it must be a waste of time to recapitulate 
 the advantages of literature for the purpose of 
 impressing a sense of those advantages on persons 
 already fully sensible of them, while those who are not 
 already sensible of them will never be made so by 
 any other means than the opening of their minds 
 and tastes through the influence of literature itself, 
 the acquisition of which may be owing at first 
 perhaps to compulsion, or to the example of and 
 sympathy with others, but I will venture to say 
 was never attributable to any of the many exhor- 
 tations or treatises, however learned or eloquent, 
 which have been delivered or composed in praise of 
 it. It is just as possible to convey a sense of 
 the advantages and pleasure of literature to one 
 who is absolutely uneducated as it is to convey a 
 sense of the beauty of colour to one born blind, or of 
 the pleasure of music to one who has not and has 
 never had any sense of hearing. And this fact is one 
 of the great difficulties which lie in the way of the 
 spread of education, and more especially tend to 
 prevent it under a system of popular government. 
 Some wants are felt to be wants with an intensity 
 increasing as the want itself increases : within ordi- 
 nary limits, a man desires food the more the longer 
 he is without it, and desires warmth the more the 
 colder he is, or shade and coolness the more the hotter 
 he is ; but a man dqjss not desire to read the master- 
 pieces of literature or to learn the last achievements 
 of science with any the more intensity because he is 
 utterly and entirely illiterate ; the intensity of desire 
 in the last case increases with the amount of culture, 
 and until the mind is awakened by the influence of 
 learning, no desire is felt for learning in itself. It is 
 true that an illiterate man, finding many positions, and
 
 9 
 
 nearly all the higher ones, socially and politically 
 shut out from him through his want of education, may 
 feel a desire to know more than he does; but this 
 feeling is not a love of learning, but a wish for some 
 of the collateral advantages which attend the acquisi- 
 tion of it, and of itself will never or rarely induce 
 the labour which is necessary at an advanced age to 
 enable one to acquire the rudiments of education if 
 such drudgery have not already been undergone in 
 youth, nor will any one influenced by such motives 
 alone, become a really well-informed man. There is a 
 story told of a young man coming once to D' Alembert 
 and showing him a very elegant method of proof 
 of some theorem in advanced mathematics, begging 
 him to look over it, as the young man desired 
 the assistance of the philosopher in obtaining the 
 sole object for which he had worked out the theorem, 
 viz., a seat in the academy ; upon hearing which 
 D' Alembert is reported to have said : " Sir, with such 
 sentiments you will never merit such an honour." 
 This anecdote illustrates what I have just said. 
 To be eminent in literature or science requires a 
 love of literature or science for themselves and an 
 enjoyment in them; no effort merely directed to a 
 collateral object will deserve, or indeed attain, real 
 eminence in either. This being so, and the desire of 
 learning being felt with least force by the most 
 illiterate, it becomes a very great difficulty to intro- 
 duce a high standard of education among a people 
 who are themselves ill-educated, and if such a people 
 are themselves the governing body, by themselves or 
 their representatives, moneys to be spent for the 
 attainment or maintenance of a high standard of 
 education will be obtained with difficulty, if at all, and 
 Avill be afforded grudgingly and doled out in small 
 amounts and without good-will. I say a high standard
 
 10 
 
 of education, for the motives I have already mentioned, 
 viz., the obvious desirableness of the power and social 
 status which are practically shut out from persons 
 absolutely illiterate in all countries where civilization 
 has made any progress, may be sufficient in the most 
 purely popular governments to induce the adoption of 
 some system of primary education for the people at 
 large. And when we look round us to the facts of 
 history, we do find that nearly all the institutions for 
 education of a really high class which have at any 
 time or in any place been established by the State have 
 been established under a form of government despotic 
 or highly aristocratic, and that where such institutions 
 exist under a popular government, they rest in 
 general on a foundation not granted by the State, but 
 mainly by the private munificence of individual men 
 of letters and science, who, feeling keenly the advan- 
 tages of education, have wished others to share in the 
 blessings that they themselves held at so high a value. 
 This I need hardly say is the case with all, or almost 
 all the colleges in the old Universities at home, and 
 with nearly all the great public schools in England, 
 besides the very many excellent foundations for a high 
 classical education, called grammar schools, which 
 exist in many parts of the kingdom. Scarcely any of 
 these are supported out of public money. But some 
 people may say nay, I have heard it actually said 
 that in a country like this, whose wealth is not super- 
 abundant, it is enough that public money should go for 
 primary education, and all superior education should 
 be paid for out of private funds ; and it has been said 
 why should the people be taxed for this Library for the 
 private delectation of such of the residents in Cape 
 Town as happen to have a turn for literature or scien- 
 tific pursuits ? Such arguments as these are founded 
 on a very short-sighted view of what is for the public
 
 11 
 
 advantage. It cannot be said that the natural resour- 
 ces of this country are already developed to the full ; 
 and indeed he would be a bold man who would assert 
 that there are not resources, not only undeveloped, but 
 actually unknown. In truth, the argument that from 
 our poverty we ought not, as is said, to waste money 
 on the luxuries of education, presupposes poverty at 
 least, and this again presupposes either that the 
 country has no natural resources which are not known, 
 an assumption which could only be honestly made 
 by presumptuous ignorance, or it presupposes, what 
 is undoubtedly the truth, that the resources of 
 the country, such as they are, are undeveloped. 
 Now, taking the very narrowest view of the public 
 advantage, in the sense of its mere material pros- 
 perity, which, I am free to confess, seems to be 
 almost a necessary condition, nationally speaking, to 
 prosperity of any kind, the only way in which the 
 resources of the country can be discovered in general 
 and intelligently developed, is by the spread over the 
 country of men of education of a high standard, 
 men whose knowledge of physical science shall show 
 to them the wealth which is hidden from the eyes of 
 ignorance, men whose trained minds shall see the 
 deficiencies of existing methods, and shall suggest at 
 once simpler and more effectual means to arrive at the 
 required ends, men whose ready ingenuity will, out 
 of the materials lying close to hand, frame the machi- 
 nery for accomplishing that which a sluggish intellect 
 would deem impossible, even if the vague desire of 
 accomplishment should have dimly loomed through its 
 hazy atmosphere. How, then, are men such as I have 
 described to be brought in close contact with the facts 
 of nature in the different parts of this widespread and 
 thinly populated land? Surely, not merely by im- 
 porting one or two men of the kind, and employing
 
 12 
 
 them to make hurried tours through our various 
 districts ; though, even in this way, I am far from 
 saying that much good may not be done that much 
 has not been done already. But this plan is terribly 
 deficient in several most important respects. First, 
 to take that aspect which is familiar and obvious to 
 the class of men whose views in this matter I wish to 
 reform, I say boldly that such a course is to the full 
 as expensive as that which I advocate. The same 
 amount of money judiciously expended in affording 
 the means of a high education to any considerable 
 class of our colonists will be more efficient for the 
 purposes mentioned above than if expended in paying 
 men already highly educated for travelling through 
 the country, and investigating what may be done to 
 bring forward and develop its resources. Men so em- 
 ployed are under great drawbacks to their utility even 
 for the purposes at which they specially aim. First, 
 being migratory, they cannot be long enough in one 
 place to thoroughly acquaint themselves with all its 
 products, and the condition under which those products 
 are to be obtained, or the means obtainable in each 
 place for improving and utilizing such products, or 
 for transporting them to places where they may be 
 utilized. Secondly, the time is limited which such 
 men can possibly expend in any tentative or expe- 
 rimental researches for any such purposes, and 
 the want of a fixed and permanent residence in 
 any particular place operates strongly against any 
 successful attempts in that direction. Thirdly, not 
 to mention many other drawbacks, the interest which 
 men have in the prosperity of their own particular 
 district, and in their own property more especially, 
 is more keen, more permanent, and continuously 
 urgent than any interest which is excited by the mere 
 desire to do one's duty and earn fairly one's salary,
 
 13 
 
 which, so far as the more practical part of the business 
 is concerned, would be the only interest in general 
 pressing on the class of men of whom I have spoken. 
 The more practical part, I say, for the very charac- 
 ter of the men, if properly chosen, would secure that 
 they should have a strong scientific interest in their 
 work, and this is with such minds perhaps more keen, 
 more permanent, and more continuously urgent than 
 any pecuniary interest would be with the average of 
 men ; but such interest is only in the purely scientific 
 part of their pursuit, which, though the root of the 
 whole, is not sufficient, without more, to be of imme- 
 diate practical material result to the people ; and the 
 reduction of the scientific truth to the material result, 
 or, as Lord Bacon has expressed it, of the light-bearing 
 to the fruit-bearing, is the part of these men's occupa- 
 tion which would be to them drudgery, and for which 
 the pecuniary interest, and the sympathy of others 
 interested in the same results, would be wanting to 
 keep them up to their work. But suppose that any of 
 these did their work in the most perfect manner, still 
 that work would be far inferior in its results to what 
 might be expected from the work of the same kind 
 though perhaps of inferior quality done by men residing 
 through the country, having their hopes and interests 
 bound up in it, living among their friends and neigh- 
 bours on their own properties, if such class of men 
 could be formed. We all know that of all methods of 
 general instruction, none is so effective as example ; we 
 all know, also, that all improvements in agriculture, 
 manufacture, and production of commercial wealth 
 are introduced with the greatest difficulty, this 
 difficulty being the greater the less generally 
 educated the class of men may be among whom it is 
 attempted to introduce them. In all countries, 
 then, and more particularly in a country like this,
 
 14 
 
 the most effective way of introducing any improve- 
 ment in agriculture or in manufacturing process, of 
 inducing people to pursue any new industry or amend 
 their mode of pursuing any old, is by showing them 
 with their own eyes that the new is better than the 
 old, that the new process is an improvement. Telling 
 them so will not do even if they be told with the 
 utmost intelligence ; if it be proved to demonstration 
 their minds are slow to take in demonstration, and 
 when it is taken in, natural indolence, natural caution, 
 and want of funds still stand in the way ; but when 
 they find that the difficulties are less than they antici- 
 pated, that the results actually before their eyes are 
 desirable results, that they are left behind in the 
 race of progress and the competition for wealth, even 
 in their own district and by their own neighbours, and 
 see that this is in a great measure owing to their stick- 
 ing to the old courses while their more intelligent 
 neighbours have adopted the new, this, if anything, 
 shakes them from their lethargy and helps to awaken 
 their torpid minds. And this sort of thing, a class of 
 men of high education, living in the country, is still 
 more wanting in a country like this, than it is in an 
 old thickly-peopled country like the European centres 
 of civilization. In an old country, every inch of the 
 country is fully explored and intimately known, if not 
 to every one in it, at least to many ; and it is easy in 
 the highest degree for any one desiring intimate know- 
 ledge of any part of it, or anything connected with any 
 part of it, to obtain such knowledge without loss of time 
 or of labour. It is easy to lay together the kindled sticks 
 of knowledge in every different department relating to 
 anything in any place at home, and out of the heap to 
 raise a fire which shall give the desired light on the 
 matter in question, and yield the effective heat for the 
 fusion of any difficulty. Here it is otherwise ; unless
 
 the man on the spot has himself the knowledge of 
 other things necessary to utilize his knowledge of 
 things observed on the spot, this last-mentioned know- 
 ledge remains unproductive to him, and is lost to 
 others ; for, not knowing its importance, he seldom 
 thinks of recording or communicating it, even in those 
 rare cases where it can be communicated by words. 
 Take a familiar instances of this. In the case of our 
 lately-discovered diamonds, a story was told about the 
 time of the discovery of the first of them, which, 
 though sufficiently absurd and improbable to be told 
 merely as a ridiculous story, may still serve to exemplify 
 what I mean. The story was that a man travelling 
 with his wagon had picked up a muid-sack of these 
 diamonds merely as pretty pebbles which he intended 
 for his children to play with when he returned home ; 
 but that afterwards requiring the sack to put some 
 grain into he had thrown out the diamonds and only 
 kept one or two which seeming the prettiest he had 
 put in his waistcoat pocket ; that even of these all 
 were subsequently lost by the children with the 
 exception of the one which was afterwards recognized 
 as peculiar by some person better acquainted with 
 the nature of minerals or more naturally observant 
 than the owner, and was finally verified as a true 
 diamond. Now, though it may be problematical 
 whether the diamonds to be found in this Colony will 
 ever be the means of bringing to it much wealth or 
 prosperity, it is certain that many things which would 
 be productive of the highest advantages if discovered, 
 may be lying undiscovered because the necessary 
 observation and familiarity is not accompanied by 
 the necessary knowledge. The diamonds, to use 
 my illustration, may be emptied from the sack in 
 order to put in corn, because from ignorance the 
 diamonds are esteemed as of less value than the corn ;
 
 16 
 
 the man who sees the stones does not know diamonds 
 when he sees them, and the man who knows a diamond 
 does not see the pebbles. But further than this, life 
 in the highly civilized countries of Europe is itself an 
 education, and it is hardly possible for any one of 
 moderate natural intelligence to go through the world 
 there with his eyes and his ears open, without in a 
 desultory way picking an immense amount of informa- 
 tion which in a country like this he is never likely to 
 acquire without taking a great deal of trouble to 
 acquire it. The general standard of education among 
 the people at large is far more dependent than people 
 are at first ready to believe on that highest education 
 which is the lot only of a few. In modern society the 
 different classes embrace and fade into one another 
 almost like the concentric circles in the grain of 
 a tree, though the different circles can be distin- 
 guished it is hard to say where one begins and 
 where the other ends, the contract is so close that 
 what is the outer part of the inner circle is not so 
 much next to the inner part of the outer circle as it is 
 itself the inner part of the outer circle, and as the 
 sap which runs through the inner circle permeates the 
 outer also so does the knowledge and information 
 which is the privilege of the best educated men in 
 modern society filter through the different classes, 
 until a considerable share finds its way down to those 
 who are most removed in educational advantages from 
 the highest class. No doubt that crass and absolute 
 ignorance is almost impervious to the influence of this 
 filtration, and this is one of the chief reasons why a 
 primary education for the people is most desirable. 
 There are some seeds which by reason of their hard 
 and impervious shells will not under ordinary circum- 
 stances germinate unless the shell be cracked either 
 mechanically or by heat or else be softened by steeping
 
 17 
 
 in hot water or otherwise. It is plain that in a 
 state of nature, either accidentally some cracking 
 or softening agency must come into operation upon 
 some of them, or else that it. is only a few abnormal 
 individuals among them that can germinate at all. I 
 have heard of a sowing being made of the silver-tree 
 which did not appear above ground for many years. 
 In despair the owner allowed the ground to become 
 waste, and it was overgrown with the bush common 
 in the neighbourhood. At last some twelve years 
 after the sowing was made a bush-fire took place 
 and burned over the spot where the silver-trees had 
 been sown, and the following spring, behold! rows 
 of young silver-trees all in order in the drills where 
 they had been sown years before ! Now in the 
 case of seeds of this nature it is obvious that the 
 vast majority will never germinate at all under 
 purely natural conditions, and it is equally clear that 
 conditions do at times occur even in a state of nature 
 by reason of which some of such seeds do germinate 
 and the species is preserved, but when art is judi- 
 ciously applied in assisting nature that may be made 
 the rule which was formerly the exception. In like 
 manner a primary education acts like the cracking or 
 softening of the shell which allows the infiltration of 
 other educational influences, and thus assists the 
 germination of the dormant intellect, but though it is 
 eminently necessary to soften or crack the shell of the 
 seed there is little use in doing so if you do not sow 
 it where it may have an opportunity of germinating, 
 and a primary education only will be very much 
 wasted if no other educational influences are brought 
 to bear on the people. Among the most important of 
 such influences is the influence of a high education I 
 would say of the highest education for the few who 
 in the best of circumstances can accept or avail
 
 18 
 
 themselves of such, for few there are even in Europe 
 who possess the highest education as any one can tell 
 ,who had a university experience. A few years ago such 
 a thing as agricultural chemistry was not thought of 
 even by the most advanced men of science. Now 
 there is hardly a small tenant farmer in England or 
 Scotland who does not know some little about it. 
 How has this come about ? Surely not from the indi- 
 vidual researches of small tenant farmers. No, not 
 even from the individual researches of the country 
 gentlemen of those countries. It has come about 
 thus : Men of science and of science purely have first 
 engaged in scientific researches on the matter, and 
 have given to their brethren of science the results of 
 their speculation and experiment. Scientific contro- 
 versy once excited the portions of hypothesis which 
 are incontrovertible become admitted parts of general 
 knowledge, those parts which are in controversy 
 become the subject of anxious investigation and 
 experiment on each side. Gradually the basis of 
 established fact becomes larger and larger. Many 
 men who would never have thought of originating 
 the speculations yet become acquainted with the 
 results and to a certain degree with the hypothesis 
 on which these results throw light. The results are 
 put to the test in practice to the great advancement 
 of agriculture as an art, and the smaller farmers to 
 whom farming is a trade seeing the advantage of 
 what is to them a trade secret and finding that the 
 owners of the secret make no difficulty in imparting 
 it even they adopt it, first by the rule of thumb, 
 so to speak, but gradually come to understand at 
 least in some degree what they are doing, and thus 
 have become more intimately and better informed, 
 both as scientific and practical farmers than it was 
 possible for the best educated man a century ago to
 
 19 
 
 have become. But this process can only take place 
 where between men of the highest and those of the 
 lowest intelligence there exists a class sufficiently 
 educated to understand in some degree the specula- 
 tions or at least the results arrived at by the man of 
 science, and to reduce to practice those results before 
 the eyes of his less enlightened fellow-countrymen a 
 class possessed of a high general education and such 
 a class it is before all things desirable to raise up in 
 this country, and such a class is impossible without 
 the opportunities for some, at least, of obtaining the 
 very highest education. Now the first necessity for 
 the highest education is access to the best books. In 
 a national point of view the most economical way in 
 which money can be expended for educational purposes is 
 in providing the freest access to the largest collection of 
 the very best books on every subject. Such an arrange- 
 ment gives a possibility at least for the highest educa- 
 tion, facilities for a high one, and if there be a few men 
 of the highest, a considerable class of a high education, 
 and the mass of the people possessed of a primary educa- 
 tion, it is surprising how rapidly knowledge permeates, 
 as I have before described, and the practical results 
 of it fructify in material wealth and advancement. 
 I am therefore fully persuaded that a really good public 
 library is one of the very most important institutions 
 to a young country that public money can be laid out 
 on ; and one of the very most economical purposes to 
 which public money can be applied. But for this 
 purpose it ought to be a truly good library, that is to 
 say its books should be thoroughly well selected, 
 thoroughly well arranged, and as complete in every 
 aspect as can be made. If there be only one book on 
 one subject, that book should be as comprehensive as 
 possible ; but each subject ought to be as fully de- 
 veloped as the funds of the library Can allow, and
 
 20 
 
 so arranged that any book on any subject may be 
 readily referred to. One book at random on one 
 subject, and another on another, may for such pur- 
 poses be compared to one page of one book bound up 
 with odd pages of others ; and as a volume so composed 
 would be of little value, so is an ill-arranged ill-selected 
 library though containing a large number of volumes 
 incalculably less valuable than a smaller one well 
 selected and well arranged. For these reasons I have 
 long thought that no book belonging to a public library 
 should ever be allowed to be removed from the im- 
 mediate custody of its officers or from the walls of the 
 building. In the first place it is utterly impossible to 
 guard fully against the loss of valuable volumes if the 
 habit of removing them be allowed, and the loss of one 
 volume may often render comparatively worthless a 
 whole collection of volumes. In the next place a 
 student is often placed in a most unfair position by the 
 fact that the very work which it may be most important 
 to him to refer to and which perhaps he may only 
 require to refer to for a moment is engrossed by 
 some one else for weeks together, not that such other 
 person is actually using the work during all that time, 
 but simply that it is lying at his residence instead of 
 being as it ought to be on the shelves of the library 
 for the public advantage. The student thus baffled 
 retires in disgust with bitter feelings towards the 
 managers of the library and if he has been used to 
 subscribe to it determines to do so no more. To 
 come then to our own Library, while as I have said 
 a public library is a proper object for the expenditure 
 of public money, it is obviously only so far as a 
 library fulfils its proper office as a public library that 
 the grant of the public money to it can be defended. 
 I am glad that the grant which in the paroxysm of 
 the retrenchment fever our Legislature some three
 
 21 
 
 years back underwent, had been taken away from this 
 Library or reduced, has since been restored. But 
 we must look at ourselves. One of the principal 
 grounds on which the grant was then attacked was 
 that this Library was a circulating library for the 
 benefit of Cape Town. If this was altogether true, 
 the argument would be unanswerable. Public funds 
 ought not to be expended for such a purpose especially 
 in the low condition of public finances, and in BO far 
 as the charge has truth in it in so far is it a sound 
 argument not only against a public grant but against 
 all subscriptions of private individuals beyond the 
 actual market value of the accommodation they 
 individually receive. Cape Town ought to be able to 
 support as a private trading establishment a circula- 
 ting library of its own, and I have little doubt that 
 the individual interest of the keeper of such a library 
 would more effectually keep him up to the exigencies 
 of its successful management than the salaried officers 
 of an institution like this can be kept by the very 
 nature of their office. The natural tendency of a 
 circulating library is to the lighter literature of a 
 comparatively ephemeral kind, in preference to the 
 really enduring works which should form the staple 
 of a public library ; not that a circulating library 
 now-a-days in an educated community excludes good 
 and lasting books, or that I would desire to banish the 
 higher works of fiction from the walls and tables of a 
 public library ; but the principal objects of such insti- 
 tutions are diverse, the primary intention of the one 
 being relaxation and of the other work, of the one 
 amusement and of the other instruction. If then 
 this Library is to have a circulating department, it 
 should only be a department ; its accounts should be 
 separate, and it should be charged with its fair share 
 of the cost of the building and furniture and of the
 
 22 
 
 salaries of the officers ; its volumes should be distinct, 
 and its profit and loss separately estimated ; its profits 
 might be applied to its own purposes, or might in 
 part or in whole be given over to the Public Library 
 as might be thought right ; but in no case should it be 
 continued at a loss, and in no case should any of the 
 funds of the Public Library whether from public 
 grant or private subscription be given to its aid; 
 and above all, in no case should any of the volumes 
 belonging to the Public Library be used as belonging 
 to the circulating library or be lent in aid of it. The 
 objection that the Library is a circulating library I 
 have touched on ; that it is for the benefit of Cape 
 Town remains to be mentioned, and this I must say, 
 when separate from the " circulating," objection fails 
 of any force in my mind. A library must be some- 
 where. One library in one place even if rather out 
 of the way is much better than the same number of 
 books scattered about in different places. It is to use 
 an illustration already used by me the bringing of the 
 sticks together for the purpose of light and heat, it is 
 the dockyard whence the argosies of knowledge are 
 fitted out for cruising in the seas of ignorance, and 
 the place where a library is best situated is where it 
 is accessible to the largest number capable of using it. 
 This in the present instance is for the present at least 
 unquestionably Cape Town, and if a public library 
 exists in the Colony at all it is at Cape Town it will 
 be of most use. There are other matters which I 
 had thought of with reference to this Library but 
 there is no need here to mention them. I fear this 
 discourse has not even as it is been all honey, 
 and there is no need to mix gall with it further than 
 is wholesome. I have been forced to the line I 
 have taken in this lecture by having been required 
 to lecture at all. I have been by my occupations
 
 23 
 
 precluded from acquiring the information requisite to 
 enable me to give you a discourse on the advance of 
 literature or of science during the year. I was forced 
 therefore to fall back on politics, and politics as affect- 
 ing this Library is what I have endeavoured to give 
 you, such views at least of its politics as seem to 
 myself sound. These in some respects may be 
 different from the views of others, for the political 
 opinions of all cannot be the same. I trust those who 
 may dissent from the views here expressed will at 
 least believe that my suggestions are honestly given 
 and well intended, and will treat me with tolerance, 
 though we may agree to differ. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., ST. GEORGE'S-STREET, CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 21sT MAY, 1870. 
 
 Cameron, g.JL, in tje 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE, 
 1870.
 
 (ffomtntttw : 
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ., I DB. DALE 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR CAMERON, | SIR THOMAS MACLEAR, KNT. 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, ESQ (Treas.) 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ. 
 MH. PHOFESSOB NOBLE 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 
 ESQ. 
 E. J. JERRAVf.EsQ 
 
 J. C. GIE, ESQ. | JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 
 1U& rattan anto 
 
 F. MASKEW
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee, in submitting their report for the 
 past year, feel much pleasure in being able to state 
 that the Institution has been frequented to an extent 
 equal to that of previous years, both by residents in 
 the Colony and by strangers visiting its shores. The 
 circulation of books and the number of regular read- 
 ers continue likewise undiminished. The Committee 
 have also to state that the Institution has received 
 many valuable additions to its literary stores, not 
 merely from the ordinary monthly importations from 
 England, by which they endeavour as far as their 
 means permit them to keep abreast of the growing 
 literature of the day, but by presentations from indi- 
 viduals as well as from public institutions in Europe 
 and America. While, however, they have reason to 
 congratulate their subscribers on the usefulness of 
 the South African Public Library and the many 
 valuable accessions it has received, they regret to 
 record that it has not obtained that extent of support 
 in the way of regular annual subscriptions which they 
 conceive its importance and utility deserve, and for 
 which they have so frequently pleaded at these public 
 anniversaries. 
 
 They now respectfully venture to repeat the same 
 appeal, and hope that for an Institution which is so 
 largely dependent on voluntary support, which offers 
 its treasures so freely for the use and advantage of 
 the public, and is confessedly one of the most dis- 
 
 A2
 
 tinguished ornaments, not merely of the metropolis, 
 but of the Colony, the public of Cape Town will come 
 forward with a ready and generous liberality, by means 
 of which the collection, already extensive, varied, and 
 rich, may be further augmented and have its still 
 existing gaps and deficiencies supplied at the earliest 
 possible time. 
 
 The Committee have to report that an appplication 
 was made by Sir George Grey (through Dr. Bleek) 
 to be allowed to have returned to him a collection of 
 books in South African Languages, which was presented 
 by him in 1858 to the Public Library, and as duplicate 
 copies of these books are in the "Grey Collection," the 
 Committee felt much pleasure in being able to comply 
 with the request, and they feel sure this will meet 
 with the approval of the subscribers. 
 
 The accession of books during the past year, by 
 purchase and presentation, has been as follows : 
 
 Theology 5 Vols. 
 
 Political Econony 35 
 
 Science and the Arts 28 
 
 Works of Amusement ... ... 104 
 
 Belles Lettres ... 58 
 
 History 35 
 
 Voyages and Travels 37 
 
 Biography 39 
 
 Miscellaneous 6 
 
 Total 347 Vols. 
 
 Included amongst the number are books presented 
 by the " Royal Academy of Science," Sweden ; " The 
 National Association for the Promotion of Social 
 Science ;" " The Smithsonian Institution," United 
 States ; " The "Wesleyan Conference," London ; Miss 
 Roselt, His Excellency Sir P. E. Wodehouse, Judge 
 Pringle, the Rev. Dr. A. Faure, the Rev. D. Faure,
 
 Dr. Bleek, Messrs. T. B. Bayley, L. Bols, and J. C. 
 Bell, to all of whom the thanks of the subscribers are 
 due. 
 
 During the first six months of the past year the 
 Librarian of the " Grey Collection " was on leave of 
 absence in Europe, and on this visit he availed him- 
 self of the opportunities he had of studying the manu- 
 script collections in the British Museum, the Bodleian 
 Library, and the Berlin Royal Library ; and also 
 inspected a few other Libraries. Dr. Bleek considers 
 that what he has been able to learn will be of great 
 assistance to him in the compilation of the catalogue 
 of the old manuscripts. 
 
 Specimens of this descriptive catalogue were laid 
 before Sir George Grey, who trusted before long to 
 see it published. 
 
 During the course of the past year, the collection 
 of Native literature has received some very valuable 
 accessions. Among the donors is first to be men- 
 tioned the Rev. J. W. Appleyard, who, besides nine 
 printed Kafir books, has presented sixteen manuscript 
 volumes, chiefly containing portions of the oldest 
 translations of the Bible into Kafir ; also the first 
 grammatical attempts of the missionaries. The Rev. 
 Dr. Steere has given copies of nine of his publications, 
 most of them in Suaheli, and the Rev. Dr. Callaway, 
 two parts of his " Religious System of the Amazulu." 
 Kafir publications have also been received from the Rev. 
 A. Kropf, the Educational Committee of the Lovedale 
 Institution, and the Moravian Missionaries at Shiloh. 
 Two little Setshuana books were sent by the author, 
 the venerable R. Moffat. The Secretary of the Wes- 
 leyan Missionary Society, the Rev. W. B. Boyce, has 
 given us a very curious and generally inaccessible book, 
 a grammar of the Mfantsi language, written and printed 
 last year by natives at Cape Coast. We have to
 
 thank the Rev. F. W. Kolbe for a copy of his publica- 
 tion on the "Vowels; "the Secretary of the S. P. C. K. 
 for a Susu Prayer-book ; Mr. Theophilus Hahn, for an 
 Australian Vocabulary ; Mr. William Hertzog, for a 
 valuable Amharic and Galla Grammar, published at 
 Paris; Capt. Walmsley, for forty photographs of 
 Zulus; Dr. A. Fritsch, for twenty-two additional 
 vignette photographs of natives, taken by himself, and 
 also for a copy of his highly illustrated German book 
 of Travels in South Africa. 
 
 Dr. J. E. Gray, of the British Museum, has also 
 presented, through Dr. Bleek, for the Grey Collection, 
 a medallion of himself and Mrs. Gray. 
 
 The collection of old rare printed books has received 
 from the Library of the late Professor Friederich 
 Bleek a valuable accession of five theological works, 
 published at the time of the Reformation, 1523 1539. 
 Amongst them are " Annotationes Philippen Melanch- 
 thons " (explaining the epistle to the Romans, edited 
 by Dr. Martin Luther, Augsburg, 1523) and J. 
 Calvin's " Institutio Christianas Religionis," Argen- 
 torati, 1539. 
 
 The Treasurer's account, showing the income and 
 expenditure during the past year, will now be 
 submitted.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 The Rev. Professor CAMERON then delivered the 
 following Address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 I will not take up your time with apologies for 
 appearing before you as chairman of this meeting. I 
 have so high an estimate of the duties of that position, 
 and so strong a conviction that my words will be but 
 feeble and inadequate in comparison with the brilliant 
 addresses to which you have listened on similar occa- 
 sions, that I would gladly have excused myself from 
 undertaking the duty to which your Committee has 
 done me the honour of inviting me. I have acceded 
 to the request of the Committee chiefly on the ground, 
 if you will allow me to say so, of my own incompetency 
 to do all that has sometimes been done on occasions 
 of this kind. It is well that the highest thought of an 
 age should be brought into direct contact with its 
 average mind and intelligence. This has sometimes 
 been done in addresses from this chair. We have 
 listened with admiration and delight to the utterances 
 of men to whom the realms of philosophy, science, and 
 literature are familiar ground, over which they have 
 led us with firm, unfaltering footstep, revealing to us 
 the majesty and marvel of Nature, and bringing us 
 face to face with the stately creations, the ideal beauty, 
 and the glowing visions of the intellectual world. But 
 such guides are seldom to be found. The combination
 
 of the highest order of intellect with the power of 
 popular expression is a rare gift so rare, that, as a 
 general rule, the contact of the most influential thought 
 with the average mind must be secured, not immedi- 
 ately, by direct communication between them, but by 
 the mediation of those who occupy somewhat of a 
 middle position between the highest and the lower 
 levels of thought. And my hope is, and my aim shall 
 be, in the remarks I offer to-day, to do something in 
 the way of thus interpreting the speculations and 
 theories of the most influential minds of our age, and 
 of assisting you to trace the direction and tendencies 
 of modern thought. 
 
 But first let me say a few words about the Library 
 itself its position and prospects. From the report 
 submitted by the Committee, you will see that in every 
 department of literature there has been considerable 
 increase in the numerical strength of the Library during 
 the past year. The accessions during the year amount 
 to 347 volumes. Of these a large proportion falls 
 under the head of works of amusement. I hope I shall 
 not be misunderstood when I express my regret that 
 this is the case. It is but the reflection of the fact 
 that of the works which are annually poured forth by 
 thousands from the presses of Europe, a great portion 
 consists of works of fiction and amusement. That our 
 population should share the common taste for litera- 
 ture of this nature is not strange. But I cannot help 
 regretting that the Public Library should be to so 
 great an extent the channel by which that taste is 
 gratified. It seems to me that this noble institution 
 has higher functions than those of the circulating 
 library. It should endeavour to add to its treasures 
 only such works as are of permanent value ; to render 
 its collection of our standard authors as complete as 
 possible ; to enrich its shelves with materials by the
 
 aid of which the student may successfully trace the 
 growth and development of human thought in any 
 direction, on any subject, for any period of history. I 
 believe I am only expressing the opinion of those who 
 take the deepest interest in the Library when I say 
 that its efficiency for these its high and legitimate 
 functions is impaired by the liberal provision which it 
 makes for the department of amusement. I am well 
 aware of the difficulties which surround the subject 
 of the necessity, or the assumed necessity, of providing 
 largely in this department, in order to attract and 
 retain subscribers. But I believe the time is come 
 when the Library should throw itself more fully upon 
 the generous sympathies of the public, and transfer to 
 other hands the work of meeting the requirements of 
 those whose intellectual wants are sufficiently met by 
 the ephemeral literature of fiction. 
 
 Passing on now to other subjects, merely observing 
 as we pass the satisfactory statement as regards the 
 accessions to the Library in more important depart- 
 ments of literature, and congratulating the subscribers 
 on what I trust we may now consider the permanent 
 restoration of the Parliamentary grant in aid of the 
 funds of the institution, let me ask you to join me in 
 a brief survey of the tendency of the literature and 
 thought of the present day. I do not profess to be 
 able to give you more than a general outline of a 
 subject which embraces so many distinct departments 
 of the intellectual life. Even if it were in my power 
 to do more than this, I believe it would be more 
 profitable to offer such a general outline, with sugges- 
 tions that may perhaps lead to further inquiry and 
 investigation on your part, than to present a complete 
 discussion of any one of the many branches into which 
 so large a subject ia necessarily divided. 
 
 Speaking generally, then, with regard to modern
 
 10 
 
 thought, as represented in the literature of the day, 
 I think we may fairly say that its most prominent 
 features are intense activity and intense restlessness. 
 As to the first there can be no question. Even a 
 superficial observer must have noticed with astonish- 
 ment the activity and swiftness of recent intel- 
 lectual movements. The world has seen nothing to 
 equal it. The Athens of Pericles and the Rome of 
 Augustus cannot for a moment be brought into com- 
 parison, as regards intellectual vigour, with the great 
 cities which represent the free life of modern Europe. 
 It is common enough to marvel at the brilliant intel- 
 lectual development of the people who thronged the 
 benches of the theatre of Dionysus, to listen to the 
 sublime tragedies and the wild choral music of 
 .ZEschylus and Euripides ; to speak with affected 
 rapture of the youth who crowded the pavement of 
 the painted porch and the shady walks of the Lyceum, 
 that they might hear the wisdom of the fathers of 
 Greek philosophy ; to sigh over the days when the 
 wit of Horace and the tenderness of Virgil made 
 them the chosen friends of Augustus and Maecenas. 
 There was indeed an exquisite taste and a beautiful 
 intellectual culture among the highest classes of 
 Athenian and Roman citizens. But there is no 
 evidence whatever to show that the influence of litera- 
 ture reached the masses of society. In both cities a 
 large proportion of the inhabitants were slaves, or 
 resident aliens with scarcely recognized political 
 existence ; and they heeded not, for they knew not, 
 the poetry or the philosophy or the eloquence around 
 them. In contrast with this, the special characteristic 
 of the mental activity of this age is its wide diffusion. 
 It reaches and permeates all classes of society. The 
 highest think it an honour to help and direct its 
 movements. The humblest are not beyond its soothing
 
 11 
 
 and elevating influences. Statesmen and nobles leave 
 the dust of political strife for the noiseless realms of 
 pure literature. Mechanics and factory operatives 
 forget their political grievances in the freedom of the 
 great republic of letters. The days are over when 
 authors were wont to wait in the halls of the nobility, 
 humbly entreating the favour of a subscription or the 
 honour of being allowed to dedicate their books to 
 some lord whose title was his only recommendation. 
 The relations are simply reversed. Now, it is litera- 
 ture that reflects honour on rank and title. It would 
 probably surprise most of us if a list were set before 
 us of the names of our British aristocracy who have 
 sought and secured the honours of literature. And, 
 as I have said, the influence has permeated the whole 
 mass of society, down to its humblest ranks. The 
 common people demand it eagerly and receive it 
 gladly. The immense circulation of cheap literature 
 of high intellectual character and healthy moral tone 
 is one of the most hopeful features of the age. And 
 they who have had recent opportunity of seeing some- 
 thing of European life and character cannot fail to 
 have been struck with the activity of thought and 
 the diffusion of knowledge among the people. Con- 
 versing a few months ago with a cabman who drove 
 me through the streets of Edinburgh, I felt deeply 
 my own ignorance, compared with the extent and 
 accuracy of his knowledge, of the history and antiqui- 
 ties of Scotland ; and in another town, on the Scottish 
 border, I was astonished to hear a group of young 
 cabinet-makers discussing, during their dinner hour, 
 with keen interest and careful discrimination, the last 
 phase of the Stowe and Byron controversy. 
 
 But the restlessness of modern thought is not less 
 remarkable than its activity. The old opinions are 
 everywhere in conflict with the new. Politics, poetry,
 
 12 
 
 theology, criticism, metaphysical philosophy, physical, 
 social, and moral science are all alike the scene of 
 conflict. There is one school of powerful thinkers 
 who cling to old traditional modes of thought. Ano- 
 ther class, equally influential, rejecting the old opinions, 
 has set itself the " sad task of sweeping up dead 
 leaves fallen from the dying tree of belief." A third, 
 which includes in its ranks some of the deepest think- 
 ers of the day, accepts the new without discarding the 
 old, striving to mediate between them and bring them 
 into harmony with each other. And the general 
 intelligence of the day is deeply interested in this 
 strife of opinion, and awaits the issue with anxiety. 
 Youth is caught by the novelty and boldness of the 
 new opinions, and ridicules the distrust with which 
 riper years and larger experience regard them. The 
 old Conservative on the other hand looks with pity 
 and indignation on the flippant arrogance of the 
 young iconoclast. Meanwhile, there is one cheering 
 and hopeful sign at least in the midst of the strife. 
 Beneath the surface there is a growing and generous 
 recognition of the claims of benevolence and charity. 
 Men of all shades of opinion are united in works of 
 practical philanthropy. No other age has ever 
 witnessed such munificence of private and public 
 charity, such organization for the relief of poverty and 
 distress, such hearty, practical recognition of the truth 
 that man is his brother's keeper, and practical 
 obedience to the precept " Thou shalt . love thy 
 neighbour as thyself." It is a delightful relief to turn 
 from the mutual repulsions of the purely intellectual 
 realm to the power and permanence of the attraction 
 which draws men together in practical effort for the 
 well-being of our common humanity. Notwithstand- 
 ing all this fluctuation this ebb and flow in the 
 great tide of opinion there are at least some things
 
 13 
 
 that do not change. Whatever else is questioned, this 
 at least is admitted, that 
 
 The primal duties shine aloft like stars ; 
 The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 
 Are scatter'd at the feet of man like flowers. 
 
 But to return to the conflict of opinions, let me ask 
 you to notice two or three of its most conspicuous 
 
 I. The POETRY of recent years exhibits in a remark- 
 able way the antagonism of the old and the new. 
 
 I need scarcely remind you of the splendid develop- 
 ment of English poetry at the commencement of the 
 present century. After many years of feeble medi- 
 ocrity, the Muse of poetry once more found adequate 
 representatives in England. The line of succession, 
 which seemed to have ended with Milton and Dryden, 
 was restored in Coleridge and Wordsworth, Shelley, 
 Keats, and Byron. These are the intellectual fathers 
 of the race which has succeeded them. The poetry of 
 each has left its mark on the thought of the nineteenth 
 century. Perhaps the influence of Wordsworth has 
 been deepest and most permanent. Certainly, Cole- 
 ridge, who alone can be compared with Wordsworth 
 for deep and far-reaching influence, affected modern 
 thought more through his philosophy than his poetry. 
 The influence of Shelley and Keats has been increasing 
 of late years ; while that of Byron, powerful for a 
 time, was happily not permanent; and Wordsworth 
 still holds his place of supremacy among the calmest 
 and deepest of our thinkers. Of living poets, we may 
 say that the spirit of Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 reappears in Tennyson and Browning ; that of Keats 
 and Shelley in Swinburne and Matthew Arnold. The 
 aim of Keats was to reproduce in modern forms the 
 beautiful legends of ancient Greece. And with all the
 
 14 
 
 faults and extravagance of his poetry, it will retain 
 its place in our literature as the memorial of poetic 
 genius of a very high order. Mr. Arnold and Mr. 
 Swinburne have followed Keats in the selection of 
 subjects from ancient mythology. They represent the 
 classical revival of the period. Their poetry has not 
 become popular, and probably will never be so. Even 
 the graceful elegance of the one, the powerful and 
 splendid diction of the other, and the rich poetical 
 imagination of both, will fail to invest these cold and 
 distant subjects with a genuine human interest. But 
 there is another aspect of this poetry which demands 
 attention, and which links ifc especially with that of 
 Shelley. It is essentially pantheistic. It knows nothing 
 of a personal God, a " living will that shall endure." 
 A stern necessity, a blind fate, a slow-moving machi- 
 nery of physical laws, unconnected with moral purpose 
 or beneficent result these are for it the ruling powers 
 of the universe. These poets represent the new scien- 
 tific scepticism of the age. Their sympathies are with 
 the Positive Philosophy. They are worshippers in that 
 temple of which humanity is the God and Comte the 
 high-priest. 
 
 The position of Tennyson and Browning is very 
 far from that which has been described. Their deep 
 sympathy with the scientific spirit of the age, their 
 interest and share in its intellectual strifes, and their 
 full recognition of the difficulties of a true belief 
 have not alienated them from the faith to which the 
 Christian centuries have witnessed. It has been said 
 that their poetry that of Tennyson especially 
 reflects the intellectual and spiritual confusions of the 
 age. It does this ; but it does much more than this. 
 It shows us the alliance of reason and faith, of power- 
 ful and subtle intellect with humble reverence in the 
 presence of divine mysteries. Their highest poetry is
 
 15 
 
 a protest against the error that man is the measure of 
 all things, that we must reject everything which cannot 
 be wrought into the schemes of human philosophy. 
 If it reflects the doubts and uncertainties of the intel- 
 lectual life, it reflects equally the calm assurance of the 
 spiritual. It will not exclude the heart, the conscience, 
 the experience of the past, the " high instincts " and 
 " shadowy recollections " of the soul from their right- 
 ful place as factors of human belief. The school of 
 which Arnold and Swinburne are the representatives 
 has renounced all faith in a personal God, in a divine 
 purpose which runs through all time, in immortality 
 and heaven. Their only God is the " blind, impartial 
 force " which lives not less in earth and sea and sky, 
 in plants and stones, than in man. Heaven, immortal 
 life, the knowledge hereafter of that which we know 
 not now these are'the mere dreams of ignorance and 
 superstition. Here is Mr. Swinburne's creed : 
 
 From too much love of living, 
 
 From hope and fear set free, 
 We thank with brief thanksgiving 
 
 Whatever gods may be, 
 That no life lives for ever ; 
 That dead men rise up never ; 
 That even the weariest river 
 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea. 
 
 And here is Mr. Arnold's rebuke of " the feeble 
 follies of inventive hope, the futile forgeries of unpro- 
 fitable comfort :" 
 
 Fools ! that so often here 
 
 Happiness mocked our prayer, 
 I think, might make us fear 
 
 A like event elsewhere I 
 Make us, not fly to dreams, but moderate desire ! 
 
 Thus deliberately do these poets fling from them 
 " the mighty hopes that make us men." And here is
 
 16 
 
 the vast and vital difference between their teaching and 
 that of Tennyson. That which they reject is for him 
 the anchor of the soul, the centre around which all his 
 thoughts of the worth and dignity of our life are 
 gathered. Contrast with the verses which have been 
 quoted the lofty lessons of such passages as the 
 following : 
 
 Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 
 Believing where we cannot prove. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine 
 The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
 Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
 
 Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 For the gospel of despair 
 
 That no life lives for ever, 
 That dead men rise up never 
 
 he bids us accept the gospel of hope 
 
 That men may rise on steppping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things : 
 
 And for the cold and cheerless negations of the 
 Pantheist he gives us the sublime aspiration with 
 which he closes his greatest poem : 
 
 O living will that shalt endure 
 When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
 Rise in the spiritual rock, 
 
 Flow through our deeds and make them pure. 
 
 That we may lift from out of dust 
 A voice as unto him that hears, 
 A cry above the conquered years, 
 
 To one that with us works and trust,
 
 17 
 
 With faith that comes of self-control, 
 The truths that never can be proved 
 Until we close with all we loved, 
 
 And all we flow from, soul in soul. 
 
 The poetry of Mr. Browning is of a very different 
 order from that of Mr. Tennyson, and the evidence 
 that he is to be classed, as regards our present purpose, 
 with his illustrious contemporary, must he sought in 
 the general structure and tone of his poems rather 
 than in isolated passages. He is of all modern poets 
 the most difficult to represent by quotation. His 
 strength lies in subtle analysis of character and motive 
 a kind of moral and metaphysical anatomy so minute 
 and protracted that even the wonderful skill of the 
 manipulator does not redeem it from tediousness. 
 Perhaps of all the higher modern poetry, Mr. 
 Browning's offers the fewest attractions to the general 
 reader. It is too learned, its demand upon the 
 intellect of the reader is too great, its subjects and 
 characters are too remote from average human 
 sympathies, for great popularity. His is emphatically 
 the "fit audience, though few." His influence is 
 very powerful with a certain cast of highly cultivated 
 minds. One cannot read a page of his poetry without 
 being impresssd with the strong vigorous thinking 
 that runs through it. And there is always, as I 
 have said, a deep undertone of religious feeling and 
 conviction, a reverential spirit in the presence of 
 Divine mysteries, and a distinct recognition of the great 
 facts of Christianity, which to the excessive refine- 
 ment of Mr. Arnold are a stumbling-block, and to 
 the wild and riotous imagination of Mr. Swinburne, 
 foolishness. 
 
 My apology for having dwelt so long on this part 
 of the subject must be that it seems to me to represent 
 fairly the general features of the conflict between the
 
 18 
 
 opinions which at present divide thinking men. And 
 no apology will be needed for having introduced 
 matters that are usually excluded from addresses 
 of this nature, since it is especially these matters the 
 theological bearings and relations of truth that are 
 most keenly discussed in the present day, and to ex- 
 clude them in a review of this kind would be simply to 
 ignore one of the most interesting and characteristic 
 phases of modern thought. 
 
 II. I will not attempt any lengthened discussion of 
 the rival PHILOSOPHICAL theories and systems of the 
 present day. Even if I were competent to do justice 
 to the subject, it would involve metaphysical distinc- 
 tions and technicalities unsuited to the occasion. I 
 would rather endeavour to present as briefly and 
 clearly as I can the main position of each, keeping 
 strictly in view that it is the restlessness and the 
 conflict of thought that are to be illustrated. 
 
 I need not do more than remind you of the immense 
 influence of German thought on the philosophical 
 speculations of this century. Carlyle was among the 
 first to familiarize the English mind with German 
 speculation and modes of thought. But the influence 
 of Coleridge was deeper and more direct. It is 
 he who must be looked upon as " the angel who has 
 come down and troubled the waters of English specu- 
 lative science " his hand that grafted the strong shoot 
 of German Idealism on the tree of English Philoso- 
 phy. Himself a sincere and devout believer in the 
 Christian Revelation, he accepted that philosophy 
 which allies itself with theology, which refuses to 
 limit its inquiries to the things that are seen, which 
 addresses itself to the great questions of the origin, 
 the spiritual relations, and the destiny of man. He 
 believed in a world of reality and truth beyond the 
 realm of phenomena, and insisted upon the necessary
 
 19 
 
 impotence of a philosophy which is based upon sense 
 to apprehend the mysteries of that higher world. 
 Hence the distinction upon which he laid so much 
 stress the distinction between the Reason and the 
 Understanding is not, as is often imagined, a 
 metaphysical refinement, but lies at the very root of 
 his philosophy. It corresponds to an essential diversity 
 in the objects of human knowledge. The Under- 
 standing is "the faculty judging by sense," and its 
 judgments are binding only in relation to the objects 
 of our senses. The Reason, on the other hand, is 
 exercised in things which are beyond sense "a direct 
 aspect of Truth, an inward beholding, having a similar 
 relation to the intelligible or spiritual as sense has to 
 the material or phenomenal." It is easy to see that a 
 philosophy based upon this principle must inevitably 
 ally itself with theology. The questions of the former 
 are answered in the revelations of the latter. 
 
 The object of Coleridge was to introduce into 
 England this higher philosophy, which he had learned 
 in the school of Kant, Hegel, and Schelling. If his 
 purpose was to gain acceptance for the systems of these 
 philosophers, he certainly failed. The practical 
 English intellect would not enter into the minute and 
 subtle refinements of the German theorists. But he 
 did succeed in his endeavour to infuse a new spirit 
 into Philosophical Speculation. Absorbed in visions 
 of surpassing splendour encompassed by intellectual 
 objects, and influenced by spiritual powers, of the 
 reality of which he had a more profound conviction 
 than of the existence of sensible objects living and 
 moving in realized worlds of beauty and glory, to the 
 light of which long and loving contemplation had 
 accustomed the inner eye of his soul he could still 
 descend from the Mount of Vision and deliver his soul 
 in passionate discoursing on things which eye has not 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 seen nor ear heard. The generation which listened to 
 the charm of his living voice has passed away. But 
 his influence survives in that school of religious philo- 
 sophy which has adopted his method, and which opposes 
 the noblest protest of this age to that dreary sense- 
 philosophy which would bound by the things which 
 are seen and temporal the knowledge, the aspirations, 
 and the hopes of man. 
 
 The philosophy which I have connected with the 
 name of Coleridge is opposed at almost every point to 
 the positive philosophy of Auguste Comte. This last 
 development of a purely sense-philosophy, as regards 
 its methods, objects, standards, tendencies, and relations 
 to other sciences, is in direct antagonism to the higher 
 spiritual philosophy of Coleridge. According to M. 
 Comte, we know and can know nothing beyond the 
 region of sense. Philosophy in any true sense of the 
 word, as the science of the absolute and universal, is 
 an impossibility. We cannot pass beyond the know- 
 ledge of phenomena and the laws of their succession. 
 Investigations as to the spiritual nature, the origin 
 and destiny of man, the nature of God and His 
 relations to man, are not merely useless they are 
 positively mischievous, since they withdraw the atten- 
 tion of the student from the only knowledge possible to 
 him the knowledge, that is, of phenomenal laws. In 
 this system " the spirit of physical science is applied 
 to man ; he is the subtlest of organizations, yet not so 
 fearfully and wonderfully made but that science will 
 trace back his deepest thought, through link after link, 
 in the network of association, to the simple impressions 
 which he is ever receiving from without, to the sights 
 and sounds, the pleasures and pains which have gone 
 to make up the sum of his experience from his birth on- 
 wards." In tracing the history of human thought, 
 Comte professes to find three well-defined stages of
 
 21 
 
 development, the theological, the metaphysical, and 
 the positive. In the earliest stage an explanation of 
 every phenomenon was found in the idea of a hidden 
 divinity an JEolus controlling the winds, an Aurora 
 rising in the dawn, an Apollo borne through the 
 heavens in his chariot of light. This was succeeded 
 by the metaphysical stage, in which the deities give 
 place to abstract conceptions, supposed principles, or 
 invisible entities, by participation in which (as Plato 
 would say) material things have their properties and 
 attributes. Thus there is a principle of colour, of 
 sweetness, of fragrance, the presence of which gives 
 beauty to the rose and richness to fruit. But this 
 phase of thought is outgrown in its turn, and the last 
 or positive stage is reached, in which all attempt to 
 understand the nature of things is abandoned, and the 
 co-existence and succession of phenomena are recog- 
 nized as the only real objects of knowledge. I will 
 not offer any criticism of this theory. It has been 
 defended and condemned with equal earnestness by 
 the historians and critics of philosophy. Perhaps, the 
 most enthusiastic of its English advocates is Mr. Gr. 
 H. Lewes, who maintains that " the positive mode of 
 thought is that which must rule the future," and that 
 " the course of history unequivocally consecrates the 
 positive philosophy." On the other hand, Dr. Whewell 
 as emphatically condemns the law of the three stages 
 as " contrary to history in fact, and contrary to sound 
 philosophy in principle." My object in referring to 
 the theory is not to point out its truth or error as an 
 intellectual system, but rather to indicate the assump- 
 tions on which it is based, and the consequences which 
 it involves. What, then, is the real meaning of this 
 law of the three stages ? It means simply that all the 
 intellectual efforts of the past generations have been 
 misdirected, and their conclusions are absolutely
 
 22 
 
 worthless. They were knocking for entrance at the 
 gates of a Temple which is eternally closed against 
 them. They strove to know God ; but there is no 
 God or, at least, we can never know whether there 
 is or not. They speculated on the whence and whither 
 of human existence ; they longed for immortality ; 
 they believed in heaven. Mere dreams and cloudland! 
 says the Positive Philosophy. The world has at 
 length outgrown its mythic fancies. We have been 
 accustomed to say, with one of old, " The heavens 
 declare the glory of God." No such thing, says the 
 creed of Positivism. " The heavens no longer declare 
 any other glory than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, 
 and of Newton, and of all those who have contributed 
 to establish their laws." And Christianity has but 
 helped to perpetuate the huge delusion, to fetter the 
 freedom of thought. Away with it ! Why cumbereth 
 it the ground ? 
 
 I will make one other remark upon this system, and 
 that is that its prevalence would be fatal to its success. 
 Granting that its law of evolution is a true one sup- 
 posing that, by removing from the region of human 
 impulse and motive the idea of a God and of a future 
 life, it had actually made good its promise of a new 
 dignity and power for man, that it had " crowned him 
 with glory and honour " in a far truer sense than any 
 yet realized by the race, surely in proportion to the 
 height of his dignity and felicity would be the 
 vehemence of his protest against the death that would 
 destroy him for ever.* The system surely carries 
 within itself the seed of its own condemnation. It 
 would infallibly perish in the very hour of its victory. 
 The dream of immortality would inevitably come to 
 uncrown his royalty, and dash the cup of joy from his 
 
 * This thought is powerfully presented in a critique on Comte, by 
 the late George Br niley, Librarian of Trinity Coll., Cambridge. 
 (Estays : Cambridge, 1858.)
 
 23 
 
 lip. The old question would thrust itself upon him 
 with resistless power, " What advantageth it me if the 
 dead rise not ? " And the answer would be in the words 
 of a poet from whom I have already quoted 
 
 'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
 
 Of things all mortal, or to use 
 A little patience ere I die ; 
 
 'Twere best at once to sink to peace, 
 Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
 To drop head foremost in the jaws 
 
 Of vacant darkness, and to cease. 
 
 III. There is one other subject upon which, at the 
 risk of exhausting your patience, I feel that something 
 ought to be said. Any attempt to present the ten- 
 dencies of modern thought would be essentially defec- 
 tive which did not take into account the rapid and 
 splendid development of PHYSICAL SCIENCE in recent 
 years. It is no part of my purpose to enter into any 
 discussion of the truth or falseness of the recent con- 
 clusions of science. This I am not competent to do. 
 Nor will I attempt to enumerate the brilliant dis- 
 coveries by which the physiologists, chemists, and 
 physicists of this age have made it . memorable in the 
 history of scientific research. It is rather on the 
 special character of modern investigation, and the 
 supposed bearing of its conclusions on other realms of 
 thought, that I would offer some remarks. 
 
 And surely the most striking feature in the scientific 
 inquiry of our day is its intense thoroughness. Never 
 before has nature been questioned with such search- 
 ing minuteness or such splendid success. The quest 
 in every department of natural inquiry does not stop 
 short of the ultimate constituent elements of things. 
 By the aid of apparatus far more delicate than the 
 most sensitive analytic tests of the chemist, new dis- 
 coveries of the constitution and structure, not of 
 earthly things alone, but of sun and stars in space,
 
 24 
 
 have rewarded the genius and patience of science. By 
 means of instruments of vastly increased power, the 
 tissues of animal and vegetable organisms have been 
 compelled to give up the secret of their structure, and 
 the matter which composes them is divested of its 
 grossness, and almost refined away into a spiritual 
 element. And while the telescope that sweeps the 
 distant heavens, and the spectroscope that analyzes the 
 tremulous ray of their revealing light, disclose to us a 
 few simple laws as the secret of their majestic order, 
 and a few simple elements as the constituents of the 
 material universe ; the microscope in like manner 
 shows us that in the downward direction and the lower 
 region of earth's wonders there is an equally admirable 
 simplicity of structure and comparative uniformity of 
 type. Indeed, those who are most competent to speak 
 on the subject tell us that the tendency of all science 
 is to reveal a unity throughout the vast realm of her 
 inquiries ; that all the forces of nature are near akin to 
 each other, and each may be expressed in the language 
 of the rest ; that the conviction is growing upon 
 scientific men that matter itself in its last result is 
 nothing but " conglomerated centres of force," and that 
 these forces, in their endless variety of phenomena and 
 modes of operation, are ultimately and essentially one. 
 Now to these tendencies and discoveries of science 
 there are those who look with gratitude and hope, and 
 those who look with fear and trembling. There are 
 some who rejoice in the present growth of Physical 
 Science, because they believe that it will deliver the 
 world from the bondage of religious creeds and doc- 
 trines which they have learnt to dislike. They believe 
 that Science is to displace Theology from its long 
 sway over the life of man, and substitute the certainties 
 of ascertained fact for the fluctuations of faith that 
 Science is competent to satisfy all the necessities of
 
 25 
 
 our nature, for it has discovered the unity of all force, 
 and set it upon the throne of the universe. I venture 
 to say that, in spite of any appearance to the contrary, 
 this claim will be rejected alike by the intellect and 
 the heart of the world. The very constitution of our 
 nature demands something beyond this. We feel 
 that when Science has done its utmost, there is still a 
 great question unanswered, and that the answer to it 
 can come only in a form supplied by our own con- 
 sciousness. Thus when the astronomer tells us of 
 gravitation, or the chemist of attractions and affinities, 
 or the geologist of upheaval and attrition, or the 
 naturalist of natural selection and the struggle for 
 existence, or the physiologist of a physical basis of 
 life, he has not carried us one step beyond the region 
 of phenomena. He has not explained to us the 
 mystery of force ; he has only shown us certain modes 
 of its operation. He has been dealing not with 
 originating forces, but with outward manifestations of 
 force. He has put his finger on the pulse of the 
 machine, but he has not reached its heart. He has 
 classified the phenomena, he has formulated the laws, 
 he has discovered the unity, of Nature. But he has 
 not revealed the ultimate secret of her power. Nor 
 can he ever do so. It does not come within his 
 province to anwer the question : Whence came these 
 impulses? What power is sustaining these mighty 
 energies ? The answer must come, as I have said, 
 from the inner world of our own consciousness and the 
 great religious intuitions of our nature. So true and 
 perfect are the relations of man to nature and to that 
 which is above and beyond nature, that he supplies 
 the missing link in the great chain of being. It is a 
 necessity of our constitution to trace an effect to a 
 cause, motion to a mover, action to an agent. When 
 Science, therefore, brings us to its last result, our spiri- 
 tual nature compels us to say : These mighty energies,
 
 26 
 
 this all-pervading force, these calm, grand laws are the 
 witnesses of one who has originated these movements, 
 and of whose will these laws are the expression. 
 There must be an originating cause, a living God of 
 creation. And these convictions are confirmed by 
 the Revelation which tells of Him who created all 
 things by the Word of His power, and in whom we 
 live and move and have our being. Having, there- 
 fore, this double witness, the man of serene faith and 
 clear intelligence accepts gratefully this discovery of 
 the unity of nature, for he, too, believes in one God 
 and Father of all. Looking in virtue of his two-fold 
 constitution at once downwards to Nature and upwards 
 to God, his faith and his reason in closest alliance 
 lift up the chain which science has forged, and link 
 it to the eternal throne. 
 
 But there are not a few who look with alarm upon 
 these movements of scientific thought as tending to 
 materialism in philosophy, and as hostile to the claims 
 of Revealed Truth. As to the materialistic tendencies 
 of Physical Science, I trust that what has been said 
 will tend to show that such fears arise from confounding 
 the sphere of Science with a sphere which is altogether 
 beyond it. Science deals with phenomena and laws, 
 modes and measures of the operation of force ; but of 
 the force itself it knows nothing, and is incompetent 
 to speak. I will add nothing on this point, but will 
 conclude this address, which has already outgrown its 
 intended limits, with a few sentences on what I cannot 
 but consider a needless alarm lest the conclusions of 
 Science should prove hostile to the claims of Revealed 
 Truth. 
 
 It is undeniable that there is a strong impression of 
 the existence of such hostility on the part of both the 
 adherents and the opponents of Christianity. By the 
 latter it is often assumed as an established truth that 
 the claims of Scripture are no longer reconcilable with
 
 the facts of science, and on the part of the former 
 there is often an ill-concealed anxiety that there 
 should be peace on almost any terms between the two. 
 Professor Maurice, speaking indignantly of the 
 "struggle to protect the Bible from the last new 
 theory propounded at the British 'Association," says : 
 " If we can get any distinguished member of the 
 Association to speak in our favour, we are full of 
 ignominious rapture ; if any of its members throw 
 out opinions which contradict ours, or may lead to 
 a contradiction of ours, we are full of a terror as 
 ignominious." I can only indicate in briefest outline 
 the position which, as it seems to me, the Christian 
 apologist should take up on this subject. I would 
 say, then, that whenever the final and unanimous 
 conclusions of scientific men pronounce against the 
 statements of Scripture, it is our duty not reluctantly, 
 but cheerfully and gratefully to abandon the views 
 which are founded upon the latter. But then, on the 
 one hand, we must be sure that these conclusions of 
 science are really final and irrevocable ; and on the 
 other hand that ours is the right interpretation of 
 those portions of Scripture with which they are found 
 to clash. It is notorious in the history of Science that 
 it has often had to reconsider, to modify, to retract its 
 statements ; and on the other side so profound and 
 acute a thinker as Butler has said that it is very 
 possible " that a book which has been so long in the 
 possession of mankind should contain many truths as 
 yet undiscovered." When due weight is given to 
 these conditions when scientific men, mindful of the 
 modesty of all true science, resist the temptation to 
 assume that what may be its merely provisional and 
 temporary stage, is its ultimate conclusion ; and the 
 theologian, with similar modesty, admits that his inter- 
 pretation of Scripture may not be the true one, it 
 will be found that the difficulties are greatly diminished
 
 28 
 
 both in number and in magnitude. I am not aware 
 that there is unanimity on the part of scientific men 
 about any one of the main positions which Science 
 has maintained in opposition to Scripture. And there 
 is often an unreasonable tone of exultation when great 
 names in Science are quoted in support or in con- 
 demnation of some particular view. It is unrea- 
 sonable, because in nearly every case names of equal 
 authority might be quoted on the other side. The 
 authority of Professor Huxley or Dr. Tyndall is 
 unquestionably high, but so is that of Professor Owen 
 and Mr. Faraday ; and if the former have surrendered, 
 the latter have maintained, the position that the claims 
 of Science and Scripture may be reconciled. But I 
 must add another remark, to the effect that it need not 
 alarm us if some conclusions of Science should ulti- 
 mately prove to be opposed to the letter of Scripture. 
 It is sometimes said that the Scriptures must stand or 
 fall together that an error in any part vitiates the 
 whole. This is one of those arbitrary and unwarrant- 
 able assumptions that have injured, by misrepresent- 
 ing, the true claims of Scripture. Since the ultimate 
 appeal of the theologian is to Scripture, it is un- 
 reasonable for theology to claim for the Scriptures 
 more than they claim for themselves. And Scripture 
 nowhere claims that its language is free from the 
 influence of the prevailing tone of thought, the local 
 prejudices, and the erroneous views of the different 
 periods and countries in which its various portions 
 were written. Its language is the language of its day, 
 its science the science of a rude age and a simple 
 people. And while they who claim for the Scriptures a 
 literal infallibility in every respect, and rigid scientific 
 accuracy in every statement, are often compelled to 
 resort to forced and unnatural constructions of the 
 text, and are in frequent terror of a collision between 
 Science and Scripture ; they who occupy the truer
 
 and more intelligent position, that an historical error 
 or a scientific inaccuracy does not even touch the great 
 verities of the Christian Faith, " can rise above the 
 dissonance of the hour, and transport themselves for- 
 ward into the great and sweet harmony of the 
 future." 
 
 For the final issue of the strife is not doubtful. 
 All the lines of truth converge at last, and each 
 discovery of truth is an approach to the living God. 
 Hasty conclusions of imperfect science and unsound 
 interpretations of Scripture will certainly clash with 
 each other. But the opposition will cease at length, 
 and the profound and eternal harmony of the Word 
 and the World will be manifested, when the facts of 
 the one and the language of the other are conclusively 
 ascertained and rightly interpreted. 
 
 When that harmony shall be revealed, and these 
 bridals of Earth and Heaven celebrated, we cannot 
 say. It is the magnificent vision of the future. We 
 are but the children to use the touching words of the 
 great philosopher children gathering pebbles on the 
 shore of the wide ocean of Truth. Tidings have come 
 to us, from those who have ventured a little way from 
 the shore, of marvellous beauty and ravishing visions. 
 And to those of us who are still on the shore, 
 gazing wistfully over the wide expanse, there may yet 
 come voices and visions of constraining power, of 
 imperial splendour, of infinite comfort: even as to 
 that Galilean fisherman of old, gazing from the shore 
 of Patmos across the broad waters of the ^Egean, 
 there came a voice louder than the plash of its many 
 waters, and brighter than its burnished splendour came 
 the vision of that crystal sea, whose depths reflect the 
 towers and palaces of the City of God. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., ST. GEORQK'S-STKEBT, CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FORTY-SECOND AIIITERSARY MEETING 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 African |ubltc JKbrarg, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 27TH MAY, 1871. 
 
 )ts todlentj Sir ntrs garhlg, S-C-g., in % C^air. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1871.
 
 OTommtttee : 
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ., 
 
 REV. DR. CAMERON, 
 
 W. BIDDING H, ESQ. (Treas ) 
 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ 
 
 PROFESSOR NOBLE 
 
 DR. DALE 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLEAR. KNT. 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 
 ESQ. 
 E. J. JERRAM, ESQ. 
 
 J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 I JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 
 fUferattan 
 
 F. MASKEW.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee, in submitting their report of the 
 transactions of the Institution under their management 
 for the past year, are glad in being able to state that 
 the appeal made to the public for increased support 
 has, to a gratifying extent, been responded to, several 
 subscribers having raised their subscription from the 
 third to the first class, and many more having entered 
 their names as subscribers for the first time ; and the 
 Committee indulge the hope that others may yet be 
 induced to follow so good an example. 
 
 The accession of books during the past year has 
 been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 10 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy 22 
 
 Science and the Arts 85 
 
 Dictionaries, Lexicons, &c. ... 25 
 
 Novels 75 
 
 Belles Lettres 59 
 
 History 32 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 46 
 
 Biography... ... ... ... 24 
 
 Miscellaneous 6 
 
 Total 384 Vols. 
 
 Amongst the above are many valuable presentations 
 from subscribers and other gentlemen, viz. : Messrs. 
 T. B. Bayley, C. Fairbridge, H. van Lier, E. L.
 
 Layard, John Stein, H. Jencken, of London, and 
 R. Trimen, the Hon'ble Dr. White, the Rev. Dr. 
 Adamson, and also from the "Foreign Office," the 
 "Royal Society," London; the "Geographical So- 
 ciety," London ; and the " Smithsonian Institution," 
 United States; for all of which the thanks of the 
 subscribers are due. 
 
 It will also be seen that your Committee have been 
 enabled to add several valuable standard works to the 
 collection. Many of the works alluded to were pur- 
 chased at public sale ; and it is a matter of regret that 
 the means at the disposal of the Committee prevented 
 them from adding many more, which ought to have 
 had a place on the shelves of the Institution. It is a 
 satisfaction to your Committee to be able to state that 
 very considerable reduction has been effected in the 
 department of light literature, with a proportionate 
 increase of other branches. Fewer novels have been 
 received this year than during each of the last two 
 years, the number received in 1868 being 144 vols., 
 in 1869, 104 vols., and for 1870, only 75 vols. 
 
 The Committee have also to state that they have 
 deemed it advisable to cancel the orders for some of 
 the periodicals of a light character, and for them have 
 substituted the following scientific journals, viz. : the 
 " Annals of Natural History," the " Journal of 
 English Botany," and " Nature," which selection, 
 they trust, will afford satisfaction to the subscribers. 
 
 In consequence of a suggestion having been made 
 by His Excellency the Governor to the Librarian, 
 regarding the number of persons visiting the Library, 
 a record has been kept, from which it appears that 
 from the 6th of February to the 10th of May, seventy- 
 nine days, 5,792 persons visited the Library, showing 
 an average of about 73 per day, the largest number 
 on any one day being 140, and the lowest 49 : this
 
 is exclusive of servants calling for and returning 
 books. This statement cannot but be considered 
 highly satisfactory, and affords evidence that the 
 Institution is duly appreciated by the inhabitants, as 
 well as strangers visiting our shores. 
 
 From a statement, which will be submitted, of the 
 income and expenditure during the past year, it will 
 be seen that the Committee have had to make provi- 
 sion for clerical assistance to the Librarian during 
 the illness of Mr. Pappe, the sum is, however, small, 
 only amounting to 5. They have also granted Mr. 
 Pappe a gratuity of J5 in consideration of his length 
 of service, and which, they trust, will meet with the 
 approval of the subscribers. 
 
 It was suggested at a previous meeting that the 
 Committee should keep their accounts in such a way 
 as to show the exact income and expenditure of the 
 circulating branch of the Library apart from the 
 Library of Reference. This the Committee have 
 found impracticable, as the services of the officers of 
 the Institution are in constant requisition for both 
 departments, including the " Dessinian Collection," 
 the "Porter Collection," as well as the Collection 
 belonging to the Library which is placed under 
 restriction as reference sets. And here the Committee 
 think it right to remark, in reference to recent discus- 
 sions out of doors, that while the revenue accruing 
 by subscriptions in the circulating department has 
 amounted for many years to an average of 350, the 
 expenditure, apart from the purchase of books, is 
 practically nothing, because the same number of 
 officers, viz., the Chief Librarian and an Assistant, 
 with Messenger, would still be required if the circu- 
 lating department were to cease, and the whole Insti- 
 tution converted inte a Library of Reference. The 
 Librarian of the " Grey Collection " occupies an 
 
 B2
 
 exceptional position in this respect, from the other 
 officers, inasmuch as, in addition to his custodianship 
 of that collection,- he is especially engaged in the pro- 
 secution of valuable philological and other researches 
 in connection with the works placed under his care. 
 
 In the opinion of the Committee, therefore, the 
 closing of the Library to other than mere visitors for 
 purposes of reading and reference would, at present, 
 be premature and prejudicial to the interests of the 
 public, especially in sight of the fact that within the 
 last eleven months there has been a circulation of 
 upwards of three thousand volumes in every depart- 
 ment of sound, substantial literature, in addition to 
 the circulation of works of fiction, magazines, and 
 light literature generally. 
 
 The precise returns of circulation in all departments, 
 from the 10th of June, 1870, to 16th May, 1871, are 
 as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... 95 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, &c. ... ... 53 
 
 Biography ... ... ... 715 
 
 Science and the Arts ... ... 222 
 
 History ... ... ... ... 575 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 825 
 
 Belles Lettres, Miscellaneous 
 
 Essays, &c 559 
 
 Novels 8554 
 
 The unique collection of books and manuscripts in 
 African languages, which forms part of Sir George 
 Grey's gift, has received some important accessions in 
 the course of the last year. The " Church Missionary 
 Society " has presented thirty-six separate publica- 
 tions, in nine different African languages, viz. : in 
 Temne (15), Yoenba (9), Ibo (4), Nupe (2), Fulah 
 (2), Igara, Igbira, Hausa, and Swahili. In the latter
 
 language (Swahili) the Rev. Dr. Steere has also sent 
 us seven manuscripts and five printed books. Among 
 the latter are his Hand-book of the Swahili language, 
 and his " Swahili Tales with an English Translation." 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Thomas has given, besides four 
 printed Sitebele books, two manuscripts, the original 
 draft of his translation of the Epistle to the Romans 
 into Sitebele, and a revised copy. 
 
 In Kafir, we have received four books from the 
 Rev. J. W. Appleyard ; a newspaper, the " Kafir 
 Express," from the Lovedale Missionaries; and a 
 tentative edition of St. Matthew's Gospel, from the 
 " Board of Revisers." In Zulu, the Rev. H. Callaway, 
 M.D., has presented his translation of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, and the Rev. F. Mason a version of 
 Wesley's Addresses. Four Sesuto books have been 
 given two of them by the Rev. J. W. Appleyard and 
 one by the Rev. L. J. Cochet; and the Rev. R. Moffat 
 and the other Missionaries at Kuruman have pre- 
 sented two publications in Western Setshuana. 
 
 Amongst the other additions is the first number of 
 the " Archivio per 1' Antropologia e la Etnologia," 
 presented by one of its editors, Dr. F. Finzi, Professor 
 at Florence ; the Rev. W. Pryse's Introduction to the 
 Khasi, a curious sex-denoting language spoken in 
 Lower Assam ; a Spanish Grammar of the Kru lan- 
 guage ; a French treatise on the Hottentot language ; 
 and a German dissertation on the same language, by 
 Dr. Th. Hahn, who also has presented us with Dr. F. 
 Muller's treatises on the Harari and Bari languages. 
 A Latin dissertation on the Hottentots, by a German 
 student (A. F. Beulwitz, De Caffaribus), printed at 
 Rudolstadt in 1707, has also been added to the curio- 
 sities of this collection. 
 
 Through L. Bols, Esq., late Belgian Consul-General 
 at Cape Town (now at Sydney), the valuable catalo-
 
 gues of the manuscripts of the Burgundian Library 
 at Brussels have been received from Mr. L. Alvin, 
 Conservateur-en-Chef of the Bibliotheque Royale, in 
 exchange for the catalogues of parts of the Grey 
 Library. 
 
 Special facilities have been afforded by the Govern- 
 ment of this Colony during the past year to Dr. 
 Bleek for the study of the Bushman language, of 
 which hardly anything is as yet known; and the words, 
 sentences, tales, and verses, written down from the 
 lips of Bushmen in their own language, already fill 
 several hundred pages. These materials will ulti- 
 mately form part of the collection of manuscripts 
 referring to Native languages in the Grey Library. 
 
 Distinct as the Bushman language is from that of 
 every other nation in South Africa, and ignorant as 
 we are as yet regarding its affinities to any other 
 known language ; it is evidently of the highest im- 
 portance that, as long as it is still possible, everything 
 be done to throw a light upon the ethnological mystery 
 concerning the origin of the oldest remaining language 
 of Southern Africa. 
 
 ^ On the motion of Mr. J. C. Molteno, seconded by 
 Mr. W. L. Blore, 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 That the Report and Treasurer's Account now 
 read be adopted and printed. 
 
 On the motion of Dr. Henry Ebden, seconded by 
 Mr. David Tennant, 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 That the thanks of the Subscribers be given to the 
 Committee, the Treasurer, and Auditors, for their 
 valuable services during the past year.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 His Excellency Sir HENRY BARKLY then delivered 
 the following address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I cannot deny that I 
 was fairly warned, when invited a few weeks ago to 
 take the chair at the anniversary meeting of the 
 subscribers to the Public Library, that an address on 
 some literary or scientific subject would be expected 
 from me. 
 
 If I, notwithstanding this, incautiously accepted the 
 post of honour on the occasion without duly considering 
 my own deficiencies, and my want of leisure in con- 
 sequence of public duties to prepare myself adequately 
 for the task, I trust you will ascribe it, not to over- 
 weening presumption on my part, but to its proper 
 cause, my anxiety to aid in promoting the welfare of 
 an institution in which I take so deep an interest. 
 
 I was unaware, too, how difficult it would prove 
 to find an appropriate subject for my address until 
 I came to decide the point. I forget who was the 
 author, or whether he ever really existed, who com- 
 plained that the ancients had stolen all his good 
 thoughts ; but I confess I felt myself placed in a similar 
 predicament with regard to preceding presidents and 
 the subjects they had chosen. The Cape Town Public 
 Library has been in existence for half a century, and 
 this, I believe, is the forty-second anniversary on which 
 addresses have been delivered from this chair ; the 
 result of my inquiries being that almost every topic
 
 10 
 
 that could be deemed suitable the claims of the insti- 
 tution to the support of Parliament or of the com- 
 munity ; the position and prospects of education in 
 the Colony ; the tendencies of the literature of the 
 age ; and others too numerous to mention having been 
 in turn selected and ably and exhaustively treated. 
 
 Fresh from listening to the discourses of Huxley and 
 of Tyndal, and from the perusal of the latest works of 
 Darwin and of Wallace, I thought for a moment I 
 should be entering on a new field if I adventured a few 
 words of comment and of caution with respect to the 
 brilliant theories and startling doctrines of the new school 
 of naturalists. 
 
 But here again I soon discovered that I had been 
 in some degree forestalled, and by anticipation far 
 excelled, in the admirable address of Professor 
 Cameron last year, in one portion of which he depicted 
 in masterly style the conflict of opinion now waging 
 among the profoundest thinkers of the day. 
 
 In the Professor's general exposition of his views 
 respecting the most conspicuous points of antagonism 
 between the old and new phases of thought, I cordially 
 concur. 
 
 It is only too true, as he asserts, that the new 
 philosophy verges on Positivism, that the science tends 
 to Materialism, that the poetry is avowedly atheistic. 
 But whilst we deplore this misdirection of intellectual 
 activity, we must be careful not to confound the 
 patient, painstaking, persevering search after truth in 
 the present day with the intentional profession of 
 infidelity in past ages. Nothing, in fact, can be less 
 like the coarse, scoffing scepticism of the last century, 
 or even than the cold depreciating incredulity of modern 
 German Rationalism, than the reverential,half-regretful 
 tone usually adopted by those who now-a-days, in 
 pursuit of physical researches, find themselves, from
 
 11 
 
 their own particular stand-point, in contradiction to 
 received Scripture doctrines regarding the attributes 
 of the Almighty. 
 
 "We are at liberty of course, to challenge their pre- 
 mises, or to dispute their conclusions ; we may even 
 deny their right to narrow all investigations to physical 
 phenomena alone ; but we are not entitled to regard 
 them as mere cavillers at revealed religion or to refuse 
 to give full and impartial consideration to the argu- 
 ments they may advance on scientific questions, 
 however rude a shock may thereby be given to our 
 preconceived ideas. 
 
 On the other hand, we may fairly claim something 
 stronger than bare surmises before we resign cherished 
 beliefs. For my own part, I would be the last person 
 wittingly to resist a logical inference in order to escape 
 a disagreeable or painful deduction; but when I am 
 called on to admit that " man is descended from a hairy 
 quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, and 
 probably arboreal in itshabits," I feel myself warranted 
 in asking for better proofs than the alleged occasional 
 thickening of the rim of the human ear ; the existence 
 of an apparently superfluous bone at the end of the 
 spine ; or the various minor resemblances, which have 
 been so industriously brought together to show a 
 derivation from the lower races of animals. 
 
 I have the highest possible respect for Mr. Darwin. 
 The moderation with which he states his views, and the 
 candour with which he sets forth the objections to 
 them, are above all praise. But he himself recognizes 
 the difficulty presented to his conclusions by the high 
 standard of intellectual power and of moral disposition 
 which man has attained ; and though he finds a way 
 of silencing his own scruples, the questions involved 
 are of too momentous importance to be left darkly 
 lowering under the shadow of a great name, or disposed
 
 12 
 
 of in a few paragraphs of the concluding chapter of his 
 book. Those questions amount to neither more nor 
 less than this, whether, instead of God having made 
 man, man, on the contrary, has not invented God. They 
 are, it is true, only suggested. It is needless, I am 
 sure, to attempt to answer them here. Mr. Darwin's 
 further surmise " that the quadrumana, as well as all 
 the higher animals, are derived through the marsupials 
 from some reptile-like creature, and this again from 
 some fish-like animal, which in the dim obscurity of 
 the past was developed from an animal more like the 
 larva? of the existing marine ascidians than any other 
 known form," strikes one as a hideous nightmare 
 rather than a quiet, though delusive dream. In saying 
 this, I by no means wish to insinuate that the develop- 
 ment theory is without foundation. On the contrary, 
 I cannot but suppose that Evolution has played an 
 important part in the formation of the various genera 
 and species of plants and animals. 
 
 It is quite conceivable, however, that the dogma of 
 Evolution maybe true within certain limits, and yet that 
 separate acts of creation, special interventions of Divine 
 Power, may have taken place at what may be called the 
 breaks in the chain, such, in the animal kingdom, as 
 the divisions of mollusks, insects, fishes, reptiles, birds, 
 and mammals, or even where a total change has been 
 effected in an order, as in the case of man. 
 
 It is surely no argument against such a notion that 
 a certain similarity of structure is traceable in a pro- 
 gressive and ascending sense between the different 
 groups. "Were we considering the works of a human 
 artificer, it would be held the very reverse. 
 
 The hypothesis, too, agrees far better with what Hugh 
 Miller so well called " The Testimony of the Hocks " 
 than any theory of uninterrupted self-development ; 
 for, so far as yet read, the geological record gives
 
 13 
 
 little support to the latter, but, on the contrary, fails 
 to supply many missing links, and leaves numerous 
 gaps, most difficult to be accounted for. 
 
 In fact, the strongest refutation of the Simian origin 
 of man consists in the total absence of the transitional 
 forms which must in that case have existed ; for as we 
 have fossil baboons and fossil men, there can be no pos- 
 sible reason why the bones of the half-human progenitors 
 of the latter should not be found, especially as they 
 must have inhabited the globe in vast numbers for a 
 far longer period than man, seeing the vast structural 
 and mental changes they had still to undergo, whilst 
 he has changed so little. Yet the most recent Tertiary 
 strata, where those bones ought to be common, have 
 been searched, and searched in vain, for them ! 
 
 Is it going too far, then, to assert that we are at 
 present justified in regarding the theories that have been 
 so skilfully and plausibly propounded with regard both 
 to spontaneous generation and the descent of man, as 
 little more than the ingenious speculations of enthu- 
 siastic inquirers into the secrets of nature ; specula- 
 tions containing possibly the germ of grand truths, yet 
 to be clearly expounded, or, on the other hand, 
 destined to be discarded so soon as further experience 
 has shown them to be ill-founded. 
 
 For my own part, I feel no more bound to give my 
 serious assent to Mr. Darwin's ideas than to the 
 humorous sally in which Canon Kingsley has narrated 
 how the great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, 
 who came away from the country of Hardwork, and 
 settled at the foot of the Happygolucky Mountains, 
 degenerated in the course of centuries into hairy apes, 
 who had forgotten how to talk or walk upright ! 
 
 Even, however, if it could be conclusively demon- 
 strated that all living beings have been evolved from 
 protoplasm or molecules, or whatever else the primary
 
 14 
 
 element of organic matter may be termed, even if it 
 were proved beyond a shade of doubt that after having 
 passed through unnumbered metamorphoses, during 
 countless ages, man at last emerged, some half million 
 years ago, from the monkey state, and worked his way 
 up by the aid of natural selection, the survival of the 
 fittest, and the tendency to variation, to his present posi- 
 tion in the scale of being, we should still have good 
 ground for believing that all these changes were the 
 work of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, and had 
 taken place in conformity with the laws He had 
 preordained. We should still have our own inner 
 consciousness to convince us (apart from the historical 
 evidence of the truth of the Gospel narrative) that that 
 Creator endowed us with immortal souls, and rendered 
 us thereupon responsible for our conduct here, and sus- 
 ceptible of happiness or misery hereafter. Were it 
 otherwise, well, indeed, might the Laureate exclaim 
 in those noble verses : 
 
 " Shall he 
 
 Man, His last work, who seemed so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer ; 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 And love Creation's final law, 
 Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw, 
 
 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed. 
 
 Who loved, who suffer 1 d countless ills, 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 
 Or seal'd within the iron hills? 
 
 No more ? A monster then, a dream, 
 A discord. Dragons of the Prime, 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 
 Were mellow music match'd with him."
 
 The plain truth seems to me to be that the minds of 
 our great physicists are so dazzled by the splendour 
 of their own recent achievements in various branches 
 of knowledge that they are for the moment blinded to 
 the import of the far deeper spiritual mysteries which 
 science has as yet done so little to solve. 
 
 They are too intent on discovering the origin of 
 matter, and the physical construction of their own 
 bodies, to contemplate the invisible, yet equally real 
 mechanism of their souls, so eager, as has been 
 pithily said, to interrogate Nature as to what she is, 
 that they forget to inquire of her either the whence or 
 the why of her existence. 
 
 This undue preference at the present day for 
 the physical over metaphysical sciences is, I am 
 disposed to think, but the inevitable reaction resulting 
 from the comparative neglect with which the former 
 were so long treated ; and, in fact, are still treated, 
 so far as education generally is concerned. 
 
 But the proper corrective for any such undue pre- 
 ference is, not to shut our eyes to the discoveries of 
 modern science, nor to affect to regard them as pos- 
 sessing less novelty or significance than they actually do. 
 Neither is it, in my opinion, sufficient or safe, to point 
 out, as some of the leaders of religious thought content 
 themselves with doing, that the natural philosopher, 
 dealing with nothing else than phenomena, and tracing 
 out but the succession of such phenomena, can never be 
 expected to arrive one step nearer to the great First 
 Cause, and may, therefore, be left to pursue his 
 inquiries without notice, however much their results 
 may seem to be at a variance with Divine Revelation. 
 The first proposition is, no doubt, true; but the danger 
 of such a course appears to me to be, that if Science 
 once becomes separated from Religion by too wide a 
 gulf, whilst no attempt whatever is made to bridge it
 
 16 
 
 over, many may be tempted into taking their stand on 
 the side of the former exclusively, and a general falling 
 off from the faith of Christendom ensue, if not in our 
 own, at least among the generations to follow us. 
 
 I hold it to be the duty, therefore, of all who have 
 ability and opportunity to pursue fearlessly the path 
 of scientific investigation, confident that amid what- 
 ever mazes it may for a time wander, it can only 
 ultimately lead to the restoration of complete and 
 self-evident harmony between the results of human 
 observation and the teachings of Divine inspiration. 
 
 Our cry should be that of the expiring Ger- 
 man philosopher " Light ! more light !" We dare 
 not, indeed, hope to be further miraculously en- 
 lightened on these or any other subjects during our 
 present stage of existence, but we may rely confidently 
 on the aid of the Spirit of Truth to guide us into all 
 truth, and our studies need be restrained by no faint- 
 hearted dread that God and Nature are in reality at 
 strife. 
 
 I must apologize if I have pursued this train 
 of thought further than has been interesting to my 
 audience, or if I have treated the subject in a more 
 serious tone than is usual on these occasions ; but it 
 is one on which I feel deeply, and which, I am con- 
 vinced, involves the gravest consequences to the 
 future welfare of society. 
 
 I now gladly turn to other themes, and as it is 
 always well to take a look at home, and so far as I am 
 aware, this aspect of the question has not been con- 
 sidered for a long time past, it may not be amiss to 
 inquire what the colonists of the Cape have done, and 
 are doing, for the promotion of literature or the 
 advancement of scientific knowledge. 
 
 With respect to the first, much ought not, of 
 course, to be expected, looking to the comparatively
 
 17 
 
 small proportion of the population sufficiently highly 
 educated to supply either authors or readers, to the 
 absence of ancient seats of learning, like the universi- 
 ties of Europe, where many profound scholars 'are 
 congregated, and to the far greater inducement in all 
 respects for the publication of any new work at home. 
 Nevertheless, there at least is one serial publication 
 here, the Cape Monthly Magazine, which contains 
 articles of considerable merit, whilst the mode in 
 which the colonial press is conducted, places it on a high 
 level in a literary point of view as compared with that 
 of other colonies. In regard to scientific inquiry, on the 
 other hand, those who live in a region which has not been 
 very long inhabited by civilized races, and which pos- 
 sesses remarkable peculiarities of soil and climate, are far 
 more advantageously situated for prosecuting re- 
 searches into many branches of natural history than 
 the inhabitants of densely-peopled and highly-civilized 
 countries, which in the lapse of centuries have become 
 vast cemeteries, where the relics of the past are 
 commingled and confused, and where every division of 
 the Fauna and Flora, extinct or existing, has been so 
 long and closely explored that little novelty can be 
 now expected. 
 
 In few countries is this contrast with the old 
 world more strongly marked than in South Africa 
 In none, perhaps, can the great problems of the 
 day, the descent and early history of mankind, be 
 better studied than here, where the Bushman, if he 
 does not still actually use, has but just discarded the 
 flint arrow-heads and stone implements of primitive 
 barbarism, and over which successive waves of popula- 
 tion have rolled so recently, that the landmarks 
 denoting each separate influx still stand uneffaced. 
 
 Comparative philology, as might be anticipated under 
 such circumstances, has here met with the attention it
 
 deserves. If it be true that speech owes its origin to 
 the intuitive efforts of man, it was probable that in 
 South Africa some light might still be thrown on its 
 earliest developments. As yet the evidence is all the 
 other way, the most barbarous races using complicated 
 grammatical inflexions. Thus Dr. Bleek, I believe, 
 concurs with older investigators in ranking the 
 Hottentot language among highly-developed forms of 
 speech. What he and his fellow-labourer, Dr. Hahn, 
 may make of the uncouth Bushman tongue remains to 
 be seen, and it will be curious to learn hereafter. 
 
 In Zoology, a great deal was accomplished in the 
 early days of the Cape Colony, and its various branches 
 have since been studied with more or less assiduity. 
 
 The ornithological researches of Le Vaillant and 
 others were followed up enthusiastically during his four- 
 teen years' residence here by Mr. E. L. Layard, whom 
 I still hope to see back amongst us as Curator of the 
 adjoining South African Museum, which may almost 
 be said to owe its existence to his efforts. 
 
 The publication of his book on the Birds of South 
 Africa marks an important era in local science, and 
 leaves but little to be added by future naturalists. In 
 Entomology, too, there have been many collectors, and I 
 am assured that fair progress has been made. As regards 
 one family of insects, Mr. Roland Trimen, who is known 
 to most of us, has achieved a high reputation in the 
 scientific world by publishing a catalogue of South 
 African Butterflies, and by other works on the 
 Lepidoptera, evincing the greatest industry and most 
 careful observation. 
 
 With respect to the other subdivisions of the 
 animal kingdom, the reptiles, the fishes, the mol- 
 lusks, &c., I cannot learn that much has been 
 done. Indeed, I was told by Dr. Gunther, who 
 is at the head of these departments in the British
 
 Museum, that their study has been greatly neglected 
 here, and that as far as icthyology is concerned, 
 specimens even of some of the common food fishes of 
 Table Bay were wanting in that grand national col- 
 lection ; whilst many of the pipe fish, and other 
 curious forms, still remained undescribed. I trust that 
 among those who have the opportunity there will yet 
 be found persons disposed to devote a little of their 
 time and attention to these branches of science. 
 
 Turning to the vegetable kingdom, I need hardly say 
 that the peculiarities of the South African flora 
 attracted much notice even in the last century, nor 
 that Burmari, Thunberg, and, at a later date, the 
 English traveller, Burchell, did a good deal to facilitate 
 its study. In our day, I am proud to think the Civil 
 Service of the Colony has produced some of its most 
 eminent botanists, among whom may be cited Dr. 
 Harvey, who, whilst filling the post of Treasurer- 
 General, published his first work on the " Genera of 
 South African Plants," and Mr. Kawson, who, when 
 Colonial Secretary, not only gave every aid and 
 encouragement to botanical researches, but found time 
 to join the late Dr. Pappe in preparing for the press a 
 very useful descriptive catalogue of the ferns of South 
 Africa. 
 
 There can be no more fitting occasion than the 
 present for us to call to recollection that the great 
 work which Dr. Harvey subsequently, as Professor of 
 Botany at the University of Dublin, commenced in 
 concert with Dr. Sonder, of Hamburgh, " The Flora 
 Capensis " was only half finished at the time of his 
 death, and that, although five years have since elapsed, 
 no steps have been taken to carry on its publication. 
 This is the more to be regretted, as Dr. Harvey's 
 splendid collection of South African plants lies ready 
 for use at Trinity Collegej together, I understand, with 1
 
 20 
 
 copious notes for the three further volumes which 
 remain to be published. Dr. Sender has also, I am 
 informed, completed the description of several natural 
 orders, and his extensive herbarium would likewise, 
 there can be little doubt, be readily accessible. 
 
 The cause of the delay seems to have been the pres-; 
 sure of work on the chief European botanists, and the 
 difficulty, therefore, of finding an editor competent to 
 replace the late lamented Dr. Harvey. I believe, 
 however, that there is a gentleman in this Colony, 
 Professor McOwan, of Somerset College, perfectly 
 qualified for the task, and I hope it may be possible to 
 make arrangements which will permit his passing a 
 year or two in Europe for the purpose. 
 
 There are many lovers of botany scattered over 
 different parts of the country, who would gladly give 
 their aid to render the "Flora Capensis" worthy in 
 every way of the Colony ; and I trust the Cape Parlia- 
 ment would not refuse to co-operate for such an object. 
 I am confident it would not grudge the very moderate 
 quota of 150 per volume which it originally engaged 
 to contribute. 
 
 There is another branch of science of the utmost im- 
 portance to this Colony which has scarcely yet received 
 all the consideration it deserves. I mean Geology. 
 True, a good deal has been effected in that, and in the 
 kindred fields of Palaeontology and Mineralogy by 
 individual observers. The late Mr. Bain and Dr. 
 Rubidge, and Dr. Atherstone, who is still fortunately 
 as active as ever, furnished from tune to time valuable 
 papers on various points of interest to the Transactions 
 of the Geological Society and other scientific publica- 
 tions. For a few years, too, the Colonial Government 
 engaged the services of a professed geologist, Mr. 
 "Wyley, but they were chiefly directed to an examina- 
 tion of the mineral resources of Namaqualand ; and,
 
 although he afterwards made a hurried tour through 
 other districts of the Colony, it was impossible, as he 
 himself pointed out in one of his reports, to explore 
 thoroughly, in the absence, especially, of even a 
 tolerable topographical map, the country that he saw; 
 still less in the short space of eighteen months to solve 
 the whole problem of Cape geology. It is but justice 
 to Mr. Wyley to state that almost all his identifications 
 of strata and other geological deductions have so far 
 proved to be correct, down to the recent determination 
 by Mr. Bristow of the fossils from the Stormberg 
 coal-beds, and there seems every reason to believe that 
 had he remained longer, and been able to visit the 
 districts lying between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, 
 all questions as to the position and age of the forma- 
 tions in that part of the Colony would long since have 
 been settled ; and we should not now be in doubt as to 
 the extent of the auriferous area and the degree of 
 richness of the indications recently discovered. 
 
 Should Mr. Dunn, who has, as you are aware, lately 
 been sent by Government to examine the locality, be 
 correct in supposing certain rocks to be identical with 
 the upper and lower Silurian rocks of Victoria, in which 
 auriferous quartz reefs or veins are so abundant, and 
 he seems to entertain little doubt on the point, the 
 specks of gold which he detected in the beds of several 
 streams are at once accounted for, and there is every 
 reason to hope that a payable gold-field may eventually 
 be found. 
 
 I may add that Mr. Daintree, the Government geolo- 
 gist of Queensland, who, when shipwrecked near 
 Mossel Bay, was the first to perceive indications of 
 an auriferous nature in that neighbourhood, is strongly 
 of opinion, after perusing Mr. Wyley's description of 
 the Namaqualand formations, that gold will be dis- 
 covered likewise in that country. I trust we shall be
 
 22 
 
 able to secure Mr. Dunn's services for a time on his 
 return from the Diamond-fields, whither his engage- 
 ments compelled him to proceed. 
 
 It would detain you too long were I to dwell on all 
 the sciences that have been cultivated in Cape Town. 
 I have not alluded to astronomy, because, though the 
 contributions to it have been of vast importance, they 
 have not been made, strictly speaking, by colonists, 
 neither is the Gape Observatory a colonial establishment. 
 Still the facts remain, that the geographical position and 
 clear atmosphere of Cape Town have been taken advan- 
 tage of by celebrated astronomers to explore the southern 
 heavens ; and we may glory in the recollection that ii 
 was here that in the last century the Abbe la Caille 
 added many new constellations to the celestial globe ; 
 and that but a few years since Sir John Herschel 
 succeeded to some extent in solving the problem of 
 double stars, and in resolving and mapping the southern 
 nebulas. Nor can we forget the subsequent untiring 
 efforts of Sir Thomas Maclear, who we are proud to 
 hail as one of the trustees of the Library, to render 
 the Cape Observatory in all ways famous, nor doubt 
 that its high reputation will be maintained by his 
 successor, Mr. Stone, trained as he has been under the 
 Astronomer Royal at Greenwich. 
 
 Allow me, in concluding this part of my subject, to 
 remark that, although these annual meetings of sub- 
 scribers to the Library may be made a convenient oppor- 
 tunity for noting the scientific progress of the preceding 
 twelve-month, they are very far from affording the 
 requisite facilities for the interchange of information and 
 comparison of ideas amongst those engaged in studying 
 natural phenomena, or in endeavouring to develop the 
 resources of the country. More frequent opportunities 
 and greater facilities for such an object would often 
 prove extremely useful ; and as a simple and inexpen-
 
 23 
 
 sive organization would suffice for the purpose, I hope 
 it may be devised ere long. 
 
 I must own, indeed, my surprise that no society has 
 yet been formed in Cape Town for the encouragement of 
 literary and scientific pursuits. One of my predecessors, 
 Lieut.-Governor Darling, did, I perceive, some years ago 
 suggest the establishment of a branch of the Royal 
 Society of Arts and Sciences, but, for what reason I know 
 not, the suggestion did not lead to anything being done, 
 As I hear that a Gallery of Art is now projected, the two 
 objects might probably be combined. In these respects 
 our neighbours in Natal are in advance of the Parent 
 Colony, as a Natural History Society has been in 
 existence at D'Urban for the last few years, and 
 exhibitions also frequently take place. 
 
 Cape Town, it is true, can boast, and with good 
 reason, its admirable Public Library, and no less 
 admirable Public Museum. Both are excellent 
 incentives and assistants to study, and leave little 
 to be desired except additional apartments capable 
 of accommodating increased collections. "Were I 
 to offer a hint respecting the former to the Com- 
 mittee of Management, it would be to render it 
 more systematically complete as a Library of Reference, 
 to which students in all sciences might resort. At 
 present, though I have not very carefully examined 
 the catalogue, I could name several works on African 
 Botany and Geology which are wanting. 
 
 I advert to the point from no wish to take part in the 
 controversy as to the circulating branch. My first impres- 
 sion certainly was that such an adjunct was inconsistent 
 with the true intent of a Public ^Library, and calculated 
 to interfere unfairly with private enterprise. The Com- 
 mittee have, however, shown strong grounds in their 
 report why it should remain on its present footing,
 
 24 
 
 There is, no doubt, a good deal in a name, and that of 
 " Circulating Library " calls up visions of Lydia 
 Languish, in her curl papers, receiving a lot of trashy 
 romances from her waiting-woman ; but perhaps if the 
 Committee spoke of their " issue branch " or of the 
 f( lending department," it might make a difference in 
 our feelings. 
 
 Now-a-days, when ex-Prime Ministers disclose 
 their policy in novels, it would of course be out 
 of the question to exclude altogether that class of 
 publications ; and as the Committee boast that during 
 the past year they have only admitted to their shelves 
 75 volumes, equivalent if they were the usual three- 
 deckers to but 25 works of fiction, there does not seem 
 much cause to complain. When one learns, however, 
 that of the books circulated 8,554 were novels, and 
 only 3,044 on subjects of general literature, the con- 
 cession to the " girl of the period " is by no means 
 trifling ; and though she " knows her rights, and, know- 
 ing, dares defend them," I trust the Committee will 
 manfully strive to keep down the proportion in future 
 years as far as possible. 
 
 This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the last topic on my 
 list. The duty I undertook to perform is finished, 
 albeit imperfectly. 
 
 I feel conscious that the opinions expressed at 
 the commencement fell far below the grandeur of 
 my theme ; and that the review which I hazarded in 
 the second part, of what has been accomplished 
 for Literature and Science in this Colony, must 
 have been defective from my want of familiarity with 
 details. 
 
 I have to thank you all the more for the patience 
 with which you have listened to me, and I am 
 emboldened to hope that your kindness will be extended,
 
 25 
 
 under all the circumstances of the case, to an indulgent 
 criticism after you leave this room (loud and continued 
 applause). 
 
 Mr. PORTER, M.L.A., who, on rising, was received 
 with great applause, said that as Chairman of the Com- 
 mittee, it devolved on him to move a vote of thanks to 
 the Governor for the address which he had delivered. 
 It was an old and true saying, that where there was a 
 will there was a way, and His Excellency, though he 
 was greatly occupied, more especially at this time, with 
 public affairs, had acceded to the request of the Com- 
 mittee to deliver an address on that occasion, and had 
 not, as he might have done from pressure of other 
 work, postponed the delivery of an address till another 
 meeting (applause). Instead of putting off the delivery 
 of an address, His Excellency had found time to give 
 them one which must be characterized as profound, 
 learned, and able (applause). It seemed that Sir Henry 
 Barkly intended to do here as he had done in those 
 other colonies which he had so successfully administered, 
 and that His Excellency held it to be among his duties 
 and not the least among them to aid and to support 
 colonial institutions (great applause), and more 
 especially those institutions that influenced for the better 
 the moral and intellectual life of the community 
 (applause). He moved that the thanks of the meeting 
 be given to His Excellency for the address delivered 
 that day, and he called upon thfc meeting to carry it 
 with acclamation (great applause). 
 
 Sir HENRY BARKLY thanked the meeting, and said 
 that what he had done was a simple duty. If it were 
 not a duty he felt himself bound to perform, he should 
 have postponed the address ; but as it was, he felt him- 
 self bound to perform it (applause).
 
 26 
 
 A ballot for a new Committee having been taken, 
 the Scrutineers, Dr. Ebden and Mr. W. L. Blore, 
 declared the following gentlemen duly elected to serve 
 as a Committee of Management for the ensuing 
 year, viz. : 
 
 W. PORTER, Esq. 
 
 REV. DR. CAMERON. 
 
 WM. HIDDINGH (Treasurer). 
 
 S. SOLOMON, Esq. 
 
 PROFESSOR NOBLE. 
 
 DR. DALE, 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLEAR, Kut, 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esqx 
 
 E. J. JERRAM, Esq. 
 
 And as Auditors ' 
 
 J. C. GIE, Esq., and 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq,
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THB 
 
 FORIY-fHIRD AINIVERSARY MEETING 
 
 OF THE BUBSCBTBEBS TO THB 
 
 $*uth gfrkan fn&Hc f ifcrarg, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 18TH MAY, 1872. 
 
 , in 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1872.
 
 Esq., who during his lifetime was a frequent and 
 generous benefactor to the Library. 
 
 The accessions of books during the past year have 
 been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 11 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy ... ... 8 
 
 Science and the Arts ... ... 45 
 
 Novels ,. ... 118 
 
 Belles Lettres ... .... ... 74 
 
 History 17 
 
 Voyages and Travels 28 
 
 Biography ... 16 
 
 Miscellaneous 6 
 
 Books bequeathed by Mr. Bayley 614 
 
 Total 937 Vols. 
 
 Amongst these will be found several valuable pre- 
 sentations from Subscribers as well as others, viz. ( 
 His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, Bishop Colenso, 
 Rev. W. Thompson, Dr. Bleek, C. E. Markham, 
 Esq., of the India House, London, J. L. Peyton, 
 Esq., of Guernsey, Miss Auret, Messrs. C. A. Fair- 
 bridge, S. Solomon, R. Trimen, J. P. E. Faure, J. 
 Noble, and H. M. H. Orpen, as also from the " Royal 
 Society," the "Royal Geographical Society," the 
 "Wesleyan Conference," and the " Cobden Club," 
 to all of whom the best thanks of the subscribers are 
 due. 
 
 From a record kept under the superintendence of 
 the Librarian of the daily attendance of readers and 
 visitors, it appears that from the 12th of June last to 
 the llth of May this'year, inclusive, being a period of 
 284 days on which the Public Library has been open 
 to the public, 19,596 persons visited the Institution, 
 showing an average of 69 a day, the largest number
 
 on any one day being 193, and the lowest 39, this 
 does not include children, nor servants calling at the 
 Library to return and exchange books. 
 
 The issue of books in all departments of literature 
 and science during the past year, that is to say, from 
 the 12th of June, 1871, to the llth of May, 1872, was 
 as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 56 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy 49 
 
 Biography ... ... ... 659 
 
 Science and the Arts 248 
 
 History ' - ... '.' ... 457 
 
 Voyages and Travels 979 
 
 Belles Lettres, Miscellaneous 
 
 Essays, &c 467. ^ 
 
 Novels 6,688 
 
 Total 9,603 Vols. 
 
 From this statement it will be seen that there has 
 been a slight increase in some departments and a fall- 
 ing off in others, although, on the whole, it will bear 
 favourable comparison with that of the previous year. 
 There has been a perceptible decrease in the issue of 
 works of fiction, owing mainly to the limited supply 
 of novels received during 1871. This return does not 
 inelude Reviews and Magazines, of which several 
 thousands have been circulated during the past year. 
 
 The Committee have to record with regret the death 
 of the late Assistant, Mr. Alfred Pappe, who for a 
 period of nine years discharged the duties of that office 
 to the satisfaction of the Committee and the subscri- 
 bers generally. They have also to record the loss the 
 Institution has sustained by the death of the late 
 Joseph Mosenthal, Esq. This gentleman, on the eve 
 of his departure for Europe, some twelve years ago,
 
 presented the Library with a liberal donation of 50, 
 and has ever since continued his subscription of 3 
 per annum towards its support, an example worthy of 
 imitation by others connected with the Colony, but 
 who have left it, or may be about to leave, to take up 
 their residence in Europe. 
 
 The vacancy occasioned by the death of Mr. Pappe, 
 your Committee have conferred on Mr. Robert Alhnan, 
 a young gentleman who acted for the deceased during 
 his illness. 
 
 Sir George Grey's collection of books and manu- 
 scripts in native languages has again received some 
 valuable gifts from the Rev. Dr. Steere, who has 
 presented twelve books in different languages of 
 Eastern Africa (Suaheli, Nika, Yao, and Nyamwezi). 
 Some of these possess almost the value of manuscripts, 
 and one or two of them are believed to be unique. 
 The Rev. C. H. Hahn, Superintendent of Rhenish 
 Missions in Damaraland, has sent eight books in 
 Otyiherero (or Damara), which render our collection 
 in this language complete up to the present date. The 
 illustrated Bible stories in Damara, published by this 
 missionary, deserve particular mention. The Rev. J. 
 W. Appleyard has sent us five publications in Kafir 
 and Sesuto ; and the Bishop of Natal, his " First 
 Steps in Zulu Kafir" (1st and 2nd ed.) and his newly- 
 published translation of the two books of Samuel into 
 Zulu. His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly has pre- 
 sented a splendid copy of an English and Malagasy 
 vocabulary by native officers of the palace, published 
 in 1863, in the Hova dialect; and the two other 
 dialects spoken on the Island of Madagascar (Saka- 
 lava and Betsimisaraka) are represented by two 
 vocabularies (Isle Bourbon 1842, and Paris 1844), 
 given by Lieut. E. F. Jeffreys, R.N. Some texts in 
 the curious Negro-French spoken at the Mauritius have
 
 been copied from a manuscript kindly lent for the 
 purpose by Lady Barkly. Dr. P. Comrie, R.N., has 
 presented four books in West African languages {Bonny > 
 Ibo and Grebo), and also a small publication in the 
 Chimpuan language, spoken on the coast of British 
 Columbia. To the Rev. Wm. Thompson we are 
 indebted for the second volume of the transactions of 
 the London Missionary Society (the first volume 
 having already been given by him). This publication 
 is particularly valuable, as containing an account of 
 native affairs at the beginning of this century. 
 
 As recent accessions to the early or curious printed 
 books, we have received eight volumes in Italian, two 
 in Latin, one in Spanish, and one in French, contain- 
 ing some interesting autographs and bookplates, pre- 
 sented by the Venerable Archdeacon Lloyd. 
 
 In order to supply, to some extent, the want of 
 detailed descriptive catalogues of Sir George Grey's 
 gift (a work which it will take years to complete), 
 it has been thought advisable to prepare at once an 
 accurate inventory of the collection. As the most 
 difficult part of this inventory (as far as No. 825) is 
 already finished, it may reasonably be hoped that, in 
 the course of another year, it will be laid before the 
 public. 
 
 The Bushman literature, which is still in progress 
 of collection, throws an unexpected light upon the 
 mental condition of this people, who have hitherto 
 been regarded as representing one of the lowest stages 
 of humanity. Yet they show themselves to be pos- 
 sessed of mythological conceptions and legendary 
 lore more akin to those of the most civilized nations 
 than anything we can find among the Kafir and Negro 
 races; although the latter have, upon the whole, 
 reached a higher degree of civilization than the 
 Bushmen.
 
 8 
 
 The Treasurer's account of the income and expen- 
 diture during the past year will now be submitted, 
 from which it will appear that an expense has been 
 incurred in relaying the stoep of the building, under- 
 taken partly by your Committee and the Trustees of 
 the "Museum." 
 
 On the motion of Mr. Henry Piers, seconded by 
 Mr. Advocate Buchanan, 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 " That the Report and Treasurer's Account now read 
 be adopted and printed." 
 
 On the motion of C. B. Elliott, Esq., seconded by 
 Dr. P. Chiappini, 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 "That the thanks of the Subscribers be given to the 
 Committee, the Treasurer, and Auditors, for their 
 valuable services during the past year." 
 
 9BQflX dfl* ^^- t 
 
 ai (5SS .i>l i:, 
 ni jten: [ . 
 3& 9ic < 
 
 d* cop? :
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 E. J. STONE, Esq., the Astronomer Royal, then 
 delivered the following Address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 It is not my intention to speak of the great advan- 
 tages conferred upon the residents in Cape Town and 
 its vicinity by the existence of this noble Library. The 
 advantages are manifest: I believe that they are 
 fairly appreciated. I would rather bring before you 
 some subject more immediately within the scope of my 
 own studies. I shall, therefore, upon the present 
 occasion, call your attention to a fragment of astrono- 
 mical history relating to the determination of the 
 Sun's distance. I am afraid that my subject may be 
 found uninteresting ; but your Committee have been 
 indiscreet enough to place me in my present position, 
 and you will have to bear the consequences of their 
 indiscretion. Like Dogberry, I have come primed 
 with tediousness, and, with your kind forbearance, 
 prepared to inflict all my tediousness upon you. 
 
 The method of determining the Sun's distance by 
 observations of a transit of Venus was proposed by the 
 illustrious Halley in 1716. Halley was at that time 
 an old man. In feeling and impressive language he 
 called the attention of those who might succed him 
 to the favourable opportunities which would be 
 afforded by the transits of 1761 and 1769 for a deter- 
 mination of the Sun's distance. The method which
 
 10 
 
 he proposed can easily be understood without entering 
 into technical details. The observers were to be dis- 
 tributed amongst two classes of stations. "At stations 
 of the first-class Venus, when entering upon the Sun's 
 disc would, from the effects of perspective, be thrown 
 back upon the Sun's limb. The contacts at ingress 
 would therefore be made late. When Venus again 
 approached the Sun's limb at egress, it would, from 
 the effects of perspective, be shifted towards the limb, 
 and the contacts thus made early. The durations, or 
 intervals between contacts at ingress and egress, would 
 thus, at the first-class of stations, be shortened from 
 the effects of perspective at both observations. The 
 stations of the second class were to be selected, so 
 that these effects should be reversed. 
 
 The relative distances of the Earth and Venus from 
 the Sun are known from their times of revolution 
 around the Sun. The distances between the different 
 observing stations in miles can be determined. It will, 
 therefore, be easily conceived that it is simply a pure 
 mathematical question, to find what must be the 
 distances in miles of Venus and the Earth from the 
 Sun, in order that a computed difference of durations 
 for any two stations shall be equal to an observed 
 difference. In Halley's time, this method was the 
 only one available for an accurate determination of 
 the Sun's distance. It is independent of any accurate 
 determination of absolute time, and the Sun's disc 
 itself is the common circle of reference. The choice 
 of stations is, however, greatly restricted, by the 
 necessity of satisfying the required conditions ; but 
 in its freedom from systematic errors, Halley's method 
 is still one of the most powerful available. Halley's 
 words were not forgotten. In 1761, observers were 
 sent to selected stations to make the required obser- 
 vations. The weather was not, on the whole.
 
 11 
 
 favourable. The observations only afforded differences 
 of duration of about two minutes, a difference much 
 too small to admit of any accurate determination of 
 the Sun's distance by Halley's method. 
 
 The observers also were perplexed by an appearance 
 arising from irradiation, which was to them quite 
 unexpected, and rendered the observation of the times 
 of contact of the limbs of Venus and the Sun difficult. 
 The nature of the contact is thus clearly described by 
 the Kev. W. Hirst, F.R.S,, who was observing at 
 Madras : 
 
 " Mr. Hirst thinks it necessary to take notice of an 
 odd phenomenon. At the total immersion, the planet, 
 instead of appearing truly circular, resembled more 
 the form of a bergamot pear, or, as Governor Pigot 
 then expressed it, looked like a nine-pin; yet the 
 preceding limb of Venus was extremely well defined. 
 Mr. Hirst suspected this appearance might be owing 
 to their telescopes not being nicely enough set to their 
 focal lengths. Accordingly, he took care to try this 
 several times during the transit, but found it not to 
 be the case ; for though the planet was as black as 
 ink, and the whole body truly circular, just before 
 the beginning of the egress, yet it was no sooner in 
 contact with the Sun's preceding limb than it as- 
 sumed the same figure as before." 
 
 The appearances thus clearly described by Mr. 
 Hirst were seen by several of the principal observers. 
 The transit of 1761 was valuable in preparing the 
 observers for the approaching transit of 1769; but it 
 did not, in itself, lead to any accurate determination 
 of the Sun's distance. 
 
 The arrangements for observing the transit of 1769 
 were of the most elaborate description. The British, 
 Government sent one expedition with two skilled 
 observers to the Hudson's Bay territory. Another
 
 12 
 
 under the command of that hero of our boyhood, 
 Capt. Cook, to St. George's Island in the Southern 
 Ocean. The French dispatched an expedition to St. 
 Joseph on the western coast of America. To this 
 station a Spanish expedition was also sent. The 
 Russians occupied Kola, in Lapland, and many other 
 stations. The Danish Government sent an observing 
 party, under the direction of Father Hell, to Ward- 
 hus, also in Lapland. The observers were, on the 
 whole, favoured with fine weather, and at least ten 
 durations were observed at five different stations. 
 The differences between the observed durations at 
 Wardhus and Kola in Lapland and at St. George's 
 Island in the Southern Ocean amounted to no less 
 than 23m. 
 
 The results thus obtained were discussed by several 
 astronomers, and with much minuteness by the late 
 Professor Encke. The value of the Sun's distance 
 resulting from these discussions was about ninety-five 
 millions of miles. The result was received with the 
 greatest confidence. In the opinion of one of the 
 greatest of our living astronomers, Encke's determina- 
 tion of the Sun's distance could not be in error 
 500,000 miles. The whole of the durations observed 
 in 1769 were not, however, fairly represented by 
 Encke's solution. The Wardhus observations per- 
 sistently stood out, and were, apparently, irrecon- 
 cilable with the other observed durations. The Kola 
 observation was, also, not fairly represented. Hell's 
 observations were not, however, published until nearly 
 two years after the transit. It was found that there 
 were certain alterations or corrections in his journal. 
 It was, therefore, generally assumed and believed that 
 the entries in Hell's Journal were forgeries, and the 
 memory of Father Hell became nailed, as a weasel, 
 to the barn's-door of public opinion, as a warning to
 
 13 
 
 all whom it might concern. It will probably render 
 clearer what follows if I point out the power of a transit 
 of Venus, observed like that of 1769, fora determina- 
 tion of the Sun's distance. There were ten complete 
 durations observed at five different stations. The value 
 of the Sun's distance obtained by Encke was about 
 95,000,000 miles. To pass from this value to one of 
 about 9 1,700,000 miles would be equivalent to supposing 
 that the mean observed duration at Wardhus was too 
 small by about 24 sees. The observers agreed within 
 5s. The Kola observation would have to be assumed 
 too small by 25s. the Hudson's Bay observation too 
 small by 8s. The observers agreed within Is. The 
 mean of the three observed durations at St. Joseph 
 would have to be assumed too large by 10s., and the 
 St. George's Island mean duration too large by more 
 than 27s. I need hardly say that such discordances 
 as mere errors of observation would be quite impos- 
 sible. It would also be incredible that all the 
 Northern observers should have made the durations 
 too small and all the Southern observers too large. 
 Yet if Encke's solution had ever fairly represented 
 the observed durations of 1769, we could not assume 
 91,700,000 miles, or any such quantity, to be the true 
 distance of the Sun, without admitting the existence 
 of the errors to which I have called your attention. 
 
 These considerations will explain the tenacity with 
 which astronomers adhered to Encke's value. The 
 data of astronomy are not, however, isolated facts. 
 Their acceptance carries with it certain necessary con- 
 sequences. The consequences which result from an 
 acceptance of a value of the Sun's distance are many 
 and important. If we swing a pendulum at different 
 parts of the Earth's surface, and note the times of its 
 oscillation, we can determine the figure of the earth. 
 If we deduce the length of the equivalent simple
 
 14 
 
 seconds pendulum from these experiments we can 
 express the constant of gravitation or mass of the 
 earth by its dynamical effects in known units of time 
 and space, as a second and a foot. The time of revo- 
 lution of the Earth around the Sun is accurately 
 known, and can be expressed in seconds. If we knew 
 the distance of the Sun in miles we could also 
 express the constant of gravitation or mass of the 
 Sun by its dynamical effects in terms of a second 
 and a foot. We should thus obtain the relation 
 between the masses of the Earth and of the 
 Sun. The determination of the Sun's distance by 
 Encke was received with undoubting confidence 
 by astronomers, and was therefore naturally em- 
 ployed in obtaining the relation between the masses 
 of the Earth and of the Sun. The result thus ob- 
 tained was carried into the whole of our astronomical 
 work. It is probably known to most of you that if 
 there were only two particles, or indefinitely small 
 bodies, in existence then each would, subject to the 
 law of universal gravitation, describe around the 
 other fixed conic sections, and that, under certain 
 circumstances of projection, these conies would be 
 ovals, called ellipses. If, instead of particles we had 
 spherical bodies, with their matter either uniform or 
 symmetrically arranged around their centres, then 
 the same law would be true. Or even if the sym- 
 metrical distribution did not hold good, if the distance 
 between the bodies was very great in proportion 
 to their dimensions, the law would still be true to 
 a very high degree of approximation. The neces- 
 sary conditions are sufficiently satisfied amongst the 
 planetary bodies, and if we had only one planet and 
 the Sun, that planet would describe a fixed ellipse 
 around the Sun as a focus. 
 
 The presence of the other planetary bodies, how-
 
 15 
 
 ever, disturbs the simple elliptic motion. It i& one 
 of the most important and laborious employments of 
 astronomers to calculate for each planet the correc- 
 tions to the elliptic elements which result from the 
 disturbing action of the other planets. 
 
 Le Verrier, an eminent French astronomer, has 
 been engaged for many years in such calculations. 
 Amongst other works he has revised the Solar theory, 
 and constructed tables to represent the Sun's position 
 as seen from the Earth at any required time for many 
 hundreds of years. The relative elliptic motion of the 
 Earth and Sun is disturbed considerably by the Moon. 
 One principal effect of this disturbance is to introduce 
 a correction into the expression for the longitude 
 called the parallactic inequality. Le Verrier, deter- 
 mined the value of the co-efficient with great care from 
 observations, chiefly Greenwich observations, extend- 
 ing over more than fifty years. The theoretical 
 expression of the co-efficient depends upon the ratio of 
 the distances of the Sun and Moon, and upon that 
 of the masses of the Moon and Earth. The Moon's 
 distance is well known. The ratio of the masses 
 of the Moon and Earth has been determined with 
 great care. Le Verrier determined what must be 
 the assumed distance of the Sun, in order that 
 the value of the co-efficient of the inequality deter- 
 mined from theory should agree with that from 
 observation. He found that the necessary agreement 
 could not be obtained unless the Sun's distance was 
 assumed to be about 91,700,000 miles, instead of the 
 accepted value of about 95,000,000 miles. This method 
 of determining the Sun's distance is not, however, 
 one of much accuracy. The value deduced from it 
 depends almost entirely upon the accepted value of 
 the ratio of the mass of the Earth to that of the Moon. 
 In fact, if we assume this ratio to be 78^, we should 
 find 95,000,000, whilst if we assume it to be 81, we
 
 16 
 
 should find 91,700,000 miles for the Sun's distance. 
 The value of the ratio of these masses is obtained by 
 astronomers from a delicate piece of theory, the pre- 
 cession and nutation of the Earth's axis, with values 
 of the constants of precession and nutation deduced 
 from observations. Still, with the most accurate 
 value of the ratio of these masses which appears avail- 
 able, we find here one result of theory apparently 
 irreconcilable with observation, unless we are prepared 
 to accept for the Sun's distance a value differing by 
 more than 3,000,000 miles from the accepted value. 
 There is in the theory of the Moon's motion around 
 the Earth an inequality arising from the disturbing 
 action of the Sun of a similar form to that in the 
 Earth's motion. Professor Hansen, when constructing 
 his Lunar Tables, determined the numerical value of 
 this co-efficient with great care. In 1854 he intimated 
 to Mr. Airy that the value thus obtained was greater 
 than that resulting from his calculations. He stated 
 that the Greenwich observation gave this large result, 
 and that it was confirmed by the Pulkova observa- 
 tions, and that he could not therefore change it. 
 Although Professor Hansen thus clearly accepts the 
 increased value of this parallactic inequality for the 
 construction of his tables, the value of the Sun's distance 
 which would be required to render his theoreti- 
 cal value identical with the observed values does 
 not appear to have been published before 1863. t The 
 first value, published by Professor Hansen, was 
 not quite correct. The true value was 91,700,000 
 miles. 
 
 The weak point in this method is the assumption of 
 the correction for semi-diameter, for the inequality 
 changes sign with the limb observed, and nearly the 
 whole of any error in semi-diameter is carried into the 
 deduced values of the co-efficient of the parallactic 
 inequality. .
 
 17 
 
 Subsequently, more than 2,000 Greenwich obser- 
 vations of the Moon, made about the time of the 
 greatest values of the inequality, were discussed for a 
 determination of the co-efficient of this inequality. 
 
 The result did not differ materially from Hansen's 
 result, and gave a value of about 92,000,000 miles* 
 for the Sun's distance. We have here a second 
 method of considerable power, refusing to be recon- 
 ciled with observation with the accepted value of 
 the Sun's distance, and pointing to a value about 
 91,700,000 miles. 
 
 I have already called your attention to the fact that 
 if we had only a single planet and the Sun, the planet 
 would describe around the Sun a fixed ellipse. The 
 ellipse which Venus would thus describe would not be 
 in the same . plane as the ellipse described by the 
 Earth. The points in which Venus would pass 
 , through the plane of the Earth's motion are called 
 the Nodes, and the line joining them is the line of 
 Nodes of the orbit of Venus. On account of the 
 existence of the other planets, this line of Nodes is in 
 motion. Its motion is considerably influenced by the 
 Earth, which is at times, comparatively speaking, 
 near to Venus. Le Verrier calculated the motion of 
 this line of Nodes. His result did not agree with 
 observation. He found, however, that in one way, 
 and apparently only in one way, could the required 
 agreement be obtained. If the Earth's mass assumed 
 in his investigations could be increased by a tenth 
 part, then the necessary agreement could be obtained. 
 Le Verrier remarks upon this, that the required in- 
 crease to the Earth's mass would not be admissible 
 unless we were prepared to accept for the Sun's dis- 
 tance a value less by more than 3,000,000 miles than 
 the accepted value. We have here a third indication 
 of error in the assumed distance of the Sun; 
 c
 
 18 
 
 The planet whose orbit falls next beyond that of 
 the Earth is Mars. On account of the proximity at 
 times of Mars to the Earth, the elements of the ellip- 
 tic orbit of Mars are greatly affected by the Earth's 
 disturbing action. 
 
 Le Verrier found that the motion of the apsidal line, 
 or longest line which can be drawn in the elliptic 
 orbit of Mars, could not be made to agree with obser- 
 vation unless he attributed to the Earth's mass a value 
 greater by one-tenth part than that made use of in his 
 calculations. He again remarks that the required 
 augmentation of the Earth's mass would not be admis^ 
 sible unless the accepted value of the Sun's distance 
 was in error by more than three millions of miles. 
 We have here a fourth indication of an error in the 
 assumed distance of the Sun. 
 
 I have no doubt but that most of you have experi- 
 enced a rather disagreeable fact that when there is a 
 steady down-pour, and you are hurrying through the 
 rain, it will persistently beat in your face. There is 
 an apparent displacement of stars towards the line 
 of the Earth's motion which arises from a similar 
 cause. The co-efficient of this displacement, aberra* 
 tion, has been determined with great care by astrono- 
 mers. The theoretical value depends upon the ratio 
 of the velocity of the Earth to that of light. Fou- 
 cault, a late distinguished French savant, determined 
 the velocity of light in miles per second. It was found 
 that his velocity of light could not be made to give 
 the true value of the coefficient of aberration unless 
 it was assumed that the Earth's distance was about 
 92,000,000 miles. We have here a fifth method indi- 
 cating an error of 3,000,000 miles in the accepted 
 value of the Sun's distance. 
 
 The relative distances of the different planets 
 from the Sun can be determined from their times of
 
 ^volution. If, therefore, we can find the distance in; 
 miles of any one planet, we can deduce the distances 
 in miles of the rest. The distances of Mars from the 
 Sun vary considerably. Should the Earth fall be- 
 tween the Sun and Mars when Mars is at or near its 
 jK>int of least distance from the Sun, there will be a 
 very considerable shift between the positions in which 
 Mars will be seen from the different parts of the 
 Earth's surface. It will then be possible to determine 
 the distance of Mars with considerable accuracy by 
 corresponding observations made at our northern and 
 southern observatories. Favourable oppositions of 
 Mars occurred in 1860 and 1862. The attention of 
 the observers in the north was called off, in 1860 by 
 the total solar eclipse of the year. The necessary 
 observations were made in 1862, the Greenwich, 
 Pulkova, Washington, and other observatories in the 
 north, our own Cape observatory and the Melbourne 
 observatory in the south, taking prominent parts in the 
 work. The observations were carefully discussed, and 
 the result gave about 91,700,000 miles for the Sun's 
 distance. 
 
 It will have been seen that we have no less than six 
 different methods of more or less power, each refusing 
 to be reconciled with observation, unless we are pre- 
 pared to accept for the true distance of the Sun from 
 the Earth a quantity differing by more than three 
 millions of miles from that which had been deduced 
 from the transit of Venus in 1769, and which had re- 
 ceived the confidence of all our leading astronomers . 
 Not one of the six methods to which attention has 
 been called can be considered as free from its own 
 inherent difficulties and danger of systematic errors. 
 T^he last is probably the most free from such sources 
 of error, if the observations were sufficiently multi- 
 plied, and the observers ^changed. But although not
 
 2Q 
 
 one of these methods can be considered as entitled to 
 much authority in opposition to the value deduced 
 from the transit of 1769, the accumulated weight of 
 all six is very great. Astronomers, therefore, after 
 1863, spoke with less confidence respecting the accu- 
 racy of Encke's value, and some adopted, although 
 with many misgivings, a value of about 91,700,000 
 miles. I have already shown the grounds upon 
 which astronomers had such confidence in the old 
 determination. 
 
 A re-discussion of the observations made in 1769 
 appeared desirable. It was hardly probable that the 
 cause of the discrepancy could be discovered and re- 
 moved ; but it was thought that some light might be 
 thrown upon the possible causes of errors in the obser- 
 vations or discussions of such transits, and that we 
 might thus be guarded against similar sources of error 
 in the approaching transits of 1874 and 1882, to which 
 astronomers were looking forward for a solution of 
 their difficulties. 
 
 Such an examination was undertaken. With re- 
 spect to the Ingress observations, the observers at 
 Hudson's Bay and St. Joseph have stated in the 
 clearest terms that they saw the bergamot pear-shape 
 appearance described by Hirst in 1761. That, instead 
 of putting down in their observing-books the time at 
 which the limbs of Venus and the Sun appeared in 
 contact, they waited until no connection whatever ap- 
 peared between Venus and the Sun's limb. 
 
 The observers at St. George's Island have stated, 
 in terms of equal clearness, that there did exist a 
 connection after the contact to which their recorded 
 times referred. Similar remarks apply to the Egress 
 observations. It is clear that if the observers at St. 
 George's Island had waited at Ingress until they saw 
 no connection between the limbs, they would have
 
 21 
 
 given us a later recorded time of observation. In 
 like manner, had they given the time corresponding 
 to the first appearance of any connection, instead of 
 waiting until the limbs were in contact, they would 
 have give us at Egress an earlier time than that re- 
 corded in their journals. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the observed durations 
 at St. George's Island are not comparable with those at 
 the other stations until an allowance is made for the 
 differences between the "contacts" and "last" and 
 " first appearances of any connection." No such cor- 
 rection had -been allowed by astronomers, but the 
 observations had been considered as strictly com- 
 parable. 
 
 The Wardhus forgeries were next examined. The 
 alterations in Hell's Journal did not appear important. 
 In all cases where the original and the re-written 
 numbers could be seen, they were found to be identical. 
 There are unaltered numbers enough to afford one 
 duration, and thus to carry the whole argument. The 
 fresh entries were found one under another in order, 
 the original ones being straggling. There were some 
 additional words of explanation, such as "dubius" and 
 " certus" affixed to two diffiernt observations of " con- 
 tactus." These words appeared required for clearness. 
 
 Another point could not fail to strike an observer. 
 The observations recorded were not such as an ob- 
 server of skill, unacquainted with the difficulties 
 arising from irradiation phenomena, would expect to 
 make. Had the observations been forgeries, they 
 might have been expected to have agreed better 
 amongst themselves. There is also another point 
 worthy of notice. Borgrewing's observation did not 
 agree with those of the other observers. Hell thought 
 the observation in error, but he gives the result. These 
 small points would rather impress one in favour of
 
 the honesty of Hell in this matter. When an ex-, 
 amination was made of the use which had been made 
 of the observations, it was found that no attention 
 had been paid to a clear distinction drawn by the 
 observers between the observations of the contacts 
 and the "first appearances of any connection" be- 
 tween the limits of Venus and the Sun. 
 
 At Ingress we have a " contactus dubius " and a 
 " contactus certus." At Egress we have a " Videtur 
 aliqua gutta nigra intra limbum Solis et Veneris ante 
 contactum formari," and afterwards a " contactus 
 dubius " and a " contactus certus." In Encke's dis- 
 cussion, the " contactus certus," at Ingress had been 
 taken to mean the same thing as " videtur aliqua gutta 
 nigra," &c., in spite of the subsequent observation at 
 Egress of a "contactus certus." This was clearly 
 not correct. The formation of the black drop ob- 
 served at Egress is clearly something different from 
 and preceding the contacts. The formation of the 
 black drop is the same phase as that observed at 
 Hudson's Bay, viz., the " first appearances of any 
 connection." The contacts are similar phases to those 
 observed at St. George's Island. When these matters 
 were put right, the results were subjected to the 
 proper mathematical treatment. The whole of the 
 durations were found to be perfectly represented 
 within errors at the five stations of less than 2 sees. 
 The deduced value of the difference in time between 
 an observed first or last appearance of any connection 
 and a contact agreed with observation. But the 
 value of the Sun's distance which did reconcile the 
 whole of the durations was no longer ninety-five mil- 
 lions of miles. It was 91,700,000 miles, I think, 
 after this, we may unnail the memory of Father Hell 
 from the barn's-door of public opinion and give it 
 decent burial, with some feeling of regret. I have
 
 already pointed out how impassable a barrier the teri 
 durations collected in 1769 place between such values 
 as 95,000,000 and 92,000,000 of miles for the Sun's 
 distance. The whole of the durations have now for 
 the first time been reconciled with one another. The 
 Sun's distance which does so reconcile them is 
 91,700,000 miles. It is impossible to repass from 
 that value to 95,000,000 of miles, without supposing the 
 observers in 1769 made the errors, in reversed direc- 
 tions, to which I have already called your attention. 
 Such errors are quite impossible. The mean distance 
 of the Sun from the Earth must now be considered as 
 known within the limits of the requirements of our 
 present astronomy. That such is the case is shown 
 by the near coincidence of the results obtained by the 
 methods which I have pointed out to you methods 
 ' especially selected to bring forward and exhibit any 
 existing error in the Sun's assumed distance. Yet, 
 astronomers are now preparing to observe the ap- 
 proaching transit of 1874. The British Government 
 has granted no less than 15,500 for the instrumental 
 equipment and other expenses of the British expeditions. 
 It is well known that other expeditions are being 
 organized by the Austrian, German, and Russian 
 Governments, and the notes of preparation are 
 sounding far and wide. And why ? 
 
 Although our present requirements may be satis- 
 fied, astronomy is a science of continuous approxima- 
 tion. More accurate results will be called for by our 
 successors, and the data for the requisite determina- 
 tions must be collected whenever favourable oppor- 
 tunities offer. Transits of Venus but rarely occur, 
 and after those of 1874 and 1882, astronomers will 
 have to wait more than a hundred years for a third. 
 There is also another reason why astronomers are 
 anxious to observe the approaching transit of 1874.
 
 It will be a severe test of the accuracy of the present 
 accepted value. And the confidence with which astro- 
 niers speak upon subjects within the range of their 
 science arises from their knowledge that there are no 
 tests to which their results can be subjected to which 
 they have not been subjected, and have satisfied. 
 
 The history of the determination of the Sun's dis- 
 tance which I have attempted to bring before you 
 appears to me a strong proof of the high state of 
 development of our present astronomical knowledge. 
 An error, which has arisen from no imperfection in 
 theory, has been made in the determination of the 
 Sun's distance by a method of such power that astro- 
 nomers were constrained to accept the result with 
 confidence. The value of the Sun's distance, thus 
 accepted, has been employed in connecting our Earth's 
 mass with that of the Sun. Ths logic has been so per- . 
 feet that the erroneous assumption has led in every 
 case to erroneous conclusions ; but the astronomical 
 methods have been sufficiently perfected not only to 
 reject erroneous data, but to indicate what the true 
 results should be. Finally, it has been shown that 
 the transit of 1769 can give no other result than that 
 indicated by the other methods. The error has been 
 traced to its sources. A want of confidence in the 
 honesty of the observers, arising from difficulties 
 created by a neglect of the effects of irradiation of, and 
 the consequent necessity of close attention to and 
 discrimination between the phenomena to which the 
 observers state their observations refer. 
 
 I am afraid that I have well redeemed my promise 
 of being tedious ; but I hope that the contemplation 
 of the conscientious care with which the results of 
 science are tested and weeded from error may allay 
 some fears which appear to be rising to the surface of 
 public opinion fears which may do much harm and'
 
 can do no good. Two truths cannot be antagonistic. 
 The husks will be winnowed from the grain by an 
 increasing experience. 
 
 Slowly, and by the accumulated labour of innumer- 
 able generations of men, astronomy has reached its 
 present proportions, the noblest monument of the 
 commanding powers of the human mind in grasping 
 the laws of nature. Placed by an all-wise Creator 
 amid such conditions of life that an ever-broadening 
 knowledge of nature is an ever-increasing necessity 
 of his happiness and existence, man must learn to 
 convert to his uses the teeming bounties of his won- 
 drous Mother Earth. Magnificent as have been 
 achievements of the past, they appear almost dwarfed 
 in proportion to the visions now arising before us. 
 The arbitrary boundaries of the sciences are being 
 washed away, and knowledge is sweeping on in broader 
 channels. Splendid generalizations have bound to- 
 gether whole sciences. And views almost bewildering 
 to our half perceptions, from their magnitude, are 
 opening upon us on every side. 
 
 " These are but broken lights of Thee, 
 And thou, Lord, art more than they." 
 
 Bold, over bold perhaps, might that man yet be 
 deemed who, glowing from a participation in the 
 glorious struggle in progress around him, should dare 
 to forecast the future and to predict that man might yet 
 rise from a knowledge of Nature to that of Nature's 
 God ; but bolder far would he be who should deny its 
 possibility ; and all attempts to stem that onward pro- 
 gress of natural knowledge which the Great Father 
 of all has made a necessity of man's existence must be 
 as futile as they would be presumptuous. 
 
 The thanks of the meeting were voted to the Chair- 
 man for his address, and the meeting separated.
 
 26 
 
 A ballot for a new Committee having been taken, 
 the scrutineer, Mr. Advocate Buchanan, declared the 
 following gentlemen duly elected to serve as a Com- 
 mittee of Management for the ensuing year : 
 
 WM. PORTER, Esq., 
 
 REV. DR. CAMERON, 
 
 WM. HIDDINGH, Esq. (Treasurer), 
 
 S. SOLOMON, Esq., 
 
 PROFESSOR NOBLE, 
 
 DR. DALE, 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLEAR, Knt., 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esq. 
 
 DAVID TENNANT, Esq., 
 
 And as Auditors: 
 
 J. C. GIE, Esq., and 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FORTY-FOURTH AMIVERSARYMEETIIG 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 gxwth African |Mtc fiharg, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD. HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE I?TH MAY, 1873. 
 
 xnbleg, P.^., in 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1873.
 
 W. PORTER, ESQ. 
 
 REV. DR CAMERON. 
 
 W. KIDDING H, ESQ. (Treas.) 
 
 S. SOLOMON, ESQ. 
 
 PROFJESSOII NOBLE. 
 
 J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 L. DALE, ESQ , LL.D. 
 
 SIR THOMAS MACLEAR.KNT. 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 
 ESQ. 
 D. TENNANT, ESQ. 
 
 | JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 
 anb 
 
 F. M ASKEW, ESQ.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee, in presenting the Forty-fourth 
 Annual Report of the South African Public Library, 
 have much satisfaction in stating that the past year 
 has to the Institution been in several respects more 
 satisfactory than the previous one. The amount of 
 subscriptions shows a considerable advance, and 
 though the Committee have to regret the loss, by 
 death and departure from the Colony, of several who 
 had previously been warm supporters of the Institu- 
 tion, the number of new subscribers who have joined 
 during the year has more than compensated for this 
 loss. 
 
 During the year the Royal Academy of Science, 
 Munich, in reply to an application made on behalf of 
 the Public Library by Dr. Bleek, was pleased to 
 place the Library on their list of Institutions to 
 receive a presentation copy of their transactions, and 
 they have kindly forwarded the following publications, 
 viz.: The Transactions of the Academy from 1861-72, 
 in 86 parts ; Treatises of the Philosophical-Philologi- 
 cal Classes from 1835-70, in 33 parts ; Treatises of 
 the Mathematical and Natural History Classes from 
 1832-70, in 28 parts ; and the Treatises of the His- 
 torical Class, in 11 vols. quarto. 
 
 A 2
 
 The additions of books to the various branches of 
 literature and science have been quite equal to those 
 of the last year. Besides the regular monthly supply 
 of books, the Library is furnished with nine of the 
 principal reviews (English, French, and American), 
 12 scientific journals, 2 religious magazines, as well 
 as 21 monthly periodicals of various sorts. 
 
 The Committee have had under consideration the 
 desirability of adding to the Library treasures yearly 
 such works as are required to fill up gaps in the 
 different departments both of literature and science, 
 and with that object they have ordered a collection of 
 standard works, which they expect will arrive in about 
 two months, and which they trust will give satisfac- 
 tion to the subscribers. 
 
 The following is a list of accessions by purchase 
 and presentation during the year: 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 8 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy 9 
 
 Science and the Arts 63 
 
 Novels 73 
 
 Belles Lettres 26 
 
 History 22 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 21 
 
 Biography... ... ... ... 21 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ... 6 
 
 Total 251 Vols. 
 
 Amongst these will be found works which have 
 been presented by Mrs. Henry, His Honour Richard 
 Southey, Rev. William Thompson, Messrs. Henry 
 Willis, C. Piazzi Smyth, F.R.S., C. J. Stone, F.R.S., 
 J. B. Currey, C. D. Bell, and Captain J. Smith.
 
 The attendance of readers and visitors to the Public 
 Library during the year has been satisfactory. From 
 a record kept under the superintendence of the 
 Librarian it will be seen that the Institution still 
 maintains its place in public estimation, the number 
 of visitors this year exceeding that of the previous 
 year by more than one thousand. Twenty-one thousand 
 visitors have availed themselves of the privilege dur- 
 ing the time that the Library has been open to the 
 public, that is from the 7th of June last to the 7th of 
 May, being 280 days, showing an average of seventy- 
 five a day, the largest number being one hundred and 
 twenty-three, and the lowest forty-two. 
 
 The issue of books in all departments of literature 
 and science during the same period has been as 
 follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... 52 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy 49 
 
 Biography ... ... ... 618 
 
 Science and the Arts 248 
 
 History ... ... ... ... 457 
 
 Voyages and Travels 863 
 
 Belles Lettres, Miscellaneous 
 
 Essays 505 
 
 Works of Fiction and Amusement 7006 
 
 As compared with the issue of books during the, 
 previous year, this statement will show that there has 
 been a slight decrease in some departments, and a corres- 
 ponding increase in others ; but, taken as a whole, the 
 Committee think it may be regarded as satisfactory. 
 Besides the issue of books there has been a large cir- 
 culation of reviews and magazines, the number given 
 out being upwards of 6,000.
 
 Among the contributions to the collection of the 
 literature of the native languages in the Grey Library 
 are three books in Nama Hottentot, presented by 
 their translator, the Rev. J. G. Kronlein, superinten- 
 dent of Rhenish Missions in Great Namaqualand, 
 viz., a translation of the Psalms, Church Services, 
 and Hymns. Ten Kafir books have been given, in- 
 cluding the Rev. W. J. Davis's Kafir Grammar, and 
 his Kafir-English Dictionary. Of the other Kafir 
 books six were sent by the Rev. J. W. Appleyard. 
 The Rev. H. Callaway, M.D., has sent his translation 
 of the Prophets into Zulu. In the Northern Sesuto 
 dialect of the Bapeli, five books published by the 
 Berlin Missionary Society, were given by the Rev. 
 A. Nachtegall, and four Serolong (Setshuana) publi- 
 cations of the Church of England Missionaries at 
 Thaba 'Nchu were also received from them. The 
 Rev. Dr. R. M^offat has presented his translation of 
 the Bible into Setshuana, now first published in one 
 volume. The Rev. Dr. Steere has sent from the 
 Central African Mission Press at Zanzibar three 
 books in the Zanzibar dialect of Swaheli (a spelling- 
 book, a book of arithmetic, and a translation of 
 ^Esop's Fables). Four new Mpongue books were 
 collected at the Gaboon by Lieut. E. F. Jeffreys, 
 R.N. A few books (two in Kafir, one in Sesuto, one 
 In Mpongue and three in Dualla) were transferred by 
 Dr. Bleek from his own library to the Grey Library, 
 in order to render this unrivalled collection of books in 
 South African languages more complete. 
 
 The preparation of an accurate inventory of Sir 
 George Grey's gift has been diligently proceeded 
 with, and more than three thousand two hundred 
 entries have now been made. But the hope enter-
 
 tained last year that by this time the inventory in a 
 complete form could have been laid before the public 
 has proved too sanguine. This is mainly due to the 
 fact that the mass of small books (pamphlets and 
 manuscripts, each of which required a separate entry) 
 was far greater than could be inferred from the space 
 which they occupied. The books and manuscripts in 
 or referring to South African languages alone were 
 found to amount to nearly one thousand. Besides 
 these South African books, the entries already made 
 include the whole of the old manuscripts (nearly six 
 hundred entries) early continental printed books 
 (about three hundred entries), the plate works, books 
 in the languages of America, India, &c., works on 
 Natural History and Travels, Bibliographical Aids, 
 General Literature, Historical Works, and a portion 
 of the Colonial Literature. A good part of the latter 
 (consisting mainly of books printed in Australia, New 
 Zealand, and South Africa), remains still to be 
 entered ; besides the manuscripts and printed books 
 in, or referring to, the Australian, Polynesian, and 
 North African languages, and also the early English 
 printed books. 
 
 The unfinished portion of the inventory will be 
 comparatively easy work, as, with the exception of the 
 colonial literature, and such of the North African 
 books as are of later date than 1858, the books and 
 manuscripts now to be briefly entered are minutely 
 described in the catalogues already published. 
 
 On the motion of R. Trimen, Esq., seconded by 
 Hugh Lynar, Esq.,
 
 8 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 " That the Report and Treasurer's Account now 
 read be adopted and printed." 
 
 On the motion of J. Gill, Esq., seconded by the 
 Rev. T. E. Fuller, 
 
 It was resolved, 
 
 " That the thanks of the Subscribers be given to 
 the Committee, the Treasurer, and Auditors, for their 
 valuable services during the year."
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 The Rev. F. W. BINDLEY, M.A., then delivered 
 the following Address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The room in which we are assembled is, I am 
 informed, the finest in this Province, if not in the 
 Colony. It is devoted to literature. Its walls are 
 stored with the thoughts, the discoveries, the specula- 
 tions, and the yearnings of some of the very flower of 
 mankind. Shelf above shelf, as in an Egyptian cave, 
 " is the precious life-blood of master spirits embalmed 
 and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond a life." 
 Here the noisy world of action is for a time cut off 
 from us, though by a glass screen. Here for a time 
 we may sit aud calmly ponder with the mighty dead, 
 or, like Milton's hero, if we please, ascend a hill from 
 whose top 
 
 " The hemisphere of Earth in clearest ken, 
 Stretched out to amplest reach of prospect lies," 
 
 in all its varied fields of literature, philosophy, science, 
 art, and so forth. You remember that Michael 
 
 " Then purged with euphrasie and rue 
 Adam's visual nerve, for ho had much to see." 
 
 That we may not suffer any intellectual bewilderment 
 fr om so ample a prospect, and know whither to direct 
 our glances this morning, let us at once adopt a similar
 
 10 
 
 corrective process, and wave thrice before our eyes the 
 Cape University Bill. Anointed as it were with this, 
 we view the world in general from a distinct point of 
 view. We feel with elation of mind that we are at 
 last proposing to emerge with some Mat into the 
 intellectual world, and add ourselves to the number of 
 august communities who dignify the human name by 
 the addition thereto of mysterious letters, who confer 
 degrees. We are rightly somewhat proudly conscious 
 to ourselves that we have earned a claim to do this by 
 an amount of unobtrusive, useful, determined pre- 
 liminary work, which will compare more than favour- 
 ably with that of other colonies. We did not first 
 resolve upon all the pompousness of conferring 
 degrees, and afterwards go hunting about for candi- 
 dates worthy of them and means of making them so. 
 Plenty of lads and young men have shown themselves 
 anxious to attain the desirable intellectual standards, 
 and have attained them in spite of all the disadvan- 
 tages of our climate, our poverty, and means of loco- 
 motion. They have been modestly content with a 
 certificate, valuable to themselves and friends, but 
 making no claim upon the attention of the outside 
 world by adding anything to their names. They have 
 achieved the reality without the title. We feel, then, 
 that we have earned our claim to this step in advance, 
 and with quiet complacency may turn our eyes to the 
 rest of the world, and regard with interest what has 
 been done, or is doing, of like kind elsewhere. We 
 feel adopted into the supernal and empyrean society 
 of Universities, and, like a freshman at Oxford or 
 Cambridge adorned with his new gown, proceed to take 
 our walks abroad to inspect all the old halls and 
 colleges that were there before we came, but in which
 
 11 
 
 we now feel that we have a property and an interest. 
 Perhaps our first emotion in emerging into this new 
 world is one of utter astonishment, not so much at the 
 age of some of our sister universities as their vast 
 number, and spread all over Europe, North America, 
 Australia, and New Zealand. England has four, 
 Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Durham ; Scotland 
 four, St. Andrew's, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edin- 
 burgh ; Ireland two, Trinity College, Dublin, and 
 the Queen's University. France, until the Revolu- 
 tion, had twenty-three, the most celebrated of Avhich was 
 the once world-renowned University of Paris, now all 
 rolled into the University of France. Spain possesses 
 eight, amongst which Salamanca, founded in 1240, still 
 holds its own. Fifteen universities are dotted about 
 Italy, including the once eminent Bologna. In 
 Greece, the mother of literature and art, philosophy 
 and science, the descendants of ^Eschylus and Phidias, 
 Plato and Aristotle, in 1837 gathered themselves at 
 Athens into a university to the number of over 500. 
 Austria possesses eight, with some 6,000 students. 
 At least seventeen concentrate, develop, and dis- 
 perse the mighty intellect of now United Germany ; 
 from very richness of material they warn us to hurry 
 on. Nine adorn the plains of Holland and Belgium. 
 Little Denmark has two, Sweden and Norway three, 
 Russia seven, with 1,700 students at Moscow alone. 
 Nor must Switzerland be omitted, which has added 
 two this century to her ancient Basle ; while Portugal 
 still maintains the 13th century foundation of 
 Coimbra. Even the Ionian Islands deemed that a 
 trade in currants and Greek wine was not all that was 
 necessary for the life or" man, and started a university 
 in 1824, and have got together 300 students at Corfu.
 
 12 
 
 Counting the University of France as one, the 270 
 millions of Europeans possessed twelve years ago 
 ninety-five universities which conferred degrees, and 
 of which statistics were obtainable. Of these, thirteen 
 viz., Bologna and Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, 
 Padua, Salamanca, Naples, two others in Italy, and, 
 I believe, three more in France, and Coimbra, in 
 Portugal date from varying times before the year 
 1300, to draw a broad mark between them and others. 
 Again, of the rest, exclusive of four French universi- 
 ties, eleven date between 1300 and 1400; twenty, 
 including St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, 
 between 1400 and 1500 ; twelve, including Edinburgh, 
 between 1500 and 1600; eleven between 1600 and 
 1700, including Dublin ; seven between 1700 and 1800; 
 sixteen are to the credit of the nineteenth century on 
 the Continent alone, while England has established 
 two and Ireland one. And now it is time to cross the 
 Atlantic to that vast new world where men, casting off 
 as they pleased all the shackles of conventionalism and 
 tradition, and following that which seemed to them to 
 be wise and useful, and, above all, paying, have devel- 
 oped themselves into what they are. But in a paren- 
 thesis, before we descend into the rush and boil of 
 United States life, let me inform you that twelve years 
 ago our comparatively quiet, sober-going sister Colony 
 of Canada, with a population of 2,500,000, had six 
 universities, with a staff of seventy-five professors in 
 all, capable of conferring degrees, and, in addition, a 
 school of medicine in connection with the University 
 of Toronto, and a number of divinity colleges, all 
 degree-giving bodies. And now we come to the sanction 
 that " the smartest people in creation " (to quote their 
 own poetical description of themselves) have given to
 
 13 
 
 universities. The information is furnished by the 
 careful and voluminous report of the Rev. James 
 Fraser upon "The Common School System of the 
 United States." It appears that in 1864 there were 
 236 colleges or universities (for in America the names 
 seem synonymous) overtopping all the vast mass of 
 schools, and conferring degrees upon those who had 
 attained to the higher ranks of education. American 
 education is so interesting a subject, that one only dare 
 just touch it. But let me put before you one or two extra 
 and sample facts. In 1864, in the midst of the fright- 
 ful civil war, Yale University, which with Harvard, 
 are the Oxford and Cambridge of America, received in 
 benefactions from private individuals $400,000. In 
 Cincinnati a wealthy citizen bequeathed $400,000 for 
 the erection of two colleges, one for male and another 
 for female students. In the same year a Mr. Vassar, 
 a brewer, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., handed over to 
 trustees $400,000 for the foundation of " an institution 
 which should accomplish for young women what 
 colleges accomplish for young men." In 1865 "Mr. 
 Cornell, who began life as a mechanic, and by indus- 
 try and skill accumulated a large fortune set apart 
 $500,000 under trust to found a university, to bear his 
 name." This has been established at Ithaca, N.Y., and 
 is, to my mind, the most wonderful development of 
 university life in modern times. Mr. Fraser con- 
 tinues : "It is not the multiplication of colleges and 
 universities of which there are far too many in the 
 States already that I regard as a good thing ; but 
 these instances of individual munificence, so common 
 in America, so rare among ourselves, are surely to be 
 reckoned among the ' signs,' and not unhealthy 'signs,' 
 of the times." " Never before," he says, alluding to
 
 14 
 
 the war, " were more liberal appropriations voted by 
 the townships for the support of schools ; never before 
 were private benefactions more frequent or munificent ; 
 never before was there displayed a more universal 
 determination to uphold in all its integrity, and, if 
 possible, to carry onward to a still higher degree of 
 efficiency, the education of the people." Whatever 
 we may individually think about Americans, and they 
 are not insensible to their own peculiarities, which are 
 very like those of a remarkably clever and rather con- 
 ceited boy, they have seized hold of the idea that a 
 man's mind is a part of him which it is as well not to 
 allow to lie idle. They do try to give it something to 
 do. As a sober, stupid, conservative Englishman, I 
 am not prepared to advocate their system as a whole ; 
 there is too much speechifying and elocution about it ; 
 but still, if Mr. Buckle's dictum be true, " that capital 
 leads to knowledge, and then knowledge is a wonder- 
 fully strong agent in producing capital," in fact, 
 commercially, a most paying thing, the idea penetrates 
 into one's mind that the Americans know what they 
 are about, and that whether they care for education 
 in itself as a good thing or as a means of making money, 
 they are practical people. If the establishment of 
 universities for the promotion of the higher education 
 be a sign of a shrewd people who know their own 
 interests, we shall not be astonished to learn that 
 Australia is possessed of universities. Two years 
 before the discovery of gold, when people were slowly 
 feeding and shearing themselves into prosperity by 
 cattle and sheep, Sydney started the university idea, 
 viz., in 1849. In 1852 the university was inaugurated. 
 In 1857 BO successful had been its progress that a peti- 
 tion was sent home to the Crown, backed by the Gov-
 
 15 
 
 ernor, in which the senate " humbly submit to Her 
 Majesty that the standard required by them is not 
 below that prescribed by the most learned universities 
 of the United Kingdom " * * * " that they confi- 
 dently hope and expect that their graduates will not 
 be inferior in scholastic attainments to the majority of 
 graduates of British universities;" and so they pray 
 " that the degrees conferred by the University of 
 Sydney may be entitled to the same rank, precedence, 
 and consideration as degrees granted by any university 
 of the United Kingdom." The petition was granted. 
 What they desired is the case. Let me quote to you 
 from the letter of thanks the senate addressed to Her 
 Majesty, some manly, sober words which do one good 
 to read: " We confidently trust that this university, 
 which has been admitted into fellowship with the great 
 seminaries of learning in the country from which we 
 have sprung, will prove worthy of the high honours 
 conferred upon it ; that in due course of time it will 
 yield its fair proportion to the illustrious names of this 
 Empire ; and that its students will acquire the clear- 
 ness and soundness of understanding, and the high 
 moral and social qualities which characterize the 
 educated English gentleman, and which have exercised 
 so powerful and wholesome an influence on the manners 
 and institutions of our fatherland." There is here an 
 appreciation of the whole and perfect wdrk of the 
 better type of university upon which one would fain 
 dwell. But they were not content without some visible 
 and substantial expression of their ideas. The univer- 
 sity must have, not only a name, but a local habitation. 
 30,000 were spent on a magnificent building, and 
 when the strong Sydueian presents himself for his 
 degree, he kneels in the finest hall out of England
 
 16 
 
 amidst all the mediaeval glory and illumination of a 
 prodigality of stained glass. Melbourne would not be 
 left behind. A sumptuous building, a fine museum, 
 surrounded by beautiful gardens, are some of the out- 
 side attractions which learning presents there. And 
 Melbourne, in due course, obtained the same privilege 
 as Sydney, that her degrees should be recognized 
 throughout the British Empire. Square caps, and 
 scholars' gowns, and all the gorgeous robes of doctors 
 and the many-coloured hoods are no more strange to 
 the Melbourne street-boy, one might say, than to his 
 juvenile compeer at Cambridge or Oxford. Six months 
 ago Adelaide started on the same race, one of her 
 citizens presenting 20,000 for the endowment of a 
 university. In New Zealand the same counsels pre- 
 vail. In September, 1869, 76,000 acres of land were 
 set aside for the endowment of a university for the 
 whole Colony. But before this the one Province of 
 Otago had appropriated 100,000 acres for a university 
 for itself, professors were engaged, scholarships and 
 other rewards of learning assigned. The last report, 
 too, I have been able to consult, left them in debate 
 about the amalgamation of the two. Universities in 
 Hindostan and in China, however interesting, I must 
 entirely omit. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we 
 have simply established this fact, that in the forefront 
 of civilization all over the whole world are established > 
 and have for many centuries been established, these 
 institutions called universities. They accompany 
 civilization like a law, and wherever the Teutonic or 
 Anglo-Saxon element is found, there green and flourish- 
 ing in this 19th century is sure to be sooner or later 
 a university. We may be sure that among all that 
 wide range of universities to which we have referred
 
 17 
 
 there must be many differences, and yet some or many 
 elements in common besides the one fact that of con 
 ferring degrees. Hage volumes of amassed erudition 
 would hardly give you the information you might pos- 
 sibly desire. Perhaps if we dig down a little, and, like 
 a botanist with a new plant, begin at the roots, we may 
 arrive at some clear ideas upon the subject of what 
 has been or is meant by the word university ? Some 
 people, I know, who have drawn their ideas from 
 Oxford and Cambridge, think there cannot be a uni 
 versity without colleges. But colleges have nothing 
 to do with the essence of a university. There were 
 universities long before there were colleges. Colleges 
 are an accident of universities. Again, because every 
 university in the world but London teaches, has a staff 
 of professors who instruct, and scholars who attend 
 their lectures, because every ancient university taught 
 others think that a university which teaches nothing 
 but only examines, has no proper title to the name. 
 Even Hallam in one place seems to assent to the 
 idea that they were called universities because they 
 taught universal learning taught everything. But 
 this cannot be so, for Bologna, under the very 
 eyes of the Pope, so to say, taught law for 200 year s 
 before it taught theology, while in Paris civil law 
 was prohibited for 450 years, and Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge existed at first only in the faculty of arts 
 while Montpellier taught only medicine. But I think 
 we shall be saved some confusion of mind, and also 
 see our way more clearly through history, if we begin 
 with the law. I believe I am correct in stating that 
 " uuiversitas " is a term of the Roman law applied both 
 to persons and thing:?. When applied to persons it 
 implied a corporation, association, society, or even
 
 18 
 
 trades union or guild, which could hold property and 
 maintain suits a juristical person. I have no reason 
 to believe that it was used less strictly in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries than in the sixth, but the con- 
 trary. I hope to make it clear to you why I am thus 
 pompously insisting upon this point. The state of the 
 Continent when Charlemagne succeeded in A.D. 771 
 and of England, when Alfred was crowned a century 
 later, is well known that of almost blank ignorance. 
 It is not likely, then, that either of those great educa- 
 tional heroes should have conceived the idea and put it 
 strictly into practice, of a legal educational corporation* 
 a, technically speaking, " universitas." Therefore, 
 when Charlemagne is spoken of as the founder of the 
 University of Paris, and Alfred of Oxford, technically 
 speaking, I believe it to be quite wrong, though I have 
 no doubt that it was through them that education and 
 intellectual life, being almost dead, received the reviv- 
 ing impulse to which may be attributed eventually the 
 universities of Europe. The light kindled by Charle- 
 magne was never quite put out ; Alfred lit his lamp 
 at the flame. I believe the origin of universities, tech- 
 nically speaking, to have been the brain of no king or 
 pope, however wise or farsighted, but to have been the 
 result of the diligence of learned and enthusiastic 
 men, and the eager desire of the people for knowledge. 
 It was the most natural thing possible ; men who 
 knew opened their books and their minds and taught 
 such as they knew. The cathedral or barn, as the case 
 might be, was crowded. As the old masters died off, 
 pupils, who outran them, stepped into their chairs. To 
 accommodate students became the trade of the town. 
 Honour was won, fame established, learning increased, 
 kings and popes smiled, complications arose, the law
 
 19 
 
 stepped in to crown and to protect, and what was before 
 a voluntary body of lecturers and listeners became a 
 grand and legal corporation and " universita," petted 
 by Church and State, indulged with immunities, the 
 glory of the land. The title of University was, as it 
 were, a degree, a diploma, won by the work of young 
 and ardent knowledge seeking Europe from the well.- 
 pleased and fostering authorities. Afterwards, when 
 learned men were wanted anywhere, a university was 
 incorporated, to whose privileges they were invited. 
 As in Scotland, when in the beginning of the 15th 
 century it was found that the best young Scotchmen 
 were drifting out of the country in search of an educa- 
 tion they could not get at home, the wise Bishop of 
 St. Andrew's, with the assent of the estates of the 
 realm and the hearty support of the then Pope Benedict 
 XIII, founded the University of St. Andrew's, with 
 all the usual immunities and privileges, and learned 
 men from other countries came to it readily. There is 
 always so much disposition to lean upon kings and 
 governments, bishops and public ministers, that it 
 seems as though it could not be pressed too strongly 
 upon the notice of any young community that Europe, 
 after all, owes its first universities, and all that came 
 from them, to its own desire for knowledge and thirst 
 for improvement, to the people of Europe rather than 
 to any prince, pope, power, or potentate whatsoever. 
 And greatly is it to the credit of those old feudal times, 
 that when Europe was constantly embroiled in war, 
 and every man was bound by service to his liege lord, 
 and knights in armour with stout serving-men behind 
 them clad in steel could scarce travel safely along the 
 road, that the poor scholar with his gown and books 
 could pass unmolested and unarmed from one end of
 
 20 
 
 Europe to the other, his person more sacred than a 
 Lishop'e. A university, then, may be denned to be 
 " an incorporated body of persons teaching and learn- 
 ing one or more departments of knowledge, and em- 
 powered by the constituted authorities to confer 
 degrees in one or more faculties ;" or if from some 
 good reason the teaching phase has dropped out of 
 sight, empowered to give degrees upon satisfactory 
 evidence that the requisite intellectual and educational 
 standard has been attained. The origin of universities, 
 as technically and legally such, is not so difficult to 
 ascertain. We have no time now for an antiquarian 
 disquisition. Towards the end of the 12th century, 
 Pario, which had never ceased to retain about it some 
 tincture of learning from the days of Charlemagne, was 
 incorporated into a university. Bologna appears to 
 have obtained like privileges, perhaps a few years 
 earlier. I must leave the claims of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge to antiquaries, but they date about the same 
 time. In the 12th century, that which had been before 
 smouldering burst into a flame. The oldest universi- 
 ties in Europe, says Mr. Maiden, " sprung up in the 
 12th century, and were formed by the zeal and enter- 
 prise of learned men, who undertook to deliver public 
 instruction to all who were desirous of hearing them. 
 The first teachers soon found assistants and rivals ; 
 students resorted in great numbers to the sources of 
 knowledge thus open to them, and from this voluntary 
 association of teachers and scholars the schools arose 
 which were afterwards recognized as public bodies, and 
 entitled ( universities,' and which served as models for 
 those which in la.ter times were founded and estab- 
 lished by public authority. Some of the oldest univer- 
 sities had traditions as to their foundation at a more
 
 21 
 
 remote period by Royal or Imperial authority, and 
 these traditions might be nominally true ; but as far 
 as their real life and power and distinctive character 
 are concerned, their origin was in fact spontaneous, 
 and is to be ascribed to the general excitement of 
 the intellect which pervaded Europe in the 12th cen- 
 tury." Europe at last found itself in comparative 
 peace and plenty, and naturally the mind at once turned 
 upon itself, and immediately began to want to know, 
 and so the great tide began to flow, which, with many 
 a receding wave, has never began to ebb yet, and is 
 still flowing, gradually submerging one by one all the 
 land-marks of ignorance, though to all appearance as 
 far off from its goal of certain truth and knowledge 
 absolute in many things, as it was seven centuries ago. 
 Would you like to know of what mediaeval teaching 
 consisted ? It comprised the four faculties of law, 
 theology, arts, and medicine. Law was divided into 
 two branches, civil and canon law, upon which one need 
 say nothing, as upon theology and medicine. But 
 what were " the arts ? " Their magic number was 
 seven ; they were at first supposed to " comprehend 
 all wisdom and all learning ; to be sufficient for the 
 removal of all difficulties and the solving of all ques- 
 tions, for whoever understood the Trivium could 
 explain all manner of books without a teacher ; and he 
 who was further advanced and muster also of the 
 Quadrivium could answer all questions and unfold all 
 the secrets of nature ! " The Trivium, or first division 
 of arts, consisted of three subjects grammar, logic, 
 and rhetoric, and to pass in these gave a man his 
 Bachelor's degree ; but was he still ambitious ? There 
 remained for him the great Quadrivium of music, 
 arithmetic, or the science of numbers, geometry, and
 
 22 
 
 astronomy. He who passed in these also became a 
 Master of Arts. But the origin of the custom of 
 giving degrees, of which the oldest were in arts, like 
 many other points connected with the early history of 
 universities, is somewhat obscure. Some antiquaries 
 contend for Paris, relying upon Bachelor as a French 
 word; others uphold the claim of Bologna. It is not 
 difficult to see how some such custom would arise. 
 When lectures were thronged, we cannot suppose that 
 all the listeners would be attentive and industrious. 
 An examination after due time seems a natural result, 
 and that those who passed should have some voucher 
 or expression of approbation to their own comfort and 
 the shame of the idle, equally natural. Still, I believe 
 there can be no doubt the title of B. A. is of later origin 
 than that of Master, or Doctor, or Professor. These, 
 at first titles of courtesy, as the university system 
 developed, came to have definite scholastic meanings, 
 and to confer rank and privilege. The Master at length 
 was he who taught arts, the Professor theology, the 
 Doctor law or medicine. To this day there is in strict 
 technical verity no D.D. degree at Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge, but he whom we call a Doctor of Divinity is 
 really Sanctaj Theologian Professor. Considering the 
 vast number of students Avho thronged the mediaeval 
 universities (Oxford and Paris each claim to have had 
 as many as 30,000 at one time, and in all the Con- 
 tinental universities they were divided into nations), 
 comparatively few used to pass on to the Master's or 
 Doctor's degree the examination was hard and the 
 fees high, the time to spend from home long. There 
 was no education made easy then, and a common bur- 
 sary to the mediaeval student was a licence to beg. 
 To attain to one of the higher degrees was in early
 
 23 
 
 times a greater achievement than now-a-days to win a 
 fellowship, and there are stories extant of a learned 
 monk proceeding to take his D.D. attended by a perfect 
 retinue of Lord Abbots and a hundred Noblemen and 
 their Esquires. A degree used to be indeed a precious 
 possession it was, as its Latin name implies, a " step " 
 up. The two most honourable things a man with nothing 
 but his own arms and brains to depend upon could win 
 for himself in mediaeval Europe were a university 
 degree and the acolade of knighthood. There is one 
 very interesting accident of university life upon which 
 I have not yet touched. I mean colleges. To the 
 ordinary Englishman college life and university life are 
 the same thing, and I have no doubt that it is the 
 college life that has enabled Oxford and Cambridge to 
 retain that prestige which their old rivals, Bologna and 
 Paris, have lost, and still to be, at all events socially, 
 to-day the first universities of the world. But still 
 college life is only an accretion after all. For a moment 
 glance over your romantic ideas of colleges, their 
 ancient and hoary walls embraced by ivy and bosomed 
 in trees ; their romantic architecture and stained 
 glass windows ; their halls adorned with pictures of 
 the great and good, the noble and the wise ; their 
 echoing quadrangles and noble chapels ; bethink you 
 of kings and queens, of earls, and more mighty ladies, 
 their founders. Enfold all in a rose-coloured cloud of 
 romance. And now come back into the stern prose of 
 history : would you see the real founders of colleges ? 
 Behold, then, that unromantic character a landlady. 
 It happened in historic sequence thus. "We will take 
 Oxford or Cambridge as samples. Lecturers attracted 
 students. There was no provision for their lodging ; 
 they got rooms where they could Avith the townspeople.
 
 24 
 
 As the students increased, and rooms became scarce, 
 the price naturally rose, the landlady became exorbi- 
 tant, while the students' purses remained the same. 
 At last the whole university, professors and under- 
 graduates, could endure it no longer ; the whole 
 university moved off, only returning upon due repen- 
 tance ; and it is not hard to imagine many other evils 
 resulting from such a mode of accommodation. The 
 discipline of the students was lax. Hence arose Halls, 
 which were nothing more at first than licensed lodging- 
 houses, to provide rooms under a master of arts or 
 doctor who preserved discipline, and Colleges, more 
 elaborate foundations, which combined rooms with 
 maintenance to some extent, and also a semi-monastic 
 and strict religious element, as also, in addition, in- 
 struction by the fellows of the college independent of 
 the university. Let us then sum up : we find now 
 spread over the world a vast system of universities, 
 endeavouring in different ways to confer the highest 
 education ; their roots strike down as low as the revival 
 of education on the Continent under Charlemagne, in 
 England a century later under Alfred. In the twelfth 
 century we are confronted by the phenomenon of 
 learned men at different intellectual centres, assembling 
 around them vast crowds of students they are incor- 
 porated by the legal authorities into universities, under 
 very similar forms of government. They are em- 
 powered to give degrees, and encouraged by kings and 
 popes, but their real support is the broad intelligence 
 of Europe and the desire of the people for knowledge. 
 Country after country is persuaded of the advantages 
 of possessing such institutions their number increases. 
 Social necessities create a demand for what we call 
 colleges, enlightened benevolence satisfies the demand.
 
 25 
 
 The genius of each people modifies and is modified by 
 its universities. Europe is shaken by the Reformation. 
 Some universities take time by the forelock and go on ; 
 others dwindle and lose their intellectual power, even 
 though they keep up their numbers. But, having 
 shaken off' the Bishop of Rome from its safety valve, 
 European intellect rushes on into new courses and 
 unimagined discoveries. New worlds are discovered 
 and peopled some old notions are discarded but still 
 the idea of gathering the best intellects into centres and 
 foci, thence to radiate intellectual force, is clung to with 
 tenacity. And America and Australia raise the 
 counterparts of the old world powers of Paris and 
 Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge. And now, as for 
 ourselves. Nothing could be more modest than our 
 beginning. We shall be like the ancient universities at 
 first, with not a brick or foot of land to call our own ; 
 and unlike them in this that we shall teach nothing, 
 only give a state certificate or diploma to that which 
 our youth have picked up, we know not how. But on 
 whom depends the future of our university ? the 
 intellectual future of this Colony ? Not upon Govern- 
 ments and ministers of education, however able, but 
 upon the determination and will of every lad here, that 
 stand still he will not, but into the fair fields of know- 
 ledge he will go ; that he will not fall behind the times ; 
 that he will bring all the pressure he can to bear upon 
 authorities ; that that which begins so modestly shall 
 eventually be a power in this land a radiating focus 
 of intellectual culture. We have many disadvantages 
 to contend with, doubtless ; but not so many as poor, 
 wild, old mediaeval Europe. What they did we can 
 do ; and it also occurs to one that there must have 
 been many wise, prudent, and far-seeing fathers and
 
 2G 
 
 mothei's in those days, or there would never have been 
 so many thousands of students. The lesson of the 
 mediaeval universities, and American universities, and 
 Australian universities is this : Let every man, woman, 
 and child help themselves, and depend upon themselves, 
 and governments are sure to be glad enough to help 
 them. The finest room in the Colony is devoted to 
 literature. Let it be an earnest of the bright day which 
 is to be. No country will make a better return for 
 learning than our own. 
 
 B4UL SOLOMON AND CO., STEAM PBIKTING OFFICE, CAPS TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 IllTHinilHITIIUIT IIITIII 
 
 OF THE .SUr,M'i;im:US TO THE 
 
 African fublic Jft 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE QTH MAY, 1874. 
 
 Sate, (&q., SK.a., 2S.2)., u^erintenbentsSenerat of 
 (Stucation, onb 8kt@|amt!loi of 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1874.
 
 Highness the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, who 
 recently visited the Colony. A similar acknowledg- 
 ment has been obtained from Earl Granville, late 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, through the instru- 
 mentality of George Frere, Esq. (for many years an 
 esteemed member of the Library Committee), has 
 been pleased to order that the Public Library should 
 be furnished with sets of the " State Papers " and 
 bulletins up to date, altogether 108 volumes. The 
 Philological Society of London have likewise been 
 pleased to place the Library on their list of institu- 
 tions to receive a copy of their transactions free of 
 charge, besides forwarding at the time fifteen volumes 
 of their Transactions and other publications. 
 
 The Committee have also to record the marked 
 interest which the late Hugh Lynar, Esq., always took 
 in the welfare of the Public Library, and of which he 
 has given a final and substantial proof by bequeathing 
 to the Institution the munificent sum of four hundred 
 pounds sterling. This sum the Committee have con- 
 sidered it desirable to expend in purchasing such stan- 
 dard works as may be found wanting in the various 
 departments ; as well as in procuring works relating to 
 South Africa generally, so as to make that department 
 of the collection as complete as possible. They are 
 also of opinion that the addition thus to be made might 
 be united with the " Porter Collection," and they 
 trust that the suggestion will meet with the approval 
 of the subscribers. 
 
 During the past year the Committee have received 
 a number of standard works to fill up gaps, and which 
 in their last report they mentioned as having been 
 ordered. The number of books received is therefore 
 much in excess of those in the previous year. 
 
 The accessions of books and periodicals in the several
 
 departments of science and literature during the year 
 
 have been as follows, viz. : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 38 volumes. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 15 
 
 Science and the Arts 57 
 
 Novels ... 79 
 
 Belles Lettres 38 
 
 History 36 
 
 Voyages and Travels 68 
 
 Biography 36 
 
 Miscellaneous 5 
 
 Total 372 
 
 Of these, one hundred and eleven volumes are pre- 
 sentations to the Public Library, made by His Imperial 
 Highness the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, the 
 " Eoyal Society," the " Royal Geographical Society," 
 the "Zoological Society," and the "Philological 
 Society," London; the "Smithsonian Institution," 
 Washington ; Mrs. J. S. de Villiers, of the Paarl ; 
 the Hon. the Commissioner of Public Works ; Bishop 
 Colenso; the Rev. Dr. Adamson ; Drs. Dale, Bleek, 
 and Ross ; Messrs. Wm. Hiddingh, R. Trimen, 
 R. Powrie, and Mr. W. P. Hiern, of Kew, England ; 
 to all of whom the thanks of the subscribers are due. 
 
 The Committee have also to acknowledge, with 
 thanks, the kind interest which their late colleague, 
 George Frere, Esq., has ever taken in the welfare of 
 this Institution, and which has lately been further 
 evinced by his procuring for it the valuable collection 
 " State Papers " already alluded to in this Report. 
 
 From a record kept of the number of readers and 
 visitors to the Public Library since its re-opening in 
 June last, it appears that there has been a slight 
 falling off as compared with the previous year. Nearly
 
 twenty thousand hare availed themselves of the Library 
 during the past yfcar, being an average of 71 per day,, 
 the largest number of visitors on one day being 110,. 
 and the smallest 43. 
 
 The issue of books in the several departments of 
 of science and literature has been as follows, viz.: 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 74 
 
 Political Economy 37 
 
 Biography 651 
 
 Science and the Arts 224 
 
 History 490 
 
 Voyages and Travels 1001 
 
 Belles Lettres, Miscellaneous Essays.., 629 
 Works of Fiction and Amusement ... 8159 
 
 Periodicals and Reviews 6060 
 
 from which it will be seen that, although the supply 
 of novels has been limited, there has been a greater 
 demand for serial and light literature than during the 
 preceding year. The issues in the other departments- 
 have increased, a marked advance being observed in 
 Belles Lettres, Voyages and Travels, and Biography. 
 The following is the report of the Librarian of the 
 Grey Collection : 
 
 The accessions to the collection of literature con- 
 cerning the native languages in the Grey Collection 
 are this year few in number. This is mainly due to 
 the illness and subsequent death of one of our most 
 active contributors, the superintendent of the publish- 
 ing department of the "\Vesleyau Missionary Society 
 in Kaffraria, the Rev. J. W. Appleyard. The death 
 of this indefatigable missionary and acute grammarian, 
 on the 4th April last, has deprived the Library of a 
 benefactor to whom it owes the gift of a good number 
 of valuable books and manuscripts, mainly in or upon, 
 the Kafir language.
 
 The only Kafir book received this year is the Rev, 
 A. J. Newton's " Kafir Primer," presented by the 
 author. 
 
 In Zulu we have received from the Rev. William 
 Ireland about a dozen books, published by American 
 missionaries. Of six of these no other copies had as 
 yet reached us, and among them is the whole of the 
 " New Testament of 1872," and the " Ikwezi ; or, 
 Morning Star," a Zulu periodical, published 1861-1863. 
 
 The Kev. C. W. Posselt has sent his translation of 
 " Luther's Catechism " into Zulu, also Hymns, and 
 Tunes for some Hymns in the same language, all 
 printed at Berlin 1872-1873. 
 
 A translation of the " Pilgrim's Progress " into Se- 
 suto, probably the work of French Mission aries, printed 
 at Lovedale, has been presented by the Rev. Dr. Stew- 
 art, who has also promised to send a file of all native 
 books printed at Lovedale, not yet in the collection. 
 
 A translation of " St. Luke's Gospel into Suaheli," 
 by the late Rev. R. L. Pennell, is the only book which 
 has reached us this year from the Rev. Dr. E. Steere. 
 
 The Rev. J. Rath has added a " German-Otyi- 
 herero (Damara) Vocabulary," as Index to his 
 Manuscript " Otyiherero-German Dictionary ;" and 
 has also presented a copy of Dr. G. Schweinfurth's 
 " Central African Vocabularies," Berlin, 1873. 
 
 The Rev. J. G. Christaller, of the Basle Missionary 
 Society, and the Right Rev. J. G. Auer, D.D., Bishop 
 of the (American) Protestant Episcopal Mission at 
 Cape Palmas, have sent books in the Grebo and Kru 
 languages, and the beginning of an " English-Tshi 
 (i.e., Ashanti) and Akra Dictionary." 
 
 Dr. Bleek has, besides his " Comparative Grammar," 
 added from his private library, Mr. R. Moffat, Junior's 
 " Standard Alphabet," the Rev. le Berre's
 
 " Mpongue Grammar in French," the Rev. Hugh 
 Goldie's large " Efik Dictionary," and one Susu and 
 one Ene book, 
 
 A very valuable present has been received from Dr. 
 G. Fritsch in his illustrated book on the " Natives of 
 South Africa," with an Atlas of heads of natives 
 etched on copper from his photographs. The accom- 
 panying Map of South Africa has not yet reached us. 
 
 Mr. Francis Fry, F.S. A , of Tower House, Gotham, 
 Bristol, has kindly sent us, in exchange for a copy of 
 the Desciptive Catalogue of Early English Printed 
 Books, his excellent facsimile editions of extremely 
 rare English books, viz., " Tyndal's Prophet Jonas," 
 with " Coverdale's Translation of Jonas ;" "A Proper 
 Dyaloge between a Gentleman and a Husband," 
 printed at Marborow (Marburg), in Hessia, by Hans 
 Luft, 1530 ; the <: Souldier's Pocket Bible," 1643 ; 
 the "Christian Soldier's Penny Bible," 1693. Mr. 
 Fry has also sent a lithographed facsimile of the only 
 autograph letter of Tyndale, as yet found ; and, lastly, 
 he has made one of the editions of Tyndale's " New 
 Testament" in the Grey Collection (Vol. IV. Part I. 
 No. 1,016) complete by very kindly furnishing us 
 with a facsimile of the only leaf missing in this copy. 
 
 A carefully revised copy of the " Inventory of Old 
 Manuscripts" has been prepared by Dr. Bleek ; and 
 this most important part of the Inventory is therefore 
 now quite ready for publication. 
 
 On the motion of Mr. Buchanan, seconded by Mr. 
 Eaton, the Report was adopted. 
 
 The Chief Justice moved," That the thanks of 
 the Meeting and the Subscribers be given to the Com- 
 mittee, Auditors, and Treasurer, which was seconded 
 by Mr. C. B. Elliott."
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 LANGHAM DALE, Esq., M.A., LL.D., Superin 
 tendent-General of Education and Vice-Chancellor 
 of the University, then delivered the following 
 Address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The current of men's thoughts in these days runs 
 rapidly ; and the results of experiment, research, 
 and reflection come in hasty succession from the press, 
 teeming with lessons of progress and materials for 
 future speculation. 
 
 It is no light task to keep up with this tide that 
 never ebbs ; and it is well, therefore, at such anni- 
 versaries as this, to review our own stand-point in 
 regard to the questions of the day. The occasion 
 does not permit us to trace the processes by which 
 the laws of the worlds of matter and of mind are 
 established ; yet we may register in our memories 
 those conclusions which are to be the starting 
 points, or the mile-posts, to those who travel after us 
 along the via sacra which leads up to the Temple of 
 Truth. 
 
 We may, therefore, fitly turn to any of those in- 
 quiries which, " as the thoughts of men are widened 
 with the process of the suns," bring us by varied paths 
 to the limits which still bound our knowledge of 
 humanity. Science deciphers the long-hidden testi- 
 monies which lapsing ages have been recording within 
 the earth's crust ; and is busy in tracing through these
 
 10 
 
 deposits, these relics of the unstoried urns of bygoiie 
 epochs, an evolution of successive types of organic 
 life, from the simplest organism to the first vertebrated 
 animal ; and thence link by link to the mammal, which 
 culminates in man, the latest and highest type in the 
 scale of animal life. And, in the search for some 
 proof of the antiquity of man's existence and his early 
 condition, science proceeds to examine the rude works 
 of art, the stone implements, found deep in the alluvial 
 gravel of the valley of the Somme, in the cave of 
 Brixham, Wookey Hole, and Kent's Hole, and else. 
 where, mingled too with the bones of now extinct 
 forms of animal life. Weighing the evidence which 
 points to the human race as the inventor of these 
 implements, and as the tenant of the European con- 
 tinent at a period so remote as to make man contem- 
 poraneous with the mammoth, woolly rhiuoceroSj 
 cavebear, and other extinct species, we note the modi- 
 fied aspect under which the solution of this question 
 of a remote, universal, or synchronous stone age is 
 presented to us ; because implements of stone, roughly 
 made, but adapted to various uses, as spear-heads, 
 arrow-tips, sling-stones, scrapers, &c., identical in 
 form and general characteristics with those found in 
 Brittain and other parts of the world, have been 
 recently discovered in this country some embedded 
 in the sand and clay, which form the surface of the 
 flats adjoining Cape Town, others at varying depths in 
 Lower Albany, East London, and elsewhere, as far 
 north as the Vaal. 
 
 This discovery does not weaken the evidence of 
 man's remote existence on the European continent* 
 but the notion of a successive advance through what 
 are known as the ages of stone, bronze, and iron is
 
 11 
 
 untenable. No reasoning based on these discoveries 
 appears conclusive as to the primal condition of man- 
 kind ; all that we infer is that man, guided by natural 
 powers of observation and invention, turns to account 
 for self-preservation the most convenient material at 
 hand, whether obsidian, as found by the Spaniards, in 
 use among the Mexicans ; flint, as found in Europe ; 
 iron and other materials, as in use among the natives 
 of Africa generally ; or the varieties of jasper, quart- 
 zite, and chert, from which the Cape implements have 
 been fashioned ; and that man, wherever he exists in 
 a very low state of civilization, makes his implements 
 for warfare or domestic use in pretty much the same 
 
 way. 
 
 The arguments may be conveniently put in this 
 shape. Implements of stone are found with the bones 
 of extinct mammals in the river deposits of the Somme 
 Valley. It is assumed that these tools are the work 
 of man, and it is inferred that the human race lived at 
 the same period with those now extinct species ; and 
 the extreme antiquity which has been assigned to the 
 latter is assumed in the case of man, and is thought 
 to be confirmed by the long period of time during 
 which the geological changes in the valley where the 
 remains are found have been effected. 
 
 But that no one may blindly commit himself to 
 these conclusions, it may be urged (1) that the asso- 
 ciation of these remains tools and bones does not 
 prove co-existence (Note A), for causes may have 
 been in operation, whether in caves or river deposits, 
 to mingle the more recent implements of stone with 
 the long-embedded relics of extinct animals ; and (2) 
 that even if the human race was coeval with the now 
 extinct mammals, we may perhaps be justified in pro
 
 12 
 
 longing their existence into what is commonly reputed 
 to be the human period just as much as in antedating 
 the origin of man upon earth (Note B) ; and (3) there 
 is so much difference of opinion as to the duration 
 of time necessary for the development of the geological 
 phenomena of the drift-beds that we may, at all events, 
 suspend judgment and calmly await further proof. 
 
 If the evidence for the age of the human bones 
 which have been found in caves were less equivocal, 
 the co-existence of man with the extinct mammalia 
 would be as good as established. But the skulls found 
 in Belgian caves, and the Neanderthal skull found 
 near Dusseldorf, as well as the skeletons recently dis- 
 covered in the valley of the Lesse and near Mentone, 
 do not justify any conclusion as to the antiquity of 
 the cave-buried men. (British Quarterly, pp. 358-9, 
 April, 1874.) 
 
 Biology is busy about cognate questions the phe- 
 nomena of vitality and those who have been accus- 
 tomed to the doctrine of final causes as accepted by 
 Christian philosophy will have to face at once the 
 negation, in modern biological views, of the conclusions 
 based on such arguments as those of tho Bridgewater 
 Treatises and other works on Natural Theology. 
 (Vide Note, Teleology.) 
 
 We have been taught to trace a unity of design 
 throughout the phenomena of Nature that means are 
 adapted to special and designed ends. The teleologist 
 argues thus : The eye with its delicate apparatus of 
 vision was it not thus made to enable me to see ? 
 was not its structure contrived to this very end? 
 Note the transparent convexity ; note how the tear- 
 gland furnishes from its reservoir moisture enough for 
 the surface of the cornea ! You know how to regulate
 
 13 
 
 the focus of a telescope according to the distance of 
 the object ; the eye has this property, this power of 
 accommodation ; but it is exercised so easily, so in- 
 stantaneously, that you take no heed of it. Note 
 also how the nerve of vision is wonderfully guarded 
 against the sudden or excessive intrusion of light by 
 the iris, serving the purpose of a curtain. 
 
 Are not all such contrivances subservient and in 
 relation to a designed end and purpose ? Biologists 
 warn us not to be hasty in ascribing intention to 
 Nature. Things do fit into each other (they say) as if 
 they were so designed ; but all we know about them is 
 that these correspondences exist, and that they seem 
 to be the result of physical laws of development and 
 growth. But surely we do know some among the 
 countless purposes of the Creator. What we do not 
 know, what transcends the faculty of thought and the 
 power of research, is the method, the process of Crea- 
 tion. What is the origin of living things? What 
 and whence is Vitality ? We know indeed that new 
 individuals are created by being born ; are we at 
 liberty to widen our notions of the origin of forms of 
 organic life, and say that what is affirmed truly of this 
 one and that one may be equally affirmed of the 
 species ? 
 
 In the case of man, it is inconceivable that the first 
 human pair should have been created, as we are born, 
 in the utter helplessness of infants ; so that the question 
 is really narrowed to the choice between special 
 creation and the evolution of life. Whether organic 
 life can not only propagate itself in its ordinary types, 
 but further develop into new and higher forms, is the 
 prominent question ; and when we are weighing the 
 evidences for origin of species by special creation or
 
 14 
 
 by natural evolution, it should be distinctly appre- 
 hended what is meant by the creation of a new species. 
 "We do not mean by a species an organized being 
 having an individual existence, for no one considers 
 the birth of each individual as a special creation, but 
 we mean a combination of physical properties, con- 
 ceived in our minds, not existing per se, shared by and 
 manifested in individual beings. Individuals are facts ; 
 this man and that tree are facts ; but the species, man 
 or tree, exists only as thought. The creative energy 
 in bringing a species into existence is therefore not 
 analogous to any ordinary phenomenon, and it is 
 difficult to see how the species, which is a non-entity, 
 can be affected by the changes in individuals. 
 
 The doctrine of the origin of species by " Natural 
 Selection " has been clouded over by recent dis- 
 cussions and criticisms ; and it may be convenient to 
 enunciate it here in a brief Avay. 
 
 The theory is based on the assumption that, both in 
 the animal and vegetable worlds, the individual com- 
 municates to its offspring a common or specific like- 
 ness, and also individual differences or variations. In 
 the struggle for life the fittest out of the offspring 
 will survive ; or, to put it more fully, those structural 
 variations which are manifested in the individual and 
 enable it best to hold its own and reproduce itself, 
 will be preserved and be more and more developed. 
 These favoured individuals, being better adapted to 
 resist all influences which might weaken or destroy 
 them, will survive, while the rest die out. 
 
 Physicists now admit generally that natural selec- 
 tion is one, and an important one, among the great and 
 imperfectly known agencies of organic change. We 
 thus learn scmething of the intermediate phenomena
 
 15 
 
 of production ; but in reaching back to the source of 
 vital power, such a doctrine falls short. Here is a 
 new world to conquer ; here is a dark abyss into which 
 the feeble taper of human science has thrown no ray of 
 light. If science can unveil the combination of 
 chemical elements which constitutes an organized 
 being, who shall say what is that innate power, 
 principle, or condition which, lying beyond the world 
 of matter, makes us conscious beings and secures a 
 specific affinity of structure, force, and use in our con- 
 stituent parts and functions ? (Note D.) 
 
 Thus to the question, What is Life ? we can only 
 reply by an alternative question. " Does Life belong 
 to what we call matter ? or is it an independent prin- 
 ciple inserted into matter at some suitable epoch ? " 
 Is Life the result of a combination of certain elements 
 in an organism ? or is it a shaping and creative force, 
 a cause, which permeates elements, fixes the common 
 nature, and differentiates the individual forms ? 
 
 We dare not hope to pierce the veil that hides to- 
 morrow : may we hope to lift that veil that hangs be- 
 tween us and the day-spring of Life ? 
 
 That which is knowable has its limits ; beyond these, 
 one creative voice alone is heard " Let there be " 
 and there was. 
 
 Man cannot ignore the consciousness that the soul, 
 the self, is immortal; the still small voice of the spirit- 
 world communes in silence with our conscience : 
 
 'Tis the Divinity, that stirs within us, 
 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 And intimates Eternity to man. 
 
 But if the organisms, which you and I represent, are 
 transitional and intermediate forms, leading up to 
 other and higher types, where in the series, retro-
 
 16 
 
 spective or prospective, is the germ of immortality to 
 find a beginning ? Indestructibility may be true to 
 the materialist and to the pantheist ; but you and I 
 claim the personal attribute of immortality. Or is 
 there yet the sting of death ? Is there yet a Victory 
 to the Grave ? Do we bury our dead in faith and 
 hope ? or is Faith a blank ? Is Hope a phantasy ? 
 
 Whether belief in the immortality of man's soul is 
 founded on the light of nature or on the Christian 
 Religion, any theory which appears to cut away the 
 ground of an individual future existence appals most 
 men and pre-determines them against it. Yet there is 
 a significant force in Darwin's remark that " few 
 people feel any anxiety from the impossibility of de- 
 termining in the development of the individual [from 
 the first trace of the minute germinal vesicle to the child 
 either before or after birth] at what precise period man 
 becomes an immortal being ; and there is no greater 
 cause for anxiety because the period in the gradually 
 ascending scale cannot possibly be determined." 
 . The late Professor Agassiz, in his last work, 
 recently quoted in the Cape Monthly Magazine, sums 
 up the lessons of a life of uninterrupted research into 
 the arcana of nature, with words that seem to toll the 
 knell of the advocates of evolution : " It is not true 
 that a slight variation among the successive offspring 
 of the same stock goes on increasing until the differ- 
 ence amounts to a specific distinction ; on the con- 
 trary, it is a fact that extreme variations finally de- 
 generate or become sterile ; like monstrosities,, they 
 die out or return to their type." As to the objections 
 of evolutionists to admit the intervention of distinct 
 creative acts for every species, Agassiz says : " What 
 of it, if it were true ? Have those who object to re-
 
 17 
 
 peated acts of creation ever considered that no pro- 
 gress can be made in knowledge without repeated acts 
 of thinking ? And what are thoughts but specific acts 
 of the mind ? "Why should it then be unscientific to 
 infer that the facts of nature are the result of a similar 
 process since there is no evidence of any other cause ?" 
 (Vide Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1874.) 
 
 The difficulties of an evolution hypothesis are en- 
 hanced by the admission that the civilized man arrests 
 (Note E) those influences of nature which acted freely 
 upon him in a low savage condition influences which 
 we know to be hindered from natural and unin- 
 terrupted action on those portions of the animal 
 and vegetable worlds which fall under the control of 
 man; who develops or modifies or destroys this in- 
 dividual or that, and exercises a sway over all, so far 
 as suits his own ends and uses. What are we to con- 
 clude ? Either, if development is still active, and if 
 man is but a term in an Algebraic series of terms 
 ascending in infinitum, that the man, of which we are 
 specimens, is now evolving variations, and will merge 
 into some type of organism, as different probably from 
 the present as this is presumed to be from the original ; 
 or, if otherwise, that man has now by the skilful appli- 
 ances of civilized life so fenced himself round as to 
 arrest the processes of evolutionary changes, and 
 stereotype his present condition. Accept the former, 
 you seem to imperil the personal attribute of immor- 
 tality ; admit the force of the latter, and you foster a 
 theory which, pushed to the extreme, makes the 
 creature to triumph over the Creator. 
 
 In a few words, it may be summed up that the 
 modern theories of Biology require the solution of the 
 following problems, before they find general accept- 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 ance (i) The physical basis of Life : wliat is it ? Is 
 it to be found in solar fire or nebulous gas ? Is 
 protoplasm or bioplasm any explanation of the stuff 
 that vital force is made of? (Note F.) This question 
 is not easy of conclusion, if it be admitted that there 
 is a barrier impassable between organic and inorganic 
 substances, between living matter and dead matter 
 (Note F.), and that there are essential differences be- 
 tween the phenomena of the one and the other; and 
 (2) apart from the difficulty of bridging over this 
 chasm, how is species trausrnutable ? seeing that we 
 know by observation that the individuals of a species 
 vary within normal limits ; but there is no example to 
 show that the transmutation of one species into another 
 has actually taken place ; and (3) apart from the 
 material basis of a life-giving energy, apart from the 
 brid^Hcss gulfs between matter living and dead, 
 between the worlds vegetable and animal, and between 
 one species and another, what proof is adduced of a 
 link between a lower type of animal life and man ? 
 seeing that, as far as human research and experiment 
 have yet gone, the lines that represent human life and 
 lower animal life appear to run ever parallel, never 
 approximating, never converging to a point of union, 
 however remote ; and seeing further that man stands 
 alone, apart from and beyond the rest of aiiimated 
 nature, as a being morally, if not physically, distinct; 
 capable of moral degradation on the one hand, and 
 endowed with the unique faculty of speech on the 
 other. 
 
 Modern inquiries are leading to the recognition of 
 laws which regulate the growth and decay of speech, 
 no less uniform and consequent than those of the ex- 
 ternal world. Language is being unclothed. As the
 
 19 
 
 material crust of the globe tells a truthful tale to him 
 who probes beneath the surface, so the philologist hopes 
 to unveil the links, which, although crusted over or 
 weakened by the accretion or decay of ages, join the 
 words by which we represent and communicate our 
 ideas in continuous sequence to the titterings of the 
 first man. 
 
 And what is Language ? An invention of man, a 
 work of human art, elaborate by his necessities ? or is 
 it a special gift of the Creator, heaven-sent, as a re- 
 pository of thought and means of communication ? 
 The philologist in his anatomical dissections and com- 
 parisons deals with all speech. The sacred language 
 of Northern India, the Sanscrit, and its sister tongues, 
 including the inflectional systems in which the lore of 
 old Greece and Rome is fossilized, the monosyllabic 
 Chinese, the Polynesian, Hottentot, and Kafir, and 
 other African languages, all must be analyzed by the 
 alchemy of comparative grammar, until this ever- 
 speaking witness teaches the philologist how to recog- 
 nize the place of this and that radical form among the 
 constituents of human speech, just as the great ana- 
 tomist, from the fragment of a bone, reconstructs the 
 animal, and gives it a due position in the animal 
 world. When language has thus been analyzed in the 
 crucible of philology, the process will leave a residuum 
 which is in effect the seeds, the simplest primary 
 elements of speech ; so that the question, what ig 
 language, is resolved into an investigation of the 
 origin and nature of these roots, just as it is the pro- 
 vince of physical science to resolve matter, by analysis, 
 Into its ultimate elements. The theory which claims 
 attention in these days is that which refers the be- 
 ginnings of speech to the cries, sobs, shouts, and 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 general exclamations and utterances of pain, sorrow, 
 surprise, triumph, contempt, and other emotions to 
 which man gives voice to express his sensations. 
 
 Now, those who look for the origin of language in 
 connection with the theory of evolution must rely 
 chiefly on the interjection as the germ of articulate 
 speech. When upon the "first being, worthy to be 
 called a Man," "born of some inferior creature," the 
 consciousness of a faculty of speech first dawned, the 
 inter] ectioual utterances prompted by his sensations 
 must have been the first words, and those expressions 
 laid the foundation of the nomenclature of the primary 
 ideas of mankind. By degrees this low-typed man, 
 overcoming the mechanical difficulties of linguistic 
 utterance, used these ejaculations as significant of 
 things, as names of objects ; either when realizing the 
 objects to his own nascent mind, or when striving to 
 cpnvey to his fellows his own notions of objects. 
 What countless difficulties might beurged against this 
 slowly-built process of word-manufacture ! 
 
 What reason is there to believe that the so-called 
 man would be acted upon by sensations to repeat 
 always the same utterance at the sight or remembrance 
 of the same object ; much less is it likely that his 
 fellows would also produce the same ; or arrange, 
 by mutual agreement, that some uniform inter- 
 jectional sound should stand as the name of an 
 object or of some quality inherent in it. A difficulty, 
 too, there is, not so much in reviving the conception 
 of an object by the repetition of a sound, as in invent- 
 ng sounds expressive of the relations between an 
 object and a quality, and concluding an act of judg- 
 ment in conventional and appropriate language. 
 If language is thus the natural product of the
 
 21 
 
 peculiar conformation of the first, and that a low- 
 typed race of men, it would be reasonable with our 
 distinguished South African philologist and his 
 compeers to seek for the traces of the primal language 
 among those who are noted for the characteristic 
 mechanical difficulties of speech, as the Bushmen, 
 who still retain those asperities which every language 
 would throw off in its natural tendency to seek ease 
 in articulation. 
 
 As to the identity of origin of the root-words which 
 are supposed to constitute the common basis of the great 
 families of language, it must be premature to speak, 
 whilst the classification of the families is perhaps in- 
 complete (Note, Philology E) ; and the analysis of 
 human speech hitherto has been very partial. 
 
 The original unity of language must therefore be 
 considered as not yet proved ; and the position taken 
 up by Max Muller is the safest approximate con- 
 conclusion which we can adopt no amount of variety 
 in the material or formal elements of speech is in- 
 compatible with the admission of one common source. 
 Some contributions have been made" towards the 
 study of man in society, and the construction of a 
 social science. At the first promulgation of so 
 intricate a subject most men absolutely reject the 
 notion that social phenomena can be generalized. If 
 social science means anything, we must allow that 
 there are recognizable laws which regulate the con- 
 duct of men in the various social relations, births, 
 marriages, deaths, habits and customs, crime and 
 punishments, labour and wages, as well as religious 
 ideas, moral and ajsthetic sentiments, and all the 
 other incidents of social life; and that these laws 
 are as constant, uniform, and inevitable as those
 
 22 
 
 to which the world of external nature is conformed. 
 The bias of every man's mind is of course created 
 or influenced by education, ^.lode of life, the tone and 
 opinions of the sections of society in Avhich he moves, 
 and chiefly by religious belief and impressions ; so 
 that it is difficult to approach any, especially social, 
 questions with what is called a scientific spirit [Herbert 
 Spencer's Essays,] and besides, the physiology of 
 society is so complex, and the causes and sequences 
 of social phenomena are apparently so remote from 
 observation that few will accept the truth of the 
 relations sought to be established. There is, no 
 doubt, a general acquiescence in a successive order, 
 whether retributive or compensative, in the chequered 
 vicissitudes of life ; as implied in the notions of the 
 Greek <60o^oc, or jealousy of the gods, and the Nemesis 
 of tragedy, the Goddess of Retribution, who checks 
 immoderate good fortune, and abases the vfipir or 
 arrogance of prosperous men, and in the course of 
 moral discipline expressed by the tragic apophthegm 
 iruQu juafloc, or wisdom by suffering. Similar articles 
 of popular faith are embodied in our proverbs and 
 hou ehold words, as "Every light has its shadow," 
 " Every dog has his day." 
 
 " There is a title in the affairs of men 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune : 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 
 
 " It never rains, but it pours," and 
 
 "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 
 But in battalions." 
 
 This belief is also largely illustrated by those sayings 
 which imply a compensative distribution, as
 
 23 
 
 " God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. 
 Quick come, quick go. The race is not to the swift. 
 God never measures men by inches. 
 God never shuts one door but lie opens another." 
 
 And in the re-organization of governing agencie s 
 after social convulsions, or in the adjustment of the 
 relative functions of the parts of the social machinery, 
 statesmen and legislators are often taught that 
 national institutions are not created, but are evolved 
 from the inherent social tendencies of a people ; that 
 legislation is not in itself an effective cause, but 
 rather a subsidiary one, dragged in by the force of 
 public opinion to assist in maturing and legalizing 
 necessary social developments. 
 
 Men feel that the whole process, by which the 
 greatest of the social changes of English history will 
 ere long be effected, is now fermenting. 
 
 Voiceless is the fiat ; Society is educating itself for 
 the disruption of the national religion ; and when the 
 marriage bond of Church and State of England is 
 dissolved, the causes must be looked for, not in the 
 policy of this or that statesman, but in the social 
 characteristics of the day ; and legislators (if social 
 science be true) will have had no more to do with it 
 than they had to do with the disestablishment of the 
 Protestant Church of Ireland. A stupendous change 
 fraught with important consequences to the State, to 
 religion, and to society, which none may presume to 
 forecast, is felt to be evolving from civil and religious 
 causes. No statesman, no legislator can withstand 
 the tendency of the age in that direction ; but they, 
 too, will bend to the imperative voice of social order 
 and development, and provide the machinery for 
 severing the link.
 
 24 
 
 It will be said that such a Theory of Evolution in 
 social life represents the basis and operations of 
 society as beyond the overruling of God, or the in- 
 fluence of any man, hero, king, or statesman, and 
 implies that the links in the continuous chain of 
 causes and effects are not welded, nay not even tra- 
 versed by the influence and spirit of Providence. As 
 an exponent of the topics of the day, I need only add 
 that the difficulties in accepting Evolution in the 
 departments of Sociology are, after all, similar in 
 kind to those which meet the inquirer in the physical 
 sciences ; for social science can only reach its con- 
 clusions by a purely deductive method of reasoning ; 
 it arrives at the law of effect by inferences from the 
 presumed law of causation, on which the effect de 
 pends; and, therefore, although we may conclude 
 that a cause will produce a certain effect, we are 
 unable to predict an effect, because of our ignorance 
 of the many counter-agencies which may be at work. 
 Such inquiries, however, may lead to an acquisition 
 of knowledge, which, " though quite insufficient for 
 prediction, may be most valuable for guidance." 
 (Mill's Logic, Book vi, c. 6.) 
 
 The study of Comparative Theology is also of too 
 recent a growth to admit of its results being classified ; 
 in fact, a scientific investigation of the systems of 
 human Faith is, with the application of comparative 
 methods to the elucidation of history and politics, the 
 newest phase of intellectual speculation ; and if it is 
 destined, in the words of Professor Max Muller, to 
 evoke, in the very heart of Christianity, a fresh spirit 
 and a new life, we may look with much interest, and 
 no anxiety, to such a panoramic exhibition of the laws 
 of growth of the religions of the human race.
 
 25 
 
 But I doubt whether the author of the " Science of 
 Religion " will carry many a psychologist with him in 
 his assumption that among the mental attributes of 
 man is to be included a " faculty of faith " a faculty 
 of apprehending the infinite, a power " independent of 
 sense and reason " just as man has a special faculty 
 of speech. Much less support can be given to another 
 theory that the religious ideas of a people are de- 
 pendent on the structure of their language, involving 
 the strange hypothesis that the religious conceptions 
 of the mind are evolved from the mechanical casualty 
 of speech, whereas all experience shows that the mind 
 makes language its slave, and moulds it into forms 
 expressive of its conceptions. In fact, words are the 
 registers and vehicles of the product of the mind. 
 We may readily allow the mutual action and re-action 
 of thought and language, and that language is often 
 the father to thought ; but this is no evidence for a 
 law of identity in both. 
 
 By such an inquiry into the Protean phases of 
 Faith, it is probable that many difficulties which arise 
 from our way of interpreting Semitic modes of speech 
 will be removed. We interpret ancient thought by 
 modern thought, ancient language by modern lan- 
 guage. The imagery, personifications, and anthro- 
 pomorphisms of the Hebrew are in strong contrast 
 to the character of our English tongue ; and yet 
 most readers seek to interpret the " Law and the 
 Prophets " as if the conceptions and the words were 
 those of this age. (Muller's Science of Religion, 
 p, 280.) 
 
 We, who are the inheritors of the traditions of the 
 Hebrew Faith, as underlying the teaching of Christ, 
 are apt to undervalue the religious heir-looms of the
 
 other great families of the earth ; and yet, through 
 all time, as far as language is yet traced back to that 
 mother-speech which lies behind Sanscrit, Latin, 
 Greek, and our own tongue, the devout aspirations 
 of our race have risen to the Heaven-Father. 
 
 The comparative study of religions may teach us 
 that God never left himself without witness in the 
 hearts and the language of men, and may unveil the 
 continuous history of the Divine education of the 
 world. Those who are best qualified to speak, who 
 know the strength and the weakness of science, are 
 least disposed to let their imaginations wander towards 
 JJ'/iat might be. What is bounds their labours and 
 their speculations. Their business as explorers is to 
 find the truth within the horizon of human research. 
 Our duty as learners is to weigh all evidence, and 
 wait with suspension of judgment, knowing that be- 
 hind all these theories, all these runnings to and fro 
 after knowledge, lies the great question amanswered 
 by reason " Who made all these things ? " Light, 
 more light ! was the prayer of the dying philosopher, 
 and is the watch-word of modern science. Life is 
 progress ; life is action ; no longer the contemplative 
 quietism of the philosopher, nor a brooding over the 
 faded memories of the past. No ! the life of to-day 
 is an earnest reaching after the revelations of the 
 morrow. 
 
 I have sufficiently trespassed on your patience by 
 this sketch of one long line of modern inquiry ; it 
 would be a vain task to try to register here to-day 
 the accumulating facts of physical observation and 
 chemical experiment ; to condense " the fairy tales of 
 science " to tell how the sun has been virtually 
 brought into the laboratory of the physist, and its
 
 27 
 
 constituent elements tested by the spectrum analysis ; 
 and to tell how nature economises and conserves her 
 energies. 
 
 We had been prepared by previous solar observers 
 to recognize a connection between the phenomena 
 of the sun and occurences on our own globe to ac- 
 knowledge that science had established a relation be- 
 tween the sun-spots and terrestrial magnetism, and 
 that the meteorological changes of earth and sea are 
 affected by changes on the sun's surface ; but the 
 marvellous revelations of the spectroscope, by analy- 
 sing solar light, indicate the presence in the sun and 
 of the stars also of the same substances of which our 
 globje is constituted. Each new application of. this, 
 the most wonderful discovery of our own days, brings 
 before us the enormous forces at work in the sun, and, 
 to use Lockyer's words, it is impossible to foresee 
 what depths of space will not in time be gauged. 
 
 Thus each inquirer is building up an edifice on his 
 own ground-plan ; the varied phenomena of matter 
 are yielding a fast-accumulating mass of facts. Who 
 shall harmonize and arrange them ? Of these detached 
 fabrics, who shall re-arrange the materials into a 
 Temple of Knowledge ? Who, with all these results 
 of experiment and observation, shall be privileged to 
 write the Literature of the Sciences ? 
 
 But it is well for those amongst us who do not 
 care to follow the progress of science, that the human, 
 mind is not restricted to the study of physical phe- 
 nomena that "the circle of human nature is not 
 complete without the arc of feeling and emotion " 
 (Tyndall) that ' our studies and enjoyments are 
 not confined within the circle of the sciences. The 
 aesthetic faculty has a kaleidoscopic variety of subjects
 
 28 
 
 accessible to every educated man. Literature and 
 art furnish abundant and tempting material of self- 
 culture to those who turn from the severer discipline 
 of Science. When the snowy wreaths pour down 
 the castellated front of yon Table Mountain, when 
 you scent the dewy morn, or watch the "golden 
 lightning of the sunken sun," it is not the relation of 
 cause and effect that thrills and fascinates ; the song 
 of the birds, the gaudy tiring and perfume of the 
 flowers, the gay face that mother earth puts on in her 
 Spring time, derive none of their beauty or of their 
 means of ministering the chastest pleasures from the 
 catalogues of ornithologists and botanists. Xo ! In 
 themselves they are " things of beauty, things of 
 joy." The tendency of this age would direct you to 
 an exact acquaintance with the phenomena around 
 you, and there is for you and for me a real enjoy- 
 ment of light, " holy light," of the genial sunshine, 
 and of the voices of the air, without scrutinizing the 
 effects of solar energy or calculating the velocity of 
 light or sound ; but the mind falls short of the 
 standard of real education if it does not unite th e 
 appreciation of scientific knowledge with a receptivity 
 of what is good and beautiful. 
 
 And here I venture to say that Avhether you believe 
 or not in the evolution theory, you must apply its 
 principles to the Colonial Institutions, whether for 
 science, art, or literature, to meet the absolute require- 
 ments of the day. This noble library in which we 
 are assembled, which offers its treasures to all, 
 without money and without price, and the sister 
 institutions, the South African Museum and the 
 Botanic Gardens, are too limited in space as well as in 
 resources. Here and there throughout the Colony an
 
 29 
 
 earnest inquirer works, hermit-like, in philology or 
 botany, or other fields of natural science ; but there 
 is no place of reunion ; no Royal society, where the 
 products of individual research may be discussed and 
 chronicled. But it is by the intercourse of mind 
 with mind ; by association and discussion, by adding 
 the individual contributions to the common stock of 
 knowledge, that we may hope to spread refined tastes 
 and higher culture ; to elevate the social life of the 
 Colony, and at the same time to develop the yet 
 untold resources of the South African Continent. 
 
 The following is the appendix referred to in the 
 body of Dr. Dale's address : 
 
 NOTE A. To the inquiry, Does the mere association in the 
 same deposit of the flint-implements and the bones of extinct 
 quadrupeds prove that the artificers of the flint-tools and the 
 animals co-existed in time ? I answer that mere juxtaposition 
 of itself is no evidence of contemporaneity, and that upon the 
 testimony of the fossil bones the age of the human relics is not 
 proven. Professor Eogers in the " Beputed Races of Primeval 
 Man," written after a visit to the localities referred to: vide 
 Blackwood's Magazine, October, I860. 
 
 NOTE B. We have now to inquire how this contemporaneous- 
 ness is to be accounted for, whether by prolonging the existence of 
 these mammals into the human period, as ordinarily understood, 
 or by antedating the commencement of the human period. . . . 
 The acceptance of the former might be justified by the unquestion- 
 able fact that the existence of the bos primogenius was prolonged 
 even into the. historic period. Vide Westminster Review, April, 
 1863. 
 
 NOTE Teleology. The teleology which supposes that the eye, 
 such as we see it in man or one of the higher vertebrata, was 
 made with the precise structure which it exhibits, for the purpose 
 of enabling the animal, which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly 
 received its death-blow. Huxley, "Critiques and Addresses,' 
 page 305.
 
 30 
 
 NOTE C. We have already seen that M. Guizot lays it down 
 as a physical impossibility that Man, the human pair, can have 
 been introduced into the world except in complete stature, in the 
 full possession of all his faculties and powers. He holds it as 
 certain that on no other condition would Man on his first 
 appearance have been able to survive and found the human 
 family. Duke of Argyll on M. Guizot, in the " Beign of Law," 
 p. 270. 
 
 Le fait surnaturel de la creation explique seulement, la 
 premiere apparition de 1'liouime ici-bas. Guizot, quoted in the 
 " Reign of Law," p. 28. 
 
 NOTE D. According to this view, an internal law controls 
 the action of every part of every individual, and of every 
 organism as a unit, and of the entire organic world as a whole. 
 
 It is believed that this conception of an internal innate force will 
 ever remain necessary. -Mivart " Genesis of Species," c. XI., 
 p. 274. 
 
 I deem an innate tendency to deviate from parental type, 
 operating through periods of adequate duration, to be the most 
 probable nature, by way of operation, of the secondary law 
 whereby species have been derived one from the other Owen, 
 "Anatomy of Vertebrates," vol. iii., p. 807. 
 
 NOTE E. Man has not only escaped "natural selection" 
 himself, but he is actually able to take away some of that power 
 from nature which before his appearance she universally exercised- 
 We can anticipate the time when the earth will produce only 
 cultivated plants and domestic animals, Avheu man's selection 
 shall have supplanted " natural selection." Wallace, ; ' Natural 
 Selection," p. 326. 
 
 NOTE F. No physical hypothesis ever founded on any indis- 
 putable fact has yet explained the origin of the primordial 
 protoplasm, and, above all, its marvellous properties Avhich 
 rendered evolution possible. 
 
 No valid evidence has yet been adduced to lead us to believe 
 that inorg-anic matter has become transfused into living, otherwise 
 than through the agency of a pre-existing organism, and there 
 remains a residual phenomenon still entirely unaccounted for. 
 Professor Allman President, of the Biological Section of the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science ; vide Nature, 18th 
 September, 1873, p. 425.
 
 31 
 
 NOTE G. Philology. Dr. Bleek's "Comparative Grammar of 
 South African Languages ; " vide Prefaces to Parts 1 and 2. 
 
 NOTE H. Man, though he has great variety of thoughts, and 
 such from which others might receive profit and delight, yet they 
 are within his own breast, invisible and hidden from others. 
 . . . The comfort and advantage of society not being to be 
 had without communication of tlwughts, it vas necessary that 
 men should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those 
 invisible ideas which his thoughts are made up for, might bg 
 made known to others. . . . Thus we may conceive how 
 words came to be made use of by men, as the signs of ideas, not by 
 any natural connection that there is between articulate sounds 
 and certain ideas. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understand- 
 ing," book iii. c. II. See also section 6, " Words by use readily 
 excite ideas."
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THBt 
 
 FORTH AIWERSABT MIITIM 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 j<wih ^frtrau f u&lic Jufcrarg, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 15TH MAY, 1875. 
 
 glutton gakall, .*, in 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1875.
 
 Committee : 
 
 BEV. Da. CAMERON. 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, Esq. (Treas.) 
 
 PBOFESSOB NOBLE. 
 
 L. DALE, Esq., LL.D. 
 
 SIB THOMAS MACLEAR, KT. 
 
 CHARLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, 
 Esq. 
 
 D. TENNANT, Esq. 
 
 E. J. STONE, Esq., F.R.S. 
 DB. W. H. ROSS. 
 
 Stttritovs : 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 Hifcmian anfc 
 
 F. MASKEW, Esq.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In presenting to the subscribers the Report of the 
 South African Public Library, at this the 46th anni- 
 versary, the Committee have much pleasure in stating, 
 that the usefulness of the Institution has been main- 
 tained and generally appreciated by the public, as will 
 be seen from the amount of subscriptions received, from 
 the number of books circulated, as well as from the 
 marked increase in the number of persons who have 
 availed themselves of the many advantages so freely 
 offered by this Library. 
 
 The number of volumes usued in the different de- 
 partments of science and literature during the year, has 
 been as follows, viz. : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 66 volumes. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 66 
 
 Biography 598 
 
 Science and Arts 236 
 
 History 567 
 
 Voyages and Travels 968 
 
 BeUes Lettres, Miscellaneous Essays 697 
 
 Works of Fiction and Amusement 7638 
 
 Periodicals and Reviews 5785 
 
 From the above statement it will be perceived, that, 
 as compared with the previous year, there has been a 
 slight increase in the number of standard works 
 issued, and a falling off in novels and periodicals to the 
 extent of 521 volumes. 
 B 2
 
 The number of visitors to the Library since its re- 
 opening on the 28th May last (from the record kept 
 by the officers of the Institution), shows an increase of 
 more than 5,000, as compared with last year, the total 
 number being 25,190, giving an average of 90 a day, 
 the largest number of visitors on one day amounting to 
 131, and the lowest 21. 
 
 In the last report, mention was made by the Com- 
 mittee, that, through the instrumentality of Mr. G. 
 Frere, the Foreign Office was pleased to order that the 
 Library should be furnished with a set of " State 
 Papers ;" they have now much satisfaction in reporting 
 the receipt of 145 volumes of "State Papers and 
 Bulletins." 
 
 They have also to acknowledge an additional contri- 
 bution from the Royal Academy of Science, Munich, 
 of their " Transactions and Reports," and the pre- 
 sentation by Mr. C. Fairbridge of the " Decados of 
 Barros," and the continuation by Couta in 24 
 volume*. 
 
 The Committee during the year have been enabled 
 to add many valuable standard works to the Library 
 collection purchased out of the bequest made by the 
 late Hugh Lynar, Esq., amongst them will be found a 
 number of works relating to South Africa, the selection 
 and purchase of which was kindly undertaken by 
 Henry Hall, Esq., of London, for many years a resi- 
 dent in 1his Colony, and the Committee have to express 
 their cordial thanks to that gentleman for the kindness 
 and zeal with which he executed the commission en- 
 trusted to him. 
 
 The accession of books during the year has been as 
 follows i 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... 8 volumes. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 12 
 
 Science and the Arts 65
 
 Novels 74 
 
 Belles' Lettres 80 
 
 Dictionaries, Lexicons, &c. ... ... 22 
 
 History 192 
 
 Voyages and Travels 161 
 
 Biography 23 
 
 Miscellaneous 7 ,, 
 
 Total 644 volumes. 
 
 Amongst these will be found, together with those 
 already acknowledged, presentations from the Royal 
 Society, the Royal Geographical Society, Zoological 
 Society, and the Cobden Club, London, Rawson W. 
 Rawson, Esq., late Governor of Barbadoes, Dr. Dale, 
 Messrs. Henry Hall, A. Bisset, C. Utting, L B. 
 Behrens, and Daniel O'Connor of Melbourne, as well 
 as from the authorities of the Lovedale Institution, and 
 other publishers under the Copyright Act. 
 
 The committee have had under consideration an im- 
 portant letter from the Government, having reference 
 to a debate in the House of Assembly, when it was re- 
 presented that public feeling was strongly in favour of 
 opening the Library in the evening, on which the Go- 
 vernment expressed their wish to ascertain from the 
 committee what arrangements it would be practicable 
 to make, so as to extend to the public the advantages 
 sought. 
 
 The subject had most careful attention on the part 
 of the committee, but, after mature deliberation, they 
 felt compelled to inform the Government, that grave 
 difficulties would lie in the way of carrying out the 
 proposal ; such as, increased risk from fire, additional 
 risk of books being injured or lost, the great expense 
 which would be incurred for extra supervision, aad the 
 laying on of gas for lightning the the hall ; and further 
 the committee felt bound to add, that they were not
 
 6 
 
 aware of there being any strong public feeling in Cape 
 Town, in favour of the proposed measure. 
 
 In connection with this subject, the committee regret 
 that the means at their disposal do not permit them to 
 arrange the salaries of the present staff of officers on a 
 scale commensurate with their duties, and the increased 
 cost of living. 
 
 The design of the Government in the establishment 
 of this Library, was, in the words of the proclamation* 
 " To lay the foundation of a system which shall place 
 the means of knowledge within the reach of the youth 
 of this Colony and supply them with what the most 
 eloquent of ancient writers considered one of the first 
 blessings of life, ' Home Education.' " 
 
 This great object is ever kept in view by those, to 
 whom from year to year, the subscribers entrust the 
 responsible direction of the Library. The address 
 elucidating the results obtained by the Astronomer 
 Royal from his observations of the " solar eclipse " last 
 year, and the ceremony of the first " degree day," 
 appear to have been appreciated by the public, as fitly 
 occurring within these walls, and the important educa- 
 tional objects of the trust administered by the com- 
 mittee of management " for and on behalf of the com- 
 munity of this Colony," would be largely promoted by 
 periodic lectures on topics which might direct attention, 
 amongst other things, to the valuable treasures in these 
 collections, which are too often overlooked by ordinary 
 readers. 
 
 Whilst earnestly endeavouring to sustain and en- 
 hance the reputation of an institution of which the 
 Colony is so justly proud, the committee invite the co- 
 operation of men eminent in the respective departments 
 of literature, science, and art, to avail themselves of the 
 facilities which can here be given for bringing before 
 the public the results of experiment and research.
 
 The following is Dr. Block's report: 
 
 The accessions to the incomparable collection of 
 books and manuscripts in Native languages, which 
 forms part of Sir George Grey's gift, have been both 
 numerous and important during the past year although 
 few of them are in African languages, in which it 
 seems so desirable to render this Library as complete 
 as possible. Neither the great Mission Institution at 
 Lovedale, nor the missionaries among the Basuto and 
 other Betshuana tribes, have of late supplied us with 
 copies of the publications which have been issued by 
 them, notwithstanding the freedom of postage which 
 has been granted by the different governments (of this 
 Colony, Natal, and the South African Republic) to 
 books and manuscripts forwarded lor deposit in the 
 Grey Library. 
 
 Only a dozen Kafir books were received, and half of 
 these were given by the Rev. Wm. Greenstock, who 
 printed them at Keiskamma Hoek (Emtwaku) in 1865 
 and 1866. One of these is a book of Kafir conversa- 
 tion, and another of Kafir letters, both written by 
 natives, and accompanied by a translation. Two ele- 
 mentary Kafir books, printed in London, 1873, were 
 sent by the Rev. Wm. Holford, of Mount Coke, King 
 William's Town, and four others by the Rev. A. J. 
 Newton, who had them printed at St Peter's (Gwatyu) 
 in 1873, 1874, and 1875. The last of these, a story- 
 book {Incivadi Yentsomi) contains (besides a translation 
 of some of -ZEsop's fables and some English tales) 
 several original Kafir tales, and Mr. Newton evidently 
 does not neglect the opportunities which he has for the 
 collection of the folk-lore of the natives among whom- 
 he works. 
 
 Towards the collection of Native folk-lore, which is 
 clearly one of the most important objects of philological 
 research in South Africa, a very valuable contribution
 
 8 
 
 has been received from Nalal, viz., thirteen Zulu house- 
 hold stories, in the original, accompanied by a literal 
 translation, collected and presented by Miss Martha 
 Lindley, of the Inanda Mission Station. Another 
 American missionary, the Rev. Seth B. Stone, of 
 Amanzimtote, has sent us " The Government of the 
 Zulu Chiefs compared to the rule of the English," as 
 dictated in Zulu by Songabeza ; and a Norwegian mis- 
 sionary, the Rev. T. Udland, of Umpumulo, has fur- 
 nished manuscript genealogies of Cetshwayo and 
 Langalibalele. The Bishop of Natal's book, " Langali- 
 balele and the Amahlubi Tribe," printed for private 
 circulation in a very limited number of copies, has also 
 been presented by the author. The only printed book 
 regarding the Zulu language, received last year, is the 
 Rev. Charles Roberts' " Zulu Kafir Language simpli- 
 fied," printed at Mount Coke (1874), frou> whence it 
 was sent to us by the Rev. Wm. Holford. 
 
 Copies of the Pilgrim's Progress translated into 
 Otyiherero (Damara language) by a Rhenish mis- 
 sionary, the Rev. H. Brincker, have been presented by 
 the translator, and also by the Rev. C. H. Hahn. 
 
 A valuable manuscript has been especially prepared 
 for us by a Finnish missionary, the Rev. P. Kiirvinen, 
 who gives the grammatical elements of the hitherto 
 almost unknown Shindonga or Ovambo language, ac- 
 companied by some texts (native traditions) in the 
 same. 
 
 The only publication in the Hottentot language 
 issued in the course of this year is a small religious 
 one, in the Namaqua dialect, by a Rhenish missionary, 
 the Rev. J. Bohm, printed at Cape Town. 
 
 Among other African languages we have only to 
 mention the Kru (or Gedebd), in which two publications 
 have been presented by the Rev. J. G. Christaller. 
 They are elements of the Gedebo language, and a
 
 9 
 
 translation of Earth's Bible History, published by the 
 Right Rev. J. G. Auer,at Stuttgart, in 1870 and 1871. 
 
 Four manuscripts in West African Arabic, have 
 been given by Commander D. May, R.N. 
 
 An important book in Malagasy (the language of 
 Madagascar), " Histoire des Rois en Malgache," pub- 
 lished at Antananarivo in 1873, by French Roman 
 Catholic missionaries, has been presented by a Nor- 
 wegian missionary, the Rev. L. Dahl. 
 
 A fine collection of books in Native languages has 
 been made for us by Dr. P. Comrie, R.N., during a 
 late cruise in the Pacific. It consists of twelve books 
 in the Tongan language (among them a collection of 
 Tongan laws, portions of a work on Natural History, 
 two Arithmetics, an Almanack, Church Music, &c.;, 
 six in the dialects spoken on the Fiji Islands (an Arith- 
 metic, two Catechisms, New Testament, Christian 
 Doctrine, and Pilgrim's Progress), and eight publica- 
 tions in Kusaie, a language hitherto unknown to us, 
 spoken on Ualan, one of the Caroline Islands. The 
 Kusaie books, printed 1865 1871, consist of a Primer, 
 Catechism &c., Hymn-book, the Gospels, Acts, St. 
 John's Epistles, Epistle to the Philippians, Book of 
 Ruth, and Psalm xxiii. The structure of this lan- 
 guage (Kusaie), and its relationship to other languages, 
 are not yet clear to us. 
 
 An appeal to the Governments of the Australian 
 Colonies, as well as to that of British Columbia, for a 
 collection of the folk-lore in the Native languages of 
 the fast dying-out Aborigines, has been kindly re- 
 commended to their attention by the then Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies (Lord Kimberley), and by Sir 
 Henry Barkly. This has been responded to most will- 
 ingly by the Governor of South Australia (A. Mus- 
 grave, Esq., C.B.), at whose instance the Govern- 
 ment of that Colony has placed a sum upon the
 
 10 
 
 estimates for this purpose. Replies, indicating will- 
 ingness to further this object, have also been received 
 on behalf of the Government of Victoria, and from the 
 then Governor of Western Australia (now Governor 
 of Tasmania), F, A. Weld, Esq. The latter has also 
 sent us a lately-printed vocabulary of the Western 
 Australian native languages ; and by the direction of 
 Sir George Bowen (Governor of Victoria), we have 
 been supplied with ten Reports of the Board for the 
 Protection of Aborigines in Victoria (1861 1874), 
 forwarded by the Secretary to that Beard, R. Brough 
 Smyth, Esq. A collection of nine books, new to us, 
 which refer to the South Australian Languages and 
 Aborigines, kindly presented by Governor Musgrave, 
 has been described in my paper, " On Inquiries into 
 Australian Aboriginal Folk-lore," in the Cape Monthly 
 Magazine, Vol. IX. No. 51. September, 1874, pp. 
 129136. 
 
 Inquiries regarding the phonology of the Caucasian 
 languages (in which it had been reported that clicks 
 were to be found), addressed to one of the first au- 
 thorities on these languages, Academician A. Schiefner, 
 have induced the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. 
 Petersburg to send us seven of their grammatical pub- 
 lications on these languages. They are the works of 
 Mr. Schiefner, and of General Baron Peter von Uslar, 
 Director of the researches regarding the ethnology of 
 the Caucasus ; and describe the language of the 
 Awarians, Abchasians, TschetshentBians, the Udes, the 
 Kasikumiikians, Hiirkanians, and Kiirinians. These 
 curious Caucasian languages form a very important, 
 and, in many points of structure, a most original branch 
 of the great Sex-denoting family of languages; and, as 
 regards the peculiarities of their forms of concord, they 
 and the South African languages throw a most in- 
 structive light upon each other.
 
 11 
 
 The Notes and Queries on Anthropology, issued by 
 the British Association, have been presented, through 
 His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, by the Anthropo- 
 logical Institute. 
 
 The original copy of the Bushman Paintings from 
 the Maluti, published in chromo-lithoerraph, in the 
 Cape Monthly Magazine, Vol. IX. No. 49. July, 
 1874, has been presented through the Hon. Charles 
 Brownlee, Esq., by J. M. Orpen, Esq. A large col- 
 lection of Bushman etchings on stones met with in 
 Bushmanland, and of Bushman paintings discovered 
 in the Kammanassie Mountains, have been copied for 
 us by H. C. Schunke, Esq. 
 
 Photographs of Natives have been presented by 
 William Herman, Esq. (Langalibalele and his son), 
 by Dr. Theophilus Hahn, and others. 
 
 We have also to acknowledge, as gifts from the 
 authors, two maps of South Africa, viz., an historical 
 one by Dr. Or. Fritsch, forming part of his great work 
 on the Natives of South Africa, and a sketch map by 
 Charles Solomon, Esq.
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 The Ven. ARCHDEACON BADNALL, D.D., then 
 delivered the following Address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 I have thought that it would be not out of harmony 
 with the honourable traditions of this room, and, bear- 
 ing in mind the auspicious and every way memorable 
 ceremonial in which we were taking part on Wednes- 
 day last,* not inopportune, if I should venture on this 
 occasion to travel a little out of the beaten track of 
 these annual addresses, and claim some small share of 
 attention for a theme that concerns us at once as 
 students, moralists, and citizens. The object of my 
 address will be to set forth some of the principal con- 
 ditions which shall most favour, shall contribute most 
 directly to form and uphold a sound public opinion ; 
 although in order to reach that end, it will be necessary 
 first to define, as far as I may be able, what we mean 
 by public opinion. If to any I should seem too bold 
 in venturing on a theme of so much interest, I would 
 base my chief claim to indulgence on the fact that every 
 successive year, as our political institutions acquire 
 increased fixity, the importance of the duty resting on 
 every citizen to contribute his full share to make public 
 opinion what it ought to be, cannot fail to become more 
 urgent. The founding of our new Houses of Parlia- 
 ment marks the beginning of an epoch in the history 
 of this Colony, which will be successful or the reverse, 
 
 * Wednesday, May 12th, 1875. the day on which His Excellency 
 Sir H. Barkly laid the Foundation-stone of the New Housea of 
 Parliament.
 
 13 
 
 will be for good or evil, according as it shall be charac- 
 terized in the main by the strength or by the feeble- 
 ness of our sense of public responsibility. If what I 
 am going to say shall help, however little, towards our 
 common happiness and well-being, my purpose will 
 have been achieved. That I have undertaken a task 
 which I can only very imperfectly fulfil, I am well aware. 
 I know I may venture to ask for that reasonable in- 
 dulgence which our community is not usually unwill- 
 ing to extend to every well-meant endeavour for its 
 good ; and I shall be more than rewarded for the degree 
 of anxiety that must ever attend the attempt to speak 
 truthfully and profitably on a complicated subject, if 
 any words of mine should happily encourage others, 
 better equipped than I am, and with more claim to be 
 listened to, to prosecute what I am now about to pro- 
 pound only in the barest outline. 
 
 Now, all here present may be safely assumed to be 
 agreed that society was ordained for the sake of 
 society, for the sake of the multitudes who compose it, 
 not of the select few who may happen to be its leaders^ 
 and to have attained, however honourably, the more 
 prominent social positions. To which, let it be added 
 in the words of Mr. Burke, that " political arrange- 
 ment, as it is a work for social ends,'' so only " is it 
 to be wrought by social means. There mind must 
 conspire with mind. ... If I might venture to 
 appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris," 
 I should say that I am still quoting Burke, and that 
 my extract is from his reflections on the Revolution in 
 France " I mean to experience, I should tell you, 
 that in my course I have known, and, according to my 
 measure, have co-operated with great men ; and I have 
 never yet seen any plan which has not been mended 
 by the observations of those who were much inferior in 
 understanding to the person who took the lead in the
 
 14 
 
 business. By a slow but well-sustained progress, the 
 effect of each step is watched : the good or ill-success 
 of the first gives light to us in the second, and so, from 
 light to light, we are conducted with safety through 
 the whole series. We see that the parts of the system 
 do not clash. The evils latent in the most promising 
 contrivances are provided for as they arise. One ad- 
 vantage is as little as possible sacrificed to another. We 
 compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled 
 to unite into a consistent w hole the various anomalies 
 and contending principles that are found in the minds 
 and affairs of men." * 
 
 To resume the thread of my own remarks : In the 
 foregoing passage public opinion is not so much as once 
 mentioned, but it would be hard to find a passage in 
 any writer that would more forcibly suggest how ill we 
 can afford to do without it. If it is for the good of all 
 that all interests should be allowed for and attended to 
 in a state, then it is also for the good of all that all in- 
 terests should as far as possible, be represented. But 
 they cannot be adequately represented except as every 
 member of the body politic is free to have his opinion 
 and his voice, and if he thinks he has a grievance, and 
 is ready to state it in a lawful and respectful manner, 
 is sure of a respectful hearing. How else are com- 
 plaints to make themselves heard; and without the 
 power to complain, how are wrongs to be redressed ? 
 It may be for the shoemaker's immediate interest to 
 assure his suffering customer that the shoe is an excel- 
 lent fit ; but be who has to wear it has the best right 
 to insist that it pinches, if it does pinch. And all who 
 undeitake to make laws for or to govern others, from 
 the governments and legislatures of nations down to 
 the directorship of a penny ban>, or a parochial club 
 
 * " Burke on the French Revolution," p. 203 (small edition).
 
 15 
 
 are as the shoemaker ; it is not in the nature of things 
 that they should be beneficial, or even just, except aa 
 they habitually take counsel with those for whose sake 
 they exist. And it is through public opinion only that 
 this interchange of counsels is practicable, or even con- 
 ceivable. 
 
 And yet public opinion is something more than a 
 mere plurality of individual opinions. " Human indivi- 
 duals," says Martensen, " are not personal atoms which 
 have only their own individual duties, but they are 
 organically combined into a social whole, where in re- 
 gard to social duties they are solidarically bound, one 
 for all, and all for one."* On this solidarity, this 
 organic oneness of society, the same author (whom I 
 may, in passing, be allowed to name as one of the pro- 
 foundest, clearest, and best-furnished thinkers of our 
 time on ethical subjects), proceeds to ground the un- 
 questionable fact, that there is such a thing as a social 
 conscience ; a common responsibility, and obligation, 
 and guilt ; a destiny that may visit a whole people, so 
 as to be felt by the whole people as a common 
 destiny, A fact of this nature may not admit of being 
 easily explained. There are unfathomed depths in the 
 moral no less than in the physical world. But there 
 are evidences quite on the surface indicating with no 
 uncertain finger that the true bond of social and politi- 
 cal life rests on some principle vastly more profound 
 than the voluntary, separate, conscious consent of each 
 one of a multitude of moral units. In illustration, 'take 
 the instance of a panic perhaps an unfounded panic 
 Suddenly seizing an army of brave men. Who on 
 Wednesday last could be insensible to the peculiar 
 emotion generated, not simply by the circumstance that 
 
 Martensen's Christian Ethics," p. 366-8. (Clark's Foreign 
 Theological Library).
 
 16 
 
 each person present happened to be one of a vast crowd* 
 but by something quite different, namely by the intui- 
 tive perception that each one was a component part of 
 a great multitude inspired for the time with one 
 common sentiment ? Assignable to the same root, how- 
 ever deep one may have to dig to get to it, is the capacity 
 of a people for forming a common or public opinion, an 
 opinion which is not so much the sum total, as the 
 subtle fusion of many minds directed to one point. 
 I am not going to attempt an analypis of the 
 phenomenon. I only say that, beyond doubt, there is in 
 man's social nature some such susceptibility as that of 
 which we have been speaking, and that its reality is 
 being constantly flashed upon us experimentally in 
 everyday life. 
 
 Now, by adding what has been said last, however 
 fragmentarily propounded, to what was said before, 
 we obtain an approximate notion of what public opinion 
 is. It is any opinion that suddenly or slowly, account- 
 ably or unaccountably, possesses any organized section 
 of the human race on any matter affecting its own in- 
 terests, or the interests of any portion, or any indivi- 
 dual member of that section. The capacity for it is 
 founded in man's social nature, and the right to it in 
 natural justice. Any measure that tends to repress it, 
 as distinguished from regulating the expression of it, is 
 of the nature of enslavement. And, with the same 
 limitation, any measure that tends to undo restrictions 
 that have bound it previously, is a measure of emanci- 
 pation ; is of the nature of the restoration of a natural 
 human right, apart from which mankind are not free 
 to run the course which their Creator has set before 
 them. 
 
 But the same distinguished writer, whom I was 
 quoting a few minutes since, remarks in another part 
 of the same work, that there are those who " are so
 
 17 
 
 taken up with their theories about the rights of man, 
 that they have totally forgot his nature." * And I am 
 afraid it is the nature of us all to think more about our 
 rights than our duties. Public opinion is constantly 
 invoked, first, as if it were a known quantity ; as if 
 it were the ascertained opinion of ALL concerned ; and 
 next, as if any opinion that may happen to be widely 
 entertained, were most probably, if not certainly, cor- 
 rect. But neither is that which passes for public 
 opinion a known quantity ; nor is the correctness or 
 incorrectness of an opinion necessarily affected in the 
 least degree by the number of persons who entertain 
 it. The sun no more revolved round the earth in the 
 days when absolutely everybody supposed that it did 
 than it does now. Nor, to go from physical to moral 
 and social truths, do we discern as yet more than just 
 the first faint dawning of that day, when the intellec- 
 tual culture and patience, and moral devotion to truth, 
 required for tbe formation of sound opinion on the 
 vexed and intricate problems arising out of interests 
 more strictly and properly human, shall have estab- 
 lished their joint reign over the hearts and minds of the 
 majority. Human nature, then, and the actual moral and 
 intellectual condition of mankind being what they are, 
 it is not for the good of society to assume as true in the 
 concrete what is conceivable only in the abstract, and 
 to deal with facts as being other than they are. Since 
 all that I am chiefly anxious to say turns on the dis- 
 tinction just pointed out, I shall be pardoned if I try to 
 bring it out into somewhat clearer light. 
 
 1. First, public opinion, or that which popularly 
 passes for it, is not a known quantity. In the present 
 imperfect state of the world, it is not even an ascertain- 
 able quantity. One would almost fancy sometimes, 
 
 * " Burke on French Revolution," p. 77.
 
 18 
 
 palpable as the fallacy is the moment it is stated, that 
 any opinion ia believed to become public opinion from 
 the bare circumstance of its being anonymously pub- 
 lished, and so issued to the world as not the opinion of 
 any one person, or class of persons, in particular. I 
 shall have occasion presently to refer to our manifold 
 obligations to the press, and the indispensableness of a 
 free press, as a chief factor of healthy public opinion. 
 I must so far anticipate that topic as to make this the 
 place for saying that the relation of the press to public 
 opinion is for the most part conceived of very vaguely, 
 and that while in some respects that relation can 
 scarcely be overvalued, in other respects it appears to 
 be estimated, or, rather, dreamed about in that negli- 
 gent and misty manner which is sure to lead to error. 
 For, after all, the opinion of one section of society is 
 nothing more than the opinion of that one section ; nor 
 does a writer, because he is unknown, or because it 
 may be on the whole a desirable point of etiquette to 
 treat him as unknown, represent the minds of other 
 people better than if he were known. He may influence 
 other people's minda more effectually through being un- 
 known ; the anonymous writer may be a more power- 
 ful director of opinion ; an ably-conducted newspaper, 
 owing to its impersonal character, has the stronger ten- 
 dency to consolidate and give confidence to a party ; 
 but so far as the press undertakes to be an exponent of 
 opinion, it is even misleading, if the veil of anony- 
 mousness under which it is generally (and I venture to 
 believe, on the whole, beneficially) conducted, favours 
 the illusion that, on that account, it represents a wider 
 and more exact acquaintance with the wants or wishes 
 or thoughts of others. 
 
 So far I have used the term Public Opinion as being 
 one that everybody accepts, and that could be dis- 
 pensed with only by resorting to awkward cir-
 
 19 
 
 cumlocutions. But it is obvious that, like many 
 other terms in political and moral science, it stands 
 for what ought to be, rather than what is. In a 
 certain class of cases, where the point inviting opinion 
 is of the simplest possible description, like some of the 
 questions mooted in the Comitia in the beginning of 
 Roman history, we may readily understand how a very 
 large body of persons may quickly arrive at unanimity, 
 or, at any rate, understand clearly why they differ. For 
 in nuch cases the question often stands in the form of a 
 simple alternative, and the merest instinct of the lowest 
 human intelligence is all that is required for a decision 
 one way or other; the prospect of obtaining some 
 material advantage, or of escaping some considerable 
 inconvenience, powerfully helping, most likely, to de- 
 termine the decision. But the enormously larger pro- 
 portion of the questions that appeal to public opinion 
 are not of that simple character. Many of them are 
 highly composite questions, springing out of conflicting, 
 and, it may be, tangled interests, involving often a 
 multitude of data, and intricate processes of reasoning. 
 It is only by singling out from such problems just some 
 one solitary element, and making it do duty for the 
 whole, carefully keeping out of sight the real difficulties, 
 that they are commonly made even presentable to the 
 public at all, whose instinct often tells them that they 
 have no option but to wait for guidance. While in 
 such cases, the more competent a man id to supply 
 guidance and form a judgment, the more time, generally 
 speaking, does he ask, the more deliberately does he 
 proceed. Frequently, the most useful opinion that can 
 be formed is a negative opinion, an opinion which is 
 substantially a protest against any opinion at all being 
 formed, at least for the present. But there are some 
 special difficulties in the way of the more thoughtful 
 and cautious section of society making a negative policy 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 respected as it deserves to be; and there is always the 
 danger of a noisy and persistent minority meantime re- 
 ceiving an attention wholly disproportioned to their 
 claims. There can be no division lists of public opinion. 
 The guesses made in the absence of proof must generally 
 be of the most crude description, with the additional 
 evil that party spirit and prejudice are ever on the alert 
 such is human infirmity to turn the inevitable un- 
 certainty to their own purposes. 
 
 2. But not only is public opinion an unknown 
 quantity : if a given opinion were ascertained never so 
 certainly to be the opinion of nine out of ten of the 
 persons concerned, would that circumstance by itself 
 be any certain measure of its correctness ? This is a 
 point that requires some little attention. We need not 
 hesitate to accept the dictum of Aristotle (Rhetoric 
 Lib. 1, p. 3, Becker's Edit), that "mankind have a 
 considerable natural aptitude towards what is true, and 
 in the majority of instances hit the truth." This is 
 illustrated not only by the effect which mathematical 
 demonstrations have upon us, but by the manner in 
 which the merits of a practical question are sometimes 
 seized instantaneously by very promiscuous assemblages. 
 I was told the following story by an eye witness on the 
 occasion of the first grand review of volunteers in Hyde 
 Park. A large number of Londoners of the lower 
 orders, including a crowd of sharp-witted London lads, 
 were assembled between and in front of the series of 
 grand-stands constructed along well nigh the whole 
 length of Park-lane for the accommodation of the upper 
 ten thousand. During the rather tedious interval that 
 preceded the review, the London boys beguiled the 
 time, after their wont, by keeping up a running fire of 
 innocent witticisms on every little passing occurrence, 
 with a flying shot now and then at any one in the crowd 
 whose appearance or proceedings invited special notice*
 
 21 
 
 At last a rather pompous very well-dressed gentleman 
 on one of the stands was unwise enough to become 
 angry at what was only meant as fun, and to call the 
 crowd to order in language more strong than polite. On 
 which one of the little ill-clad urchins picked up a frag- 
 ment of dirty-white paper that had served as part- 
 wrapper to a sandwich, fastened it into a split at the 
 end of a stick, marched gravely up to the stand, and 
 pointing with one hand to a very little boy in big 
 neighbourhood, with the other presented the bit of 
 paper to the irascible gentleman, calling out at the 
 same time in the shrillest treble, " I say, Sir, that little 
 boy sends you his CARD!" .Now in that instance public- 
 opinion, or as much of it as the case admitted of, went 
 to the right side like a flash of lightning. A simul- 
 taneous roar of hearty laughter, on the stand, as well 
 as off it, at once proclaimed that the ill-dressed little 
 lad, with his mock challenge, had the best of the con- 
 troversy ; that anger was out of place \ and that if any 
 one was disposed to be ill-tempered, good-tempered 
 quizzing was the best way of putting him straight. But 
 I quote this little incident mainly because it helps to 
 illustrate the sort of cases in which public opinion is 
 often as just as it is prompt. Where there is a call for 
 a display of feeling rather than for the exercise of re- 
 flection and judgment, the hearts of a very mingled 
 crowd will sometimes beat as one, and as they ought to 
 beat. I once saw a poor, ragged, famished-looking boy 
 rush into a confectioner's shop in a chief and crowded 
 street in Liverpool, help himself from the counter of 
 course without paying to a handful of buns, and walk 
 out again, eating as only, I suppose, those do eat to 
 whom hunger has at last become a sort of agony. This 
 he did in the sight of a large number of people. None 
 stopped him ; none reproved him. One general ex- 
 clamation of deep pity followed him as he went. And 
 as any instance of manifest suffering appeals at once to
 
 the general sentiment of pity, so does an instance of 
 manifest injustice or cruelty appeal at once to the 
 general feeling of reeeutment, or a manifest instance of 
 heroic courage to the general sentiment of admiration. 
 But if the case is not one within everybody's immediate 
 observation, the danger of a perversion of judgment be- 
 gins at once. Facts about which there needs not to be 
 any misunderstanding, and about which there ought 
 not to be the possibility of two opinions, are yet often 
 made the ground of appeals to the passions of the mul- 
 titude that are mischievous and misleading in the last 
 degree. And nearly all the more difficult problems of 
 moral and political science are attended with this pecH- 
 liaiity, that they present themselves to us in the con- 
 crete, not in the abstract ; they first come before us not 
 as questions of ecierce, but as practical questions, bound 
 up with the wants or interests, the wishes and the pas- 
 sions of human beings ; so that, in trying to solve them, 
 we encounter human selfishness, human passions, human 
 feelings, at every turn. Our interest even in so dry a 
 matter as a question of taxation is different in kind from 
 cur purely intellectual interest in a proposition of 
 Euclid, and a degree of confidence in the processes of 
 the intellect which would be natural in the one case 
 would be wholly unjustifiable in the other. Such is the 
 prevalence of prej udice, such the brute-force of ignor- 
 ance for destructive ends, that even scientific truth has 
 had to hide itself before now from the violence of the 
 multitude as its best chance of life. Those who have 
 reid the " Last of the Barons" remember how, with 
 the cry of "Death to the Wizard!" a London mob 
 wrecked the house of the inventor of the first steam 
 engine. The novelist, whether he was literally true to 
 fact or not, was at any rate true to human nature when 
 he wrote that page. A crowd once under a false im- 
 pression as to any thing in which they believe they have 
 an interest, once under the impulse of a passionate
 
 23 
 
 sentiment, is difficult to undeceive and guide aright in 
 proportion to the greatness of its numbers, especially if, 
 as generally happens, the truth can only be vindicated 
 by an appeal to reason. And for substantially the same 
 reason, although in a less degree, it is practically futile 
 to expect that the great majority of men will ever in the 
 first instance bestow on those more complicated human 
 questions that underlie all our gravest human interests, 
 that amount of care, and conscientious and otherwise 
 adequate reflection that are indispensable for the solu- 
 tion of them. I speak of mankind as they are. Mental 
 indolence, moral cowardice, chronic indifference to the 
 finer distinctions between true and false, just and un- 
 just, right and wrong, selfishness under a thousand 
 forms, now and then too a more or less creditable con- 
 sciousness of unfitness for the task of judging of things 
 which there has been no previous endeavour to under- 
 stand, all these things arrest the formation of opinion; 
 they induce men to lean idly on one another, to borrow 
 one another's prejudices, and substitute party cries for 
 the honest labour of independent thinking. In short, the 
 bare consent of any given number of human beings, 
 apart from the consideration of that to which they con- 
 sent, and the circumstances under which their consent 
 is given, has hardly more to do with the goodness of 
 their cause than has the numberlessness of a swarm of 
 locusts with the desirableness of their errand. On the 
 contrary, the worth of an opinion may be in an inverse 
 ratio to the number who entertain it. Some present may 
 remember the folio wing passage in DeQuineey's paper on 
 secret societies :* Once on a time he " had heard only 
 of secret societies that were consciously formed far 
 mischievous ends. Soon he read of others . . . 
 that watched over truth dangerous to publish or even 
 to whisper . . . The secrecy, and the reason for 
 
 * " De Qaincey's Works," vol. vi., p. 244 (Author's Edition).. '
 
 24 
 
 the secrecy, were alike sublime. The very image, un- 
 veiling itself by unsteady glimpses, of men linked by 
 brotherly love and perfect confidence, meeting in secret 
 chambers, at the noontide of night, to shelter, by 
 muffling with their own persons interposed, and at 
 their own risk, some solitary lamp of truth, sheltering 
 it from the carelessness of the world and its stormy 
 ignorance; that would soon have blown it out; 
 sheltering it from the hatred of the world ; that would 
 soon have made war upon its life ; all this was super- 
 humanly sublime." Everybody perceives at a glance 
 what society was in De Quincey's thoughts, a society 
 whose entire genius is averse from secrecy, that noway 
 courted darkness, except that it might exist, in order, 
 at the earliest possible moment, to emerge into daylight 
 again. But my citation is thus far apposite ; it reminds 
 us that that ONE society, which in the vastness of its phi- 
 lanthropy, and in the multiplicity of the benefits that it 
 has poured over the world, towers as much above all 
 others as the Heaven is higher than the earth, was once 
 obliged, that it might save its life, to withdraw itself 
 from public opinion. What more affecting monument 
 could we have that the difference between public 
 opinion and " stormy ignorance " rests not necessarily 
 in the number of persons who may represent them, but 
 in another and very different ground of distinction set 
 forth in a lesson of Divine Wisdom with which all are 
 familiar : " And Jive of them were wise, and Jive were 
 foolish ? " 
 
 But it may be said, and with much show of justice, 
 " If public opinion is so beset with liability to error, 
 how are we to account for the consciousness instinctive 
 with us all, that nevertheless there is something in it 
 to be prized and respected ? " The explanation is not 
 far to seek. However valuable or indispensable public 
 opinion may be, it is not valuable for the reasons com- 
 monly put forward ; it does not operate in the manner
 
 25 
 
 popularly assumed. Opinion, private or public, is 
 never necessarily identical with truth ; but as the con- 
 necting link between the practical reason in man and 
 all true conclusions in practical matters, it is indispen- 
 sable. It is this distinction that is too often over- 
 looked. 
 
 An address such as the present does not afford the 
 opportunity of dealing with the logic of opinion and 
 belief, taking belief in the sense in which it is strictly 
 cognate to opinion. A subject of that nature must be 
 treated technically, and at some length, or let quite 
 alone. It is, however, necessary to observe that sound 
 opinion as much implies valid reasoning as a mathema- 
 tical problem implies it, the difference consisting in 
 this, that the reasoning process is employed in the two 
 cases about two different kinds of matter ; that in the 
 one case uncertainty is excluded ; in the other, every 
 variety of uncertainty is admissible down to the lowest 
 degree of the barest possibility. If the three angles of 
 a triangle are not demonstrated to be together equal to 
 two right angles with absolute certainty, the demon- 
 stration fails utterly. But a medical man may be fully 
 justified in the opinion that a particular patient is on 
 the point to die, who yet may recover and live for 
 twenty years longer. Or a lawyer may be justified in 
 giving, and receiving a fee for, a legal opinion, which a 
 court of justice may be justified in overturning within 
 the next twenty-four hours. And this is not the fault 
 of opinion. The weakness or the peculiarity lies with 
 the nature of the matter with which opinion has to do. 
 It is probable and contingent matter, and that only s 
 that furnishes the sphere within which it is the busi- 
 ness of opinion to exercise itself. It appertains to the 
 discipline of life, it specially belongs to all matters dis- 
 tinctively human, that it should be so ; and therefore 
 within that sphere it is only through means of opinion* 
 or more strictly through means of those modifications
 
 26 
 
 of the reasoning processes of which opinion is the legi- 
 timate result, that truth is anyhow attainable. 
 
 For here, let me add, that though opinion can never 
 lay claim to mathematical certainty, yet opinion may, 
 and often does, conduct to a degree of certainty just 
 as valid as if it were mathematical certainty, for every 
 purpose of determining our conduct. Indeed, this is 
 the meaning of the term " moral certainty ;" that is, 
 certainty of such a kind as removes all ground of 
 rational doubt as to our duty in a given case. So that 
 truth is quite as strictly the scope of opinion as it is of 
 mathematical demonstration or scientific research ; and 
 though experiment, and experiment alone, may be the 
 ultimate test of opinion, as it constantly is of scientific 
 theories, yet unless opinion has gone before, it is im- 
 possible that any result can be reached to which the 
 test of experiment can be applied.* 
 
 And what is thus far true of opinion in general is 
 not less true of what we call public opinion, a term ex- 
 pressive principally of the conditions under which 
 truths affecting large and wide interests are gradually 
 established, at once by the combined action and mutual 
 attrition of a multitude of minds. What is not suffi- 
 ciently kept in mind is the great range of the process 
 by means of which public opinion ordinarily ejects its 
 results. It never can be predicted of anyone of the various) 
 truths after which public opinion is at any time feeling 
 its way, that it is sure to be reached within some as- 
 signable period. Just as a dozen highwaymen may 
 suddenly overpower a traveller, and strangle him, so 
 may some of the countless legions of error, and of the 
 passionate and selfish prejudices which are the chief in- 
 stigators of error, suddenly encompass, and for the time 
 (possibly an indefinite time) overwhelm some mighty 
 
 * " Rhetoric of Aristotle," Lib. i. (Introductory chapters). " Thorn., 
 sou's Outline of the Laws of Thought" (Part iv., Applied Logic).
 
 27 
 
 prolific truth which had been painfully travailing to 
 wards the birth for centuries. Such are the daily mys- 
 teries of our present earthly condition. Present suc- 
 cess is no measure of what is right. The immediate 
 acceptance of an opinion is no criterion of its correct- 
 ness. Truth has often seemed weaker than untruth 
 for the moment. But " the stars in their courses 
 fought against Sisera ; " and Deborah when she sang 
 that song, prophesied for all ages. A falsehood, a 
 wrong, an injustice, is out of tune with nature. Re- 
 sistless as the rising tide is the gathering force of truth. 
 And as opinions gravitate towards truth, or are re- 
 pelled by it, their ultimate fate is already sealed ; they 
 will live to conquer, or they will fall and rot like 
 autumn leaves. No man who has that confidence in him 
 can think carelessly ot public opinion. 
 
 And now I have endeavoured to do two things. I 
 have tried, first, to clear up in some measure the mean- 
 ing of the term " public opinion ;" to rescue it from 
 some of the contusion with which it is too commonly 
 enveloped ; and, secondly, I have at the same time en- 
 deavoured to vindicate not only its importance, but ita 
 indispensableness to the highest interests of mankind. 
 In doing this, I have in some sort anticipated my last 
 topic ; that is to say, I have incidentally suggested part 
 of what I shall next present in a more methodical form, 
 and as briefly as I can. 
 
 1. I now proceed to state some of the principal con- 
 ditions needed for the formation, indeed the possibility, 
 of a sound public opinion. First among these I will 
 name liberty of speech. Men cannot think to any pur- 
 pose while they are not free to utter their thoughts. 
 Ratio and oratio, reason and speech, are but two parts 
 of one and the same God-like prerogative in man, and 
 if any number of mankind are trained to speak like 
 slaves, few indeed will those amongst them be who will 
 be able to think like freemen. That there is no coun-
 
 terbalancing danger in free discussion, no sensible man 
 would assert. Mr. Grote,* the historian of Greece, 
 whose symathies will be allowed by every one to be 
 sufficiently democratic, in speaking of " the unmea- 
 sured and unsparing licence of attack assumed by the 
 old comedy " of Athens " upon the Gods, the institu- 
 tions, the politicians, philosophers, poets, private 
 citizens specially named, and even the women, whose 
 life was entirely domestic," fully admits the demoralizing 
 and " degrading influence " of it. As to attacks on public 
 institutions and public men, he would treat those more 
 indulgently, " inasmuch as that measure of aggres- 
 sive criticism which is tutelary and indispensable, 
 cannot be permitted without the accompanying evil, 
 comparatively much smaller, of excess and in- 
 justice." But, he adds, and in view of the eventual 
 downfall of Athenian greatness, if not of the entire 
 Greek character, the remark seems to me full of warn- 
 ing, that " excess of bitter personality is among the 
 most conspicuous sins of Athenian literature generally. ' r 
 Still, what Hallamf says of the Press is equally true of 
 every form of public opinion, " It cannot be said to 
 exist in any security, or sufficiently for its principal 
 ends, where discussions of a political or religious nature, 
 whether general or particular, are restrained by too 
 narrow and severe limitations." Every more grave 
 abuse of liberty of speech, like any other abuse of what 
 is most useful and best, is certain to entail, sooner or 
 later, directly or indirectly, some forfeiture of liberty 
 But " there are only two modes of governing society, 
 either by persuasion or by coercion. "{ And liberty of 
 speech is sure to develop itself in every community in a 
 steady ratio to the pace and measure according to which 
 the governmental power, whatever be the form of it, 
 
 * " Crete's History of Greece," Vol. vi., 8vo. edit., pp. 3436. 
 f Constitutional History of England, vol. ii, p. 330. 
 t Grote, Tol. vi. 870. Edit. p. 61, note.
 
 29 
 
 recedes from the principle of coercion, and addresses 
 itself to all that is worthiest and best in man's reason- 
 able nature. 
 
 It is chiefly as a support and foremost representative 
 of this liberty of speech that every free community is 
 interested in the liberty of the press. Technically " the 
 liberty of the press," Hallam tells us, " consists merely 
 in an exemption from the superintendence of a licenser." 
 But the only liberty of the press that can be of real 
 service, must be such as is grounded in the general con- 
 sent of the public, subject to such limiting interpreta- 
 tions as may be afforded from time to time by the law- 
 courts of that most indefinite ot all indefinite laws, the 
 law of libel. As I have already ventured to say, the 
 value of the press as an exponent of opinion, I speak 
 chiefly of newspapers, but by no means of them alone, 
 appears to me to be misconceived. The press is amply 
 entitled to the credit attaching to criticism as criticism : 
 criticism, too, which is generally independent in re- 
 lation to the object of the criticism, is often instructive 
 and acute, and not more open to the charge of partiality 
 than are mankind in general in their discharge of one of 
 the weightiest and most difficult functions attaching to 
 them, the distribution of praise and blame. While, 
 again, the value of the press as a vehicle of information, 
 and chronicler of the data on which it is well that public 
 opinion should be formed, could be estimated duly only 
 if, retaining the heart of a free people, we were to be 
 subjected suddenly to a forcible suppression of it. It 
 is, however, in its function as the foremost representa- 
 tive and maintainer of liberty of speech on behalf of 
 the whole body politic that the press has fairly won its 
 title of a fourth estate of the realm. To say that it is 
 itself open to criticism is to say no more than that it is 
 a human institution. Hallam,* speaking of the press of 
 
 * Const, Hist, vol. ii, p. 331.
 
 30 
 
 England some forty years ago, deemed it "justly " liable 
 to the charge of a licentiousness." None the less I am 
 bold to say that an average modern ne\v spaper is a more 
 wholesome and a more effectual guarantee for liberty of 
 speech and thought than the best comedy that Aristo- 
 phanes ever wrote, and may be justly and gratefully 
 regarded as a necessary constituent of that civil freedom, 
 apart from which an Englishman would hardly consider 
 life itself worth the having. 
 
 2. But it often happens that tho?e who are readiest 
 to be indignant at the supposed denial of a right are 
 among the most blind to the duty of exerting it. 
 Society suffers in free countries from the large number 
 of those who, not undervaluing civil freedom or public 
 honesty, are too content to hand over the maintenance 
 of the last and the employment of the first to any that 
 will undertake them, provided they themselves be ex- 
 empted. If they have opinions, they are careful not to 
 express them, unless it be in a whisper. They are glad 
 that the vessel of the State should be navigated cleverly 
 and safely, but for themselves they are content to be 
 passengers. Jt is matter for deep regret that among 
 those who shrink thus sensitively from all public re- 
 sponsibility are to be found, almost always, some of our 
 ablest, most conscientious, most thoughtful men; and 
 not unfrequently one restraining influence is their 
 genuine modesty. They cannot persuade themselves 
 that they have as much in their power as they have* 
 that a sensible and earnest man, who shows he under, 
 stands his subject, will generally be able to modify the 
 opinions of all but the most ungenerous opponents, even 
 if he cannot turn them ; and that such is the inherent 
 power of truth, that even an ungenerous opposition will 
 sometimes bend before the jaoral pressure of manifest 
 conviction. But the results of our actions are compa- 
 ratively speaking beyond our power. What is ever to 
 be lamented is the supinely abdicating any duty of good
 
 31 
 
 citizenship ; the looking on in silence when we ought 
 to speak ; the leaving others to fight a battle which is 
 as much ours as theirs ; and throwing it into the power 
 often of a small minority to proclaim their voice as the 
 voice of the public. It were more patriotic to bear in 
 mind that the country which affords us an honourable 
 livelihood, and protects us in the pursuit and enjoyment 
 of it, has a natural claim on the best service we can 
 render it, even at some sacrifice of our present ease and 
 preferences. Therefore, second among the conditions 
 of everything good, let us place a high-gouled, self- 
 denying, widely diffused patriotism. 
 
 3. In the next place we want a higher intellectual 
 culture, not more intellectual smartness, but a higher 
 culture, with its necessary accompaniments of intel- 
 lectual thoroughness, intellectual modesty, intellectual 
 patience. We want such culture as shall refuse to 
 tolerate "the conceit of knowledge without the reality ;" 
 specially do we want it on those subjects which most 
 directly concern man as man, as a moral being and a 
 member of society. Speaking as I do within the same 
 walls that witnessed a few weeks ago the inauguration 
 of our University, I may the more courageously lift up 
 my voice on this topic ; I may the more boldly depre- 
 cate the continuance of the want which the University 
 was founded to supply. 
 
 All who are acquainted with the history of Socrates 
 are aware that the almost universal prevalence of " the 
 conceit of knowledge without the reality " was, in his 
 judgment, the malady of the busy-witted age and race 
 of which he was the brightest luminary ; and that it 
 was nothing else than the aversion he provoked by hi* 
 unceasing efforts to awaken the clever Athenians to 
 their ignorance of what it most concerned them to 
 know, that eventually cost him hie life. Hear Mr. 
 Grote's account of the general purport of the Socratic 
 teaching : " There was no topic upon which Socrates
 
 32 
 
 more frequently insisted than the contrast between the 
 state of men's knowledge on the general topics of man 
 and society, and that which artists or professional men 
 possessed in their respective special crafts. . . . 
 Take a man of special vocation a carpenter, a brazier, 
 a pilot, a musician, a surgeon and examine him on the 
 state of his professional knowledge, you will find him 
 able to indicate the persons from whom and the steps 
 by which he first acquired it ; he can describe to you 
 his general aim, with the particular means which he 
 employs to realize the aim, as well as the reason why 
 such means must be employed, and why precautions 
 must be taken to combat such and such particular 
 obstructions; he can teach his profession to others; 
 in matters relating to his profession he counts as an 
 authority, so that no extra professional person thinks of 
 contesting the decision of a surgeon in case of disease, 
 or of a pilot at sea. But while such is the fact in re- 
 gard to every special art, how great is the contrast in 
 reference to the art of righteous, social, and useful 
 living, which forms, or ought to form, the common 
 business alike important to each and to all ! On this 
 subject Socrates remarked that every one felt perfectly 
 well informed, and confident in his own knowledge, 
 yet no one knew from whom or by what steps he had 
 learnt ; no one had ever devoted any special reflection 
 either to end, or means, or obstructions : .... 
 every one knew for himself, and laid down general pro- 
 positions confidently, without looking up to any other 
 man as knowing better ; yet there was no end of dis- 
 sension and dispute on particular cases." To this Mr. 
 Grote presently adds : " The phenomenon here ad- 
 verted to is too obvious, even at the present day, to 
 need further elucidation as matter of fact. In morals, 
 in politics, in political economy, en all subjects relating 
 to man and society, the like confident persuasion of 
 knowledge without the reality is sufficiently prevalent ;
 
 33 
 
 the like generation and propagation by authority and ex- 
 ample of unverified convictions resting upon strong sen- 
 timent, without consciousness of the steps or conditions 
 of their growth; the like enlistment of reason as the one- 
 sided advocate of a pre-established sentiment; the like illu- 
 sion, because every man is familiar with the language, 
 that, therefore, every man is master of the complex 
 facts, judgments, and tendencies involved in its signifi- 
 cation, and competent both to apply comprehensive 
 words, and to assume the truth or falsehood of large 
 propositions, without any special analysis or study." * 
 
 I shall not offer my audience the affront of appearing 
 to suppose them less alive than myself to the surpassing 
 interest of the foregoing citations, or to the instruction 
 which they convey to us all. Public opinion cannot 
 be sound unless it be enlightened. It is not enlight- 
 ened unless it advance cautiously, with a lively regard 
 to the possibilities of ignorance, in a spirit of implacable 
 hostility to all sciolism and affectation of universal 
 knowledge, and with a consciousness of the special 
 danger of the " illusion" glanced at by Mr. Grote, the 
 illusion that we necessarily understand our moral, 
 political, and social interests, for no better reason than 
 because everybody without effort can say something 
 about them. I trust that in future years, when the 
 University of the Cape of Good Hope shall have almost 
 forgotten the days of its youth in the strength and 
 beneficence of its maturity, it may be able to count 
 among the number of its benefactors some honoured 
 name or other that shall have shown as much care for 
 ethical and mental science as it is the tendency of our 
 time to bestow on mathematics and physics. It would 
 ill become one whose loss it is not to be a mathemati- 
 cian to seem to say that our physical and mathematical 
 
 * Grote, Vol. yi., pp. 128132.
 
 34 
 
 knowledge is in the slightest danger of being in excess 
 of our wants. But I wish our respect for those de- 
 partments of learning were better balanced. I grant 
 that the moral and mental sciences require a certain 
 ripeness and general preparedness of intellect for their 
 successful prosecution. But no branches of learning 
 affect us more surely or permanently, or more certainly 
 percolate down to the lower intellectual strata, and 
 gradually spread themselves among the masses. At 
 any rate, I may be pardoned a pious wish which 
 flows naturally out of the subject we have been con- 
 sidering ; for how can public opinion be healthy where 
 it is forgotten that " the proper study of mankind is 
 man ?" When the liter & humaniores, those branches 
 of learning that properly concern man as man, are post- 
 poned to the investigation of the conditions of animal 
 life, and the laws of the material universe ? 
 
 4. The one universally necessary and most compre- 
 hensive of my " conditions," I have reserved to the 
 last. Freedom of speech, a high standard of patriotism, 
 a trained and informed intelligence must be united in 
 any community that would be capable of sound public 
 opinion. I speak, of course, of what is ideally requi- 
 site for the attainment of an ideal good. But, as I 
 have already reminded you, what ought to be is no 
 measure of what is. I have expended perhaps superfluous 
 care in showing that the value of an opinion stands 
 in no fixed ratio to the numbers who may happen to 
 profess it. What, then, is to sustain a numerical 
 minority, with sometimes the world against them, in 
 urging an opinion whose only recommendation is, as 
 they believe, its truth ? an opinion concerning which 
 the best that the most sanguine can hope for it is that 
 in days to come (it may be in days far distant) it may 
 begin to obtain recognition ? What has been the 
 Divine impulse that in every age of the world, from
 
 35 
 
 Socrates downwards., and long before Socrates, has 
 nerved our religious, our political, our scientific mar- 
 tyrs to endure unmoved not only the world's ridicule 
 and active opposition, but what is by far the hardest to 
 a generous nature, the disheartening unbelief, the 
 freezing apathy of half friends ? It could only have 
 been the sublime persuasion, which, like the planets, 
 has been sometimes nearer to the sun, sometimes 
 further from it, that a mightier and more trustworthy 
 influence was abroad than the influence of human 
 opinion ; that the God of the Universe is not " the God 
 of Deism, who sits idly behind the stars, and once for 
 all has abandoned the world to itself and its own law 
 of development, like Homer's Zeus, who has departed 
 to ^Ethiopia;" * that it is not truth that is built on 
 opinion, but opinion that draws the marrow of its life 
 from truth ; that all that is false, whether in thought 
 or action, however it may seem to prosper, is " con- 
 demned already ;" that all true opinion has God and 
 God's Universe on its side, A religious confidence in 
 the final victory of truth, working hand in hand with a 
 tender and practised sensitiveness to the hatefulness 
 and shortsightedness of all untruth, is the prime con- 
 dition, not always in the order of facts, but always in 
 order of importance, of all sound public opinion. " Re- 
 ligious confidence," I say, not as denying that man's 
 moral nature supplies a basis of ethical science inde- 
 pendently of revelation, but because that confidence in 
 the ultimate triumph of truth and right which dares 
 to brave the world, whether it exist in its lower or 
 lowest degree among the heathen, or in its most assured 
 and enlightened measure in the Christian, is essentially 
 in every instance the fruit of FAITH ! A community 
 that has cut itself adrift from the anchorage of that 
 hope has no future before it to be desired of any man. 
 It is a public body whose common conscience has lost 
 
 * Martensen's Christian Ethics, p. 13.
 
 36 
 
 its true point of attraction. Its opinions, therefore, are 
 as the hollow, whistling wind. They may serve to 
 twirl the VA eathercocks, and blow the dust about ; but 
 they have ceased to deserve reliance or respect. They 
 are directed to 110 ennobling end. They are governed 
 by no principle. Thenceforth they have quicker 
 affinities with the crooked ingenuities of falsehood and 
 low expediency than with the honest speech ana single 
 aims of toiling, struggling truth. Only one lower de- 
 gradation is reserved for such a condition of public 
 opinion that it be open to a bribe. 
 
 Wholly different is the case of a community that 
 continues to be growingly, however gradually, recep- 
 tive of truth. Selfishness, injustice, and falsehood will 
 not die out of it. Everywhere alike, the wheat with 
 the tares is the very best that can be looked for in this 
 life ; and not even that qualified harvest without care- 
 ful sowing, industrious tending, patient waiting. But 
 so long as a community is growing in its sense of com- 
 mon responsibility and common duty ; so long as a 
 people is becoming penetrated by the religious convic- 
 tion that they are not their own to do what they like, 
 but that their common acts ought to, and will entail 
 moral consequences, and that all things are moving 
 steadily to a bar of judgment more tremendous than 
 that of human opinion ; so long it would be difficult 
 to say what good thing may not be in store for such a 
 community, or what service it may not render to man- 
 kind. And the vigour and honesty of its public 
 opinion will bear a steady relation to its general ad- 
 vancement. Its conscience " will bear testimony to 
 itself through public opinion," *and the exercise of that 
 public opinion will be a constant quickening to its 
 conscience. 
 
 * Martensen. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PBINTEBS, ST, GEOBGE'S-STREET,
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FORTY-SEVENTH AIIIfERSIRY MEETING 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 ^frian fti&lk 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 13TH MAY, 1876. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE, 
 1876.
 
 W. H. PIERS, Esq., 
 
 F. G. 'GOODLIFFE, Esq., 
 
 B. M. ROSS, Esq., 
 
 DB. DALE, 
 
 Hon. J. MTLLER, Esq. (Treas.), 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq., 
 
 Rev. DB. CAMERON, 
 
 C. A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esq., 
 
 PBOFESSOR GILL, 
 
 Advocate E. J. BUCHANAN. 
 
 | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 aub JJmttarg : 
 F. M ASKEW, Esq.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In presenting their statement of the past year's pro- 
 ceedings, the Committee have much pleasure in again 
 reporting that the Public Library continues to be 
 appreciated, and that its usefulness has been maintained. 
 
 The Institution during the year has been enriched by 
 a valuable collection of Law Books, numbering 249 vols., 
 bequeathed to the Library by the late Advocate John 
 de W" e t, a gentleman who took a lively interest in its 
 welfare. The Committee have further to report that the 
 late Joseph ^Maynard, Esq., of Wynberg, has willed a 
 sum of 25 to the Library ; they have also to acknow- 
 ledge the presentation of the Reports of the proceedings 
 of the Royal Colonial Institute from 1869 up to date, 
 and that that Institute has been pleased to place this 
 Library on their list of institutions to receive an annual 
 copy, free of charge. The Royal Astronomical Society 
 of London has likewise been pleased to present to the 
 Library their " Monthly Notices, " commencing from 
 October last. 
 
 The attendance of readers and visitors to the Institu- 
 tion has not been so large as that of the previous year. 
 From the record of visitors kept by the officers of the 
 establishment, the number of persons who visited the 
 Institution amounted to 19,866, showing a daily average 
 of 71, whereas in the previous year it amounted to 90. 
 The largest number of visitors in one day was 166, and 
 the lowest 31.
 
 The issue of Books and Periodicals in the several de- 
 partments of Literature and Science, has been as follows : 
 
 Volumes. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology. 92 
 
 Political Economy, Government 59 
 
 Science and the Arts 191 
 
 Biography 747 
 
 History 585 
 
 Voyages and Travels . 1,187 
 
 Belles Lettres 734 
 
 Works of Fiction 7,483 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals 6.210 
 
 Making a total of 17,288 
 
 By this statement, as compared with that of the pre- 
 vious year, it will be seen that there has been a slight 
 falling off in the issue of books in the departments of 
 Political Ecenomy, and Science and Arts ; whilst there 
 has been an increase of 449 volumes in the departments 
 of History, Biography, Voyages, Travels, &c. 
 
 The access of books during the year has been as 
 
 follows: 
 
 Volumes. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 12 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c 13 
 
 Law and Jurisprudence 249 
 
 Science and the Arts 32 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... 52 
 
 History 22 
 
 Biography 39 
 
 Novels 79 
 
 Belles Lettres 34 
 
 Miscellaneous 5 
 
 Total 537 
 
 Amongst these will be found many valuable works 
 presented by subscribers and friends, viz., their Excellen- 
 cies Sir Henry Barkly and Sir Arthur Cunynghame ;
 
 the Rev. William Thompson, and Rev. Mr. Holford, of 
 Mount Coke, Kaffraria ; the representatives of the late 
 Dr. Adamson, Dr. William Ross ; Messrs. E. J. Stone, 
 Henry Willis, of Wynberg, J. C. Juta, Berks Hutchin- 
 son, and John Noble ; also from the Royal Society, the 
 Royal Geographical Society, the Zoological Society, 
 the Cobden Club, of London, and the Branch of the 
 Bible Society of Cape Town, as well as those already 
 acknowledged, to all of whom the thanks of the subscri- 
 bers and the public are Jue. 
 
 The Committee have also to acknowledge, with 
 thanks the presentation to the Library of a portrait of 
 the late Dr. Bleek, by Mr. William Schroeder, and 
 one of the late John de Wet, Esq., presented by his 
 daughters, Miss de Wet and Mrs. Koopmans ; also for a 
 fine engraved view of Cape Town, presented by Mr. 
 Thomas Pybus, and for three copies of Dunn's Geological 
 Map of South Airica, by the Honourable the Commis- 
 sioner of Public Works. 
 
 The Committee have further to report that they have 
 ordered several standard works under the Lynar 
 Bequest, which they expect to receive shortly. 
 
 From time to time the Committee have had to deplore 
 the loss by death of men who have rendered eminent 
 services to this Institution, as well as to the Colony at 
 large. On this oocasion, it is their painful duty to place 
 upon record their deep sense of the loss incurred by the 
 premature decease of the late Professor Roderick Noble, 
 who as a member of this Committee for the last seventeen 
 years, and an active friend of colonial education and litera- 
 ture, had long and deservedly held a very high posi- 
 tion in public esteem. An early and unexpected death 
 has deprived the Colony also of the eminent and pecu- 
 liar services of Dr. Bleek, who was for thirteen years 
 Custodian of the Grey Collection, which forms a depart- 
 ment of this general Library, and during that period 
 continued to prosecute his researches into the South 
 African Languages. The Committee have provided for 
 
 B2
 
 the completion of the descriptive catalogue of the collec- 
 tion, a large portion of which was prepared in manuscript 
 by the late Custodian. The Managers of the Public 
 Library cannot fail to appreciate the value of Dr. Bleek'a 
 linguistic investigations ; but as the prosecution of such 
 studies forms no essential part of the official duties of the 
 Custodian, and as the annual revenue at their disposal is 
 insufficient to provide adequate salaries for their staff 
 of fixed officers, there is no probability at present of link- 
 ing the care of the Grey Collection with the continuance 
 of these researches. 
 
 It is fitting also at the close of this melancholy list, 
 to record the death of the late Mr. William Johnson, 
 who, as messenger of this Institution for a period of 
 nearly fifty years, discharged the duties of his office with 
 zeal and fidelity. 
 
 In accordance with an unanimous wish expressed at a 
 joint meeting of the Trustees of the South African 
 Museum, the Committee of the Public Library, and 
 the Trustees of the Grey Collection, on the 20th of 
 April last, your Committee desire to bring prominently 
 to the notice of the subscribers, that the building is 
 essentially a public one, and belongs to the Government; 
 the Committee of the Library and Trustees of the 
 Museum having the use of the Building for the purposes 
 of their respective Trusts. 
 
 The joint Committee have also desired this Committee 
 to inform the subscribers, that in their opinion the trust 
 now reposed under Ordinance No. 8, of 1836, in a com- 
 mittee annually elected by the subscribers to the Public 
 Library, should be abolished, and be undertaken by the 
 Government, and be administered on the same principle 
 as the National Library in the British Museum. 
 
 During the past year, the collection of books and manu- 
 scripts in Native languages, contained in the Grey Library, 
 has received some important additions. 
 
 As regards books in the Kafir language, we have had 
 but one contributor, the Rev. A. J. Newton, who has
 
 presented copies of his Kafir Hymn Book (enlarged edition), 
 printed at St. Peter's (e-Gwatyu), 1875. 
 
 In Zulu, the Rev. Seth B. Stone, of the American 
 Mission, has contributed his " History of the Church of 
 Christ," printed at Esidumbini, N T atal, 1870 ; and also " A 
 Synopsis of General History, in the Zulu Language," pre- 
 pared by himself, and printed at D'tfrban, 1874. Miss 
 Lindley, of the Inanda Mission Station, has kindly sup- 
 plied (in accordance with Dr. Bleek's request) the names 
 of the native informants from whom she obtained the Zulu 
 household stories, sent down by her last year. From the 
 Natal Colonist, two papers have reached us, presented by 
 the Editor, Mr. John teanderson, entitled respectively 
 " Zulu Philology," and " Zulu Traditions and Philology ." 
 They are partly selections from the papers of the late Mr. 
 D. Leslie, and contain an explanation of the Zulu names 
 for the Moons throughout the year ; as well as remarks, 
 by the Bishops of Natal and St. John's, upon Mr. Leslie's 
 Paper concerning the native custom of Hlonipa. 
 
 Towards the collection of Hottentot Native Literature 
 in which so much still remains to be accomplished an 
 important contribution has been made by the Rev. F. W. 
 Weber, Rhenish Missionary at Warmbad, Great Nama- 
 qualand. This consists of eleven songs, nine proverbs, 
 one household story, &c., in the Namaqua dialect, taken 
 down by himself, and accompanied by a translation, which 
 is partly in English and partly in German. In the letter 
 which accompanies this gift, Mr. Weber expresses his 
 willingness to do further work of this important kind for 
 the Grey Library. 
 
 The Yen. Archdeacon Waters, of St. Mark's, Transkei, 
 has forwarded some Bushman words, recently taken down 
 by himself from the lips of a Bushman at his own Mission 
 Station, where two or three families of this fast-vanish- 
 ing race are still to be found. In a letter which accom- 
 panies this communication, the Ven. Archdeacon ex- 
 presses the hope that a member of his family may be able 
 to take up the work. This is greatly to be desired, as it
 
 is of particular importance that the literature of the 
 Eastern Bushmen should, likewise, be as far as possible 
 collected and represented. We have also to thank Arch- 
 deacon Waters for his fourth Quarterly Mission Report, 
 and Abstract of Account, for the year ending December, 
 1875. The Right Rev. Henry Callaway, M.D., D.D., 
 Bishop of St. John's, has kindly presented a memoir of a 
 Bushman girl, published in London, by the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge ; as well as a portrait of 
 the subject of this memoir, who was for some time an 
 inmate of his family. A copy (half-bound) of " The 
 Cape and its People and other Essays by South Afiican 
 Writers," edited by the late Professor Noble (Cape 
 Town, 1869), containing an early paper upon the Bush- 
 man Language, by the late Curator of the Grey Library, 
 has been most kindly presented by Mr. J. C. Juta. Copies 
 of the First and Second (published) Reports concerning 
 Bushman Researches, by the same author, printed at Cape 
 Town, in 1873 and 1875 (the first of which can no longer 
 be obtained), have been added to the Grey Collection, by 
 Mrs. Bleek. 
 
 In two other African languages, viz., Tshi (i.e., Ashanti), 
 and Akra, spoken on the Gold Coast, we have to ac- 
 knowledge a generous gift from the Basle Missionary 
 Society, of seventeen separate publications, which form 
 a truly valuable addition to the collection of books in 
 African languages already existing in the Grey Library. 
 Of these seventeen publication?, eleven are in the Tshi 
 language, viz., an English-Tshi-Akra Dictionary, by 
 the Rev. Messrs. J. G. Christaller, Ch. W. Locher, and 
 J. Zimmermann, printed at Basle, 1874 ; a "Primer"; 
 " Words for Learning and Praying;" " Dr. Barth's Bible 
 Stories" (revised second edition); "The Doctrines of the 
 Christian Religion ;" three tracts, and " Stories from Gen- 
 eral History," translated by the Rev. D. Asante, of Akro- 
 pong ; ' Tunes to the Tshi and Akra Hymn-books " 
 (second edition, enlarged), compiled bv the Right Rev. 
 J. G. Auer, S.T.D. (all printed at Basle, 1871-1874) ',
 
 and a History of our Lord's Passion (Stuttgart, 1861). 
 The six books in the Akra (Ga) language are as follows, 
 viz., A Primer (Basic, 1868); Songs for Children 
 (Basle, 1874); "Hymn-book" (Stuttgart, 1872); "The 
 Doctrines of the Christian Religion" (Stuttgart, 1874); 
 "Geography of Palestine" (Basle, 1871); and Reden- 
 bacher's " General History," in two volumes (Basle, 1868 
 and 1871). 
 
 The Rev. J. G. Christaller, of the same Society, has 
 himself kindly presented three publications in the Kru 
 language (Gedebo dialect), printed at Basle, for the 
 (American) Protestant Episcopal Mission at Cape Palmas, 
 &c., in 1872 and 1873. These are: "The Book of 
 Common Prayer;" "The Book of Psalms;" and 
 " Hymns for the Church and Family." 
 
 From Egypt, Dr. G. Schweinfurth has sent two pam- 
 phlets, viz., " Statuts de la Socie*te Khediviale de Geo- 
 graphic;" and his Inaugural Address, delivered at the 
 Society's first Meeting, in June, last year, at Cairo. The 
 above publications (printed at Alexandria, in 1875) are 
 accompanied by a copy of Dr. Schweinfurth's circular 
 letter (dated Cairo, 16th July, 1875), written on behalf 
 of the Society, and followed by a list of Desiderata. 
 
 Mr. J. P. Mansel Weale, late Editor of the Sun, has 
 been so kind as to present (in consequence of a request 
 made to him) sixty-one numbers of that newspaper, printed 
 at King William's Town, in 1874 and 1875. 
 
 Three works, by the late Curator of the Grey Library, 
 were added to the Collection, by his own hand, during the 
 last few months of his life. The first of these, is a copy 
 of " Formenlehre der Lateinischen 6prache " (London 
 and Heidelberg, 1863). The two others are philological 
 treatises, viz., " Un the Origin of Language," edited by 
 Professor Haeckel, and translated by Thomas Davidson 
 (New York, 1869; ; and The Concord, the Origin of 
 Pronouns, and the Formation of Classes or Genders of 
 Nouns," published in the Proceedings of the Ethnologi- 
 cal Society (about 1870-71).
 
 10 
 
 In the Russian Language, a " Primer and Beading 
 Book (in two Parts), printed at St. Petersburg, in 1872, 
 were presented by Miss J. E. Lloyd. 
 
 Copies of Bushman paintings have again been contri- 
 buted by Mr. H. C. Schunke : copied by himself, from 
 an almost inaccessible cave in the Zwarteberg, and three 
 other caves, in the rocky hills of the Brak River and the 
 Kammanassie Mountains. 
 
 The collection of Photographs of Natives has also 
 received some additions. 
 
 The accessions to the Grey Library, during the year 
 ending May, 1876, have been, altogether, forty-five in 
 number. 
 
 The Treasurer's account of the income and expendi- 
 ture of the Library during the past year will now be 
 submitted. 
 
 It was moved by Advocate Buchanan, and seconded by 
 Mr. Goodliffe : 
 
 That the Report and Treasurer's Account now read be 
 adopted and printed. 
 
 Professor Gill moved, as an amendment, seconded by 
 Mr. John Noble : 
 
 That the Report be printed , and be brought up for 
 consideration at a Special M eeting of the Subscribers, to 
 be called by the Committee at an early date. 
 
 Mr. R. M. Ross moved a second amendment, seconded 
 by Mr. James McGibbon : 
 
 This meeting does not concur in the opinion of the 
 Joint Committee that the trust now reposed, under Ordi- 
 nance No. 8 of 1836, in a Committee annually elected by 
 the subscribers to the Public Library, should be aban- 
 doned and be undertaken by the Government, but is of 
 opinion that all the advantages of a colonial Library of 
 Reference may be secured without depriving the public of
 
 il 
 
 privileges now enjoyed, or destroying the popular charac- 
 ter of the management under which the trust has hitherto 
 been successfully administered. 
 
 Mr. Maxwell moved a third amendment, seconded 
 by the Kev. Smith : 
 
 That the meeting confirm the Treasurer's Account 
 only. 
 
 The Chairman put the last amendment first, which 
 was carried. 
 
 Mr. Goodliffe then moved, seconded by Mr. K. M. 
 Ross: 
 
 That it be an instruction to the New Committee to call 
 a meeting of the subscribers at an early date to consider 
 the propositions laid down and the Resolutions taken at 
 a meeting of the Library Committee, the Trustees of the 
 h'outh African Museum, and the Trustees of the Grey 
 Collection, on the 28th of April, as published in the Cape 
 Argus of May 2nd, which was carried. 
 
 Mr. Arderne moved, seconded by Mr. Henry Piers : 
 
 That the thanks of the meeting be given to the Com- 
 mittee, the Treasurer, Auditors, and Officers, for their 
 valuable services during the past year. 
 
 His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly moved, seconded by 
 the Rev. Dr. Cameron : 
 
 That the cordial thanks of the meeting be given to His 
 Honour the Chief Justice for the very interesting and 
 able address this day delivered by him, which was carried 
 by acclamation. 
 
 A ballot for a new Committee having been taken, the 
 Scrutineers Messrs. Jno. Noble, and E. J. Buchanan, 
 declared the following gentlemen duly elected as a Com- 
 mittee of Management for the ensuing year, viz.: 
 
 E. J. STONE, Esq., 
 SIB THOMAS MACLEAB, 
 DE. W. H, Ross,
 
 12 
 
 D. TENNANT, Esq., 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, Esq. (Treasurer), 
 
 Bis HONOUR J. H. DE VILLIERS, Esq., 
 
 W. H . PIERS, Esq., 
 
 R. M. Ross, Esq., 
 
 HON. J. MILLER, Esq., 
 
 And as Auditors: 
 J. C. GIE, Esq., 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. 
 
 A true Copy. 
 
 F. MASKEW, 
 
 Librarian and Secretary. 

 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY LADIES AND 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In reading over the addresses of my distinguished pre- 
 decessors in this chair, I was struck by the fact that, with 
 few exceptions, they begin either with an apology for 
 venturing to preside at one of the annual meetings, or 
 with an expression of regret that the choice of the com- 
 mittee had not fallen on a more competent person. If 
 ever such an apology were needed, it is in my case ; my 
 profession and previous occupations having afforded but 
 an ill preparation for the difficult task of addressing a 
 mixed audience of ladies and gentlemen in an easy and 
 popular style upon a subject connected with literature, 
 science or art. Still I cannot conscientiously affirm that 
 1 regret the choice of the committee, for, notwithstanding 
 the shortcomings of which I am so keenly sensible, I am 
 pleased at this opportunity of saying a few words in pub- 
 lic upon a matter in which I take a deep interest, and 
 which, 1 believe, to have an important bearing on the 
 future progress and welfare of my fellow-countrymen. 
 The subject which I have chosen for my brief discourse 
 may be shortly comprised in the question : 
 
 What is the future language of South Africa to be ? 
 
 In speaking of the language of South Africa, I mean 
 the language of the bulk of the population, including not 
 only the officials, the mercantile community, the profes- 
 sional, and other highly educated classes, but also the 
 agricultural population and the labouring classes. Will 
 the language of Holland, pure and undefiled, re-establish
 
 14 
 
 its supremacy ? Or will it be the language of Holland 
 as altered, or as some would say, corrupted, in this Colony 
 by contact with the language of Englishmen, Germans, 
 Malays, and Hottentots, and by the slow process of 
 dialectic growth and phonetic decay ? Or will English 
 prevail over both the former ? 
 
 To most people the answer to these questions will 
 appear a simple one. " This is an English Colony," they 
 will say, " and sooner or later English must become the 
 mother-tongue to the inhabitants. In arguing thus, how- 
 ever, they are apt to forget that the mother-tongue of a 
 country cannot, like a worn-out garment, be cast aside 
 when it has served its purpose, that it takes many years 
 before a strange language can be taught to the mass of 
 the people, that it must take several generations before it 
 can become familar to them, and that even after it has 
 become familiar, old associations and prejudices will ever 
 combine to resist the intruder. At the present moment, 
 incredible as it may appear, there are still persons born, 
 bred, and living in the Highlands of Scotland and Wales 
 who do not understand or even speak the English lan- 
 guage. In Canada, a portion of the population still speaks 
 and understand French only ; in some portions of A Isace 
 the peasants, after a French occupation of about two 
 centuries, speak German only ; and in parts of Friesland 
 the language spoken by the peasantry is wholly unintelli- 
 gible to the inhabitants of other provinces of Holland. 
 It is the peasantry who are always the most tenacious of 
 a language, and it is the peasantry who constitute the 
 bulk of our own population. 
 
 Let me not, however, be understood as arguing for the 
 impossibility of one language being supplanted by another 
 as the living and spoken language of a nation. If this 
 were my contention it would be unnecessary to say 
 another word, for it would follow, as a logical sequence, 
 that Cape Dutch, which is the language of the bulk of 
 the people of this Colony, will not, and cannot be super- 
 seded by any other. My object has rather been to show
 
 15 
 
 at the outset that the question which forms the subject 
 of this discourse is not so easy of solution as some would 
 suppose. 
 
 There have undoubtedly been instances in which a 
 whole nation has adopted a foreign language to the ex- 
 clusion of its own. In some cases the language of a con- 
 quering nation has entirely superseded that of the con- 
 quered; for example, the language introduced into 
 England by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes superseded 
 that of the early Britons who spoke a Celtic dialect. A 
 few traces of the ancient language still lingered here and 
 there, as up till lately in Cornwall, but in the end Anglo- 
 Saxon or English prevailed. So also the Latin language 
 established itself in many of the countries of Europe 
 which became subject to the Roman Empire. Before the 
 conquest of Ancient France by the Komans the inhabi- 
 tants spoke a Celtic dialect, but in an incredibly short 
 space of time they adopted the language of Rome, toge- 
 ther with her laws and institutions. In other cases the 
 conquerors adopted the language of the conquered. The 
 Franks, who were a Teutonic race, overran France after 
 the fall of the Roman Empire, and adopted the language 
 spoken by the inhabitants as their own, retaining only a 
 few Teutonic words, idioms, and phrases. For three 
 centuries after the Norman Conquest of England, French 
 and English lived side by side, until in the end English 
 displaced the language of the conquering nation. But 
 we need not go far in search of illustrations. In the 
 Western districts of this Colony the languages of the 
 aborigines have already given way to Cape Dutch, and 
 in the Eastern districts they are slowly but surely re- 
 treating before the steady advance of English and Cape 
 Dutch. 
 
 What is true of nations and tribes is also true of large 
 bodies of immigrants who settle in countries where a lan- 
 guage different from their own is spoken. The Hugue- 
 nots who fled from France after the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes towards the end of the seventeenth cen-
 
 16 
 
 tury, readily acquired the language of the countries ia 
 which they respectively settled, and their descendants in 
 most cases lost the language of their mother-tongue. The 
 Abbe de la Cattle, who visited the Cape for astronomical 
 purposes sixty years after the arrival of the French 
 refugees, gives the following testimony derived from per- 
 fonal observation. After describing [the valley of 
 Drakenstein in the neighbourhood of which the Hugue- 
 nots first settled, he says: " In regard to these refugees 
 they preserved the French language and taught it to their 
 children ; but the latter being obliged to speak Dutch 
 partly because they transact all their business with 
 Dutchmen and Germans who speak Dutch, and partly 
 because they are either married or related to Germans 
 and Dutch, have not taught their children French, so 
 that as none of the original refugees are left, it is only 
 their children who speak French, and they are all old. I 
 have not seen a single person under forty who spoke 
 French unless he had himself come from France. I 
 cannot, however, assert that this is universally true, but 
 I have been assured by those who speak French that in 
 twenty years time there will not be a person in Draken- 
 stein who will be able to speak that language." If 
 instead of twenty years the Abbe's informers had said 
 fifty years, the prediction would most certainly have been 
 correct. At the beginning of this century the knowledge 
 of the French language was wholly lost among the de- 
 scendants of the Huguenots, and if at the present time 
 there are a few of them who understand or speak French 
 they may have acquired it from their French teachers, 
 but they certainly have not inherited it from their fore- 
 fathers. Its is clear, then, that in this colony the native 
 languages are doomed to perish and that French will not 
 revive, but it is not equally clear which language will per- 
 manently take their place. Two or more European 
 languages may for a time exist here side by aide, but it 
 requiresno prophetic foresight to foretell that in the end one 
 will displace the other. The question is which is it to be?
 
 17 
 
 Sixty years ago it was confidently predicted that Dutch, 
 that is to say, the 'language of Holland as distinguished 
 from Cape Dutcft, the language of the Cape would 
 prevail. At that time so far as one can judge from the 
 scanty literature of the period the antagonism between 
 Dutch and English was at its height. The Dutch party 
 considered it a mark of patriotism to speak and propagate 
 Dutch. The English party, on the other hand, considered 
 it a mark of loyalty to speak and propagate English. 
 Gradually, however, the bitterness of feeling diminished 
 in intensity, but it never wholly died out. When at the 
 end of 1 825 the Dutch Tydsc.hrift came to an end, the 
 English Chronicle sounded a note of triumph in the 
 following terms : " Othello's, occupation's gone. Died at 
 the age or 365 days Het Nederduitsch Zuid Afrikaansch 
 Tydschrift, deeply regretted by the Antediluvians of the 
 Cape and the descendants of Van Riebeek, whose writings 
 the deceased deeply studied, and whose arms have lately 
 been renewed over the Town-house of His Majesty 
 George IV. The departed was of a peculiar disposition 
 and temper, and although nursed, dandled, and rocked 
 in the very cradle of Government and the sworn son of 
 Great Britain, yet he never opened his lips in praise of 
 her customs, manners, laws and language." Amenities 
 like these, so far from discouraging the advocates of the 
 Dutch language, rather urged them on to greater efforts 
 and the deceased periodical saw the light again under a 
 slightly different title. It was felt, however, that the 
 corruption which the Dutch language had undergone, was 
 a serious obstacle to its general diffusion, and its sup- 
 porters now strove to purify it of its adulterations, or in 
 other words, to restore the language of Holland free from 
 the colonial alloy. As a first step towards attaining this 
 end, a very learned professor undertook to write a book 
 in which the barbarisms of Cape Dutch would bs exposed 
 and the people of this colony taught not only to read but 
 also to converse in good Dutch a work, in short, which 
 Avould have the miraculous effect of immediately substitu-
 
 18 
 
 ting one language for another as the mother-tongue of the 
 people. The idea was conceived in 1840. In 1844 the 
 work appeared under the title : " ThS- Dutch language 
 restored in South Africa," but instead of fulfilling the 
 ambitious designs of its promoters, it was an ordinary 
 grammar of the Dutch language with a paragraph here 
 and there pointing out idioms peculiar to the Cape, and 
 with an appendix containing a list of words used at the 
 Cape, but not recognised as sterling in Holland. The 
 preface, however, explains the alteration in the design. 
 After stating that the object which the writer originally 
 had in view was to restore the Dutch language in South 
 Africa, he adds: tf In writing this we cannot refrain from 
 smiling at the very thought that we should at the com- 
 mencement of our undertaking have persuaded ourselves 
 that this was so much as possible. Three years and a-half 
 have since elapsed, and during that time we have observed 
 so many fresh proofs of indifference in regard to the 
 Dutch language that we have altogether changed our 
 opinion as to the possibility of further checking the evil. 
 We have come to consider the language, to which we have 
 been devoting our labours, as a physician does an incur- 
 able patient whose worse sufferings may perhaps be 
 allayed, whose certain dissolution may perhaps be re- 
 tarded, but of whose complete recovery there no longer 
 exists the faintest hope." In the body of the work, how- 
 ever, the author admits (p. 28) that " the civilized classes 
 are everywhere doing their utmost to get rid of the Cape 
 idioms," and that the Cape vulgarisms of which the book 
 gives examples, are characteristic of the lower classes. 
 He adds that those who speak grammatically are said to 
 speak high Dutch, and that an Englishman who speaks 
 Dutch always uses the vulgar tongue of the Cape. 
 
 From 1844 to the present time, the indifference com- 
 plained of by Dr. Changuion has been increasing rather 
 than falling off, while, if he were still among us, he 
 would no longer have the consolation of believing that 
 the civilized classes are forsaking the Cape Dutch dialect.
 
 19 
 
 On the contrary, he would find that what is wrongly 
 termed High Dutch has been almost altogether banished 
 from ordinary conversation, and that even in the pulpit 
 the younger generation of Dutch Reformed clergymen 
 do not always aspire to that grammatical accuracy which 
 distinguished and still distinguishes the older generation 
 of Dutch Reformed clergymen, and which ia still expected 
 from a pulpit orator in Holland. Even emigrants arriv- 
 ing here from Holland gradually adopt our Cape idioms, 
 and their children soon learn to converse in our soft and 
 easy patois in preference to their harsher mother- tongue. 
 This may be owing to the very small number of these 
 immigrants who come out to South Africa, but there 
 exists no likelihood that a stream of immigration will 
 ever flow from Holland large enough to have any in- 
 fluence upon the future language of this country. Judg- 
 ing, then, from the experience of past times and from the 
 tendencies of the present, we may safely conclude that 
 the present language of Holland is not destined to 
 become the future language of South Africa. 
 
 No longer, indeed, do we hear of endeavours to restore 
 the Dutch language in South Africa. But probably very 
 lew of you are aware that strenuous efforts are now being 
 made in certain quarters to give permanency to the Cape 
 Dutch dialect by recognising and adopting it as the 
 literary language of South Africa. A journal under the 
 name of the " Patriot " has been started, which professes 
 to employ this language only, and I understand that the 
 promoters of the journal intend, before long, to publish a 
 history of "South Africa, and a translation of the Bible in 
 the same language: If the object of the movement ia to 
 reach the mind and understanding of those to whom any 
 other language is unintelligible, nothing can be more 
 praiseworthy. But it appears to me doubtful, to say the 
 least, whether there is any considerable portion of our 
 population who are unable to understand correct Dutch. 
 Corrupt as the Cape Dutch may be, I apprehend that 
 those who would have sufficient education and intelligence 
 c
 
 20 
 
 to read and understand it, would also be able to read and 
 understand grammatical Dutch. There can be no doubt 
 that the wants of the Dutch-speaking colonists must for 
 a long time to come be supplied by other than English 
 newspapers, but I am not aware that the existing Dutch 
 papers which have hitherto been conducted with so much 
 ability, fairness, and moderation, are unable to supply 
 those wants, and their conductors certainly have not yet 
 deemed it necessary to descend to the use of the Cape 
 Dutch, merely for the purpose of making themselves 
 understood. Nor am I aware that the Dutch state 
 translation of the Scriptures is unintelligible to any 
 considerable portion of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of 
 the Colony. The language of this version, like that of 
 the English authorised version and Luther's German 
 translation, is at once so simple and so pure, that it is 
 difficult to believe in the necessity for another version 
 better suited to the intelligence of the upper or of the 
 lower classes. Of course, I am not now concerned with 
 the question whether a nearer approach might not be 
 made to the original in accordance with the suggestions 
 of modern criticism, but merely with the question whether 
 or not the language is intelligible. So attached are 
 English Protestants to the translation known as King 
 James' Bible, that although the number of words or 
 senses of words which have become obsolete since 1611, 
 amount nearly to one-fifteenth part of the whole number 
 of words used in the Bible, any proposal to substitute for 
 it an improved version more in conformity with the spoken 
 language of England would, I apprehend, meet with very 
 little encouragement or approval from them. At all 
 events no Englishman who values the dignity of the 
 Bible would seriously propose a new version in some 
 provincial patois on the ground that the existing 
 authorized version is not perfectly intelligible. The 
 German Protestant still clings with fondness, not un- 
 mixed with pride, to the celebrated translation of Martin 
 Luther, and would resent as an outrage on his sense of
 
 21 
 
 propriety any attempt to substitute for it a version in 
 Platt Deufsch for the benefit of the lower classes. The 
 Dutch authorized version has indeed undergone some 
 alterations in spelling and in some points of grammar, 
 but in the main it still retains the language and gram- 
 matical structure which were given to it by the pains 
 taking translators appointed by the Synod of Dort in the 
 year 1619. It has been reserved for our South African 
 patriots t"> discover that there is a depth of simplicity 
 beyond even that which the Dutch version has reached, 
 and that there exists a class of people in our midst, 
 whose simple mindLs and weak understanding cannot be 
 reached without (if I may use the expression) levelling 
 down the Script ares to their standard. For my own 
 part I do not believe that the Dutch-speaking inha- 
 bitants of this Colony have attained that stage of 
 intellectual degradation ; but even if they had, it would 
 be a Jar more useful and noble employment to assist 
 in levelling up their intelligence than to suppress the 
 only book which by being universally read, still preserves 
 amongst us a standard of correct, pure, and idiomatic 
 Dutch. For scientific purposes no doubt it may prove 
 useful to preserve evidence of the great change which the 
 Dutch language has undergone by being transplanted 
 from Holland to this Colony. In the same way the 
 promoters of the movement 1 have mentioned might do 
 good service by collecting those bits of humorous and 
 racy poetry in which the country abounds, and for which 
 the language is not ill adapted. But if the new South 
 African literature is intended to arrest the sprea 1 of 
 English and to prevent the importation of Dutch litera- 
 ture, I am firmly convinced that it will prove a mistake 
 and end in failure. It is idle to expect that Cape Dutch 
 will soon, if ever, become a literary language, in the 
 highest sense of the term, capable of competing either 
 with Dutch or with English. Poor in the number of its 
 words, weak in its inflections, wanting in accuracy of 
 meaning, and incapable of expressing ideas connected
 
 22 
 
 with the higher spheres of thought, it will have to undergo 
 great modification before it will be able to produce a 
 literature worthy of the name. And the force and 
 energy which would be wasted in bringing the language 
 into such a condition would be more usefully employed 
 in appropriating that rich and glorious language which 
 is ready to our hands as a literary language of the first 
 rank. 
 
 The worst feature of the new movement ia that it 
 appeals to the patriotism of the colonists for support, as 
 ii patriotism consisted solely in a retention of the customs 
 of our forefathers whether such customs are worthy of 
 retention or not. Surely it would be a more genuine 
 patriotism to improve and elevate the mental condition 
 of our countrymen by opening up to them those vast 
 resources of intellectual wealth which a study of English 
 literature must reveal. And if any prejudices stood in 
 his way the true patriot would combat them, at the risk 
 of his own popularity, in order that his countrymen 
 might not be left behind in the race after culture and 
 mental improvement. But in truth it is a misuse of 
 terms to speak of patriotism in connection with this 
 subject. The French colonist of Canada or the Dutch 
 colonist ot the Cape does not love his own country the 
 more because French or Dutch is his mother-tongue. 
 The Australian or the Canadian of English descent does 
 not love his own country the less because English is his 
 mother-tongue. The Americans before the war of 
 independence spoke English, but they nevertheless 
 manfully asserted their rights against the Government 
 and Parliament of Great Britain, When they had 
 obtained their independence, their use of the English 
 language did not prevent them from becoming one of the 
 chief rivals of the mother-country. I have no fear, there- 
 fore, for the patriotism of South Africans whether they 
 be inhabitants of this colony or of the neighbouring 
 states if they shall cease to use a Dutch dialect as their 
 mother-tongue.
 
 23 
 
 All honour be to that country, physically so small, 
 morally so great, which first introduced civilisation into 
 South Africa. I often wish that her history were more 
 studied here, especially by those who profess to look up 
 to her as the model for our imitation. But it is unfor- 
 tunately too true that the country which was herself the 
 birthplace of the religious and civil liberty of modern 
 times was the indirect means of establishing the grossest 
 form of despotism in her colonies. If the statesmen of 
 Holland had been immediately responsible for the good 
 government of her colonies, I have no doubt that things 
 would have been different. But the government of her 
 East Indian possessions was entrusted to a trading com- 
 pany, which cared little for the moral, intellectual, or 
 material advancement of the inhabitants so long as the 
 company enjoyed the monopoly of trr.de and brought in a 
 good return to the proprietors. The Cape of Good 
 Hope as one of the trading stations of the company fell 
 directly under their sway. For a century and a half 
 they misgoverned this country to such an extent that the 
 evil effects of their misgovernment are still perceptible. 
 If you wish to have proofs for this assertion, let me refer 
 you to the excellent lectures of that learned judge and 
 patriot, whose early death the members of his profession 
 and the whole Colony have not ceased to deplore, I mean 
 the late Mr. Justice Watermeyer. 
 
 Certainly, our Dutch rulers gave very little encourage- 
 ment to any language but their own. I have already 
 mentioned the two causes to whiuh the Abbe" de la Caille 
 ascribed the decline and gradual extinction of the French 
 language among the descendants of the Huguenot 
 refugees. He might have adde 1 a third more potent 
 than either. It was the firm determination and fixed 
 policy of the Chamber of seventeen, as the General 
 Council of Direction of the Dutch East India Company 
 was called, to allow the use of the French language 
 only eo far as it was absolutely necessary, and to prevent 
 its spread altogether, and the local Councillors at the
 
 24 
 
 Cape were not remiss in carrying out the wishes of their 
 superiors. To the truth of this assertion the old records 
 of this Colony bear ample testimony, but I will content 
 myself with a very few quotations. In the year 1701 
 the local Council wrote to the Chamber informing them 
 that the French Minister, Pierre Simon was about to 
 leave the colony, and requesting them to send out another 
 minister in his place. The answer, addressed to Governor 
 van der Stel, and signed by all the members of the 
 Chamber, is dated ths 20th September, 1701, and runs 
 thus: 
 
 "We presume that the Rev. Pierre Simon will not leave the 
 Colony until another minister arives to take his place. One who 
 understands the Dutch and French languages will be sent out by the 
 Chamber of Amsterdam, not, as we understand it, with a view of 
 preaching in the latter language, but only for the purpose of 
 visiting, admonishing, and comforting those old colonists who do 
 not understand our language. By such means we may in course of 
 time succeed in having that language destroyed (the Dutch word 
 is gemortificeerd' mortified), and, as it were, banished from the 
 place ; and with this object in view you will take care that the 
 schools shall serve no other or further purpose than to teach the 
 youth to read and write in our language." 
 
 After carefully searching the records, I do not find 
 that any formal resolution on the subject was passed by 
 the Council upon receipt of this dispatch, but in their 
 reply, dated the 3rd February, 1702, and containing a 
 very interesting report OH the social and financial condi- 
 tion of the Colony, the following passage occurs : 
 
 ' "We will take care that through the use of the Dutch language 
 in the church and school at DrakeBstein, the French language shall 
 come in disuse among the members of the congregation?, and thus 
 in course of time be entirely rooted out ; and this will the more 
 readily happen, inasmuch as there are no longer any French schools." 
 
 The Council kept their promise faithfully, and lost no 
 opportunity for discouraging and even prohibiting the use 
 of the French language. Thus I find that in December, 
 1709, upon receipt of a letter in French from the Con- 
 sistory at Drakenstein, submitting the names of certain
 
 25 
 
 persons as fit and proper persons to be elected members 
 of the Consistory, the council passed the following 
 resolution : " That the Consistory be informed that they 
 shall not in future have to write letters to Government 
 in the French language, but that it shall be done in 
 Dutch only." 
 
 From what I have said about the Dutch East India 
 Company, it seems clear that we owe but a trifling debt 
 of gratitude to their memory ; and such a debt as we do 
 owe, we should but inadequately discharge by per- 
 petuating a language which, in the ears of the Directors, 
 would have sounded more odious than French, and more 
 barbarous than the English language itself. But I do 
 not believe that it will be perpetuated. For several 
 generations the two languages may live more or less 
 peaceably side by side, bat in the end the fitter one will 
 survive. Gradually the old prejudices against English are 
 giving way to more rational views. The youngest of us can 
 probably remember the time when it would have been 
 considered a species of sacrilege to propose that a sermon 
 in the English language should be preached in the Dutch 
 Reformed Church of this town, whereas we now find 
 that an English service is held as regularly as a Dutch 
 service. In many a so-called Dutch household, English 
 is the home language of the family, and as the rising 
 generation grows uj>, this tendency may be expected to 
 increase. In the capital of the Orange Free State itself, 
 1 am credibly informed, that English is as frequently 
 heard in ordinary conversation as Dutch, nay, it has been 
 confidently asserted by the chief Free State paper that 
 English is spoken more accurately and more generally in 
 Bloemfontein than in the capital of this Colony. 
 
 When we refer to the literature imported into this 
 country, we find that English books exceed in number 
 all the rest put together, in such of the country villages 
 as have public libraries English books constitute the 
 great bulk of the collections. In this library itself, which 
 may be looked upon as to a certain extent indicative of
 
 26 
 
 the tastes of the reading public of the Colony, English 
 books outnumber the Dutch in the proportion of nine to 
 one. Nor is all this to be wondered at. The practical 
 usefulness of a language will always be the best guarantee 
 for its diffusion. In the conduct of important mercantile 
 transactions and in the carrying on the official correspond- 
 ence, the use of English has become well nigh indispens- 
 able. Stern necessity, moreover, requires a knowledge 
 of the English language from those who desire to serve 
 their country in Parliament, or to practise in the Law 
 Courts, or to become members of Divisional Councils 
 and Municipalities, or to become qualified for the office of 
 Justice of the Peace, or to engage in the noble occupation 
 of teaching the youth of the Colony, 
 
 But, independently of the practical usefulness of a 
 language, its inherent richness and power will give it 
 an immense advantage over its poorer and weaker rival. 
 It has been eloquently remarked by Donaldson in his 
 Varronianus that " a language is only dear to us when 
 we know its capabilities, and when it is hallowed by a 
 thousand connections with our civilization, our literature, 
 and our comforts, bo long as it merely lisps the inarti- 
 culated utterances of half educated men, it has no hold 
 upon the hearts of those who speak it, and it is ' readily 
 neglected or thrown aside in favour of the more cultivated 
 idiom, which, while it finds names tor luxuries of 
 civilization before unknown, also opens a communication 
 with those who appear as the heralds of moral and 
 intellectual regeneration." The truth of this reaiark is 
 illustrated by the readiness with which the ancient Gauls 
 accepted the language of the Komans. It is no doubt 
 true that the language of a nation is the product rather 
 than the cause of their mental qualities. But it is also 
 equally true that the intellectual progress of a nation is 
 mightily influenced by the character of the language 
 which they use, whether they have inherited it from their 
 ancestors, or adopted it from another race. " Men," 
 says Bacon, " believe that their reason is lord over their
 
 27 
 
 words, but it happens, too, that the words exercise a 
 reciprocal and reactionary power over our intellect." 
 Can the language of a people, then, be a matter of in- 
 difference to those who have their interests at heart? 
 If it be true that our words exercise a reciprocal and 
 reactionary power over our intellect, it surely is a matter 
 of the greatest importance that they should be exact in 
 their meaning, that they should be capable of dealing 
 with a wide range of subjects, and that they should not 
 be deficient in the power of giving expression to the 
 thoughts of great thinkers. Where qualities like these 
 are wanting in the old language, but are abundantly 
 present in the new, it is no presumption to predict that 
 the former must yield to the latter. Ideas which were 
 incapable of expression in the old language find ready 
 admission by being clothed in the new. In the course cf 
 time the new language becomes interwoven with the daily 
 life of the people and instead of being regarded as an 
 intruder becomes as precious to them as it is to those with 
 whom it had its origin. 
 
 As an abstract proposition no one will doubt that it is 
 good in every respect for a people that they should speak 
 a common language. The occupations of life are so 
 pressing and the natural indolence of man is so great that 
 it is vain to expect that a large proportion of the popula- 
 tion will be able to master two or more languages. So 
 long, however, as different classes speak different langu- 
 ages no community of interest can permanently exist 
 between them. With so many elements ot discord 
 existing in our comparatively small and scattered com- 
 munity it would be a real advantage to this country if the 
 antagonism arising from a difference of languages could 
 be entirely done away with. 
 
 At the present time the question I have been discussing 
 assumes more than ordinary importance. A vague 
 yearning for a closer union of the disjointed fragments 
 of the European population has come over the land. 
 The desire for a confederation of the different States and 
 D
 
 Colonies of Sofeth "Africa is gradually gaining ground. 
 With some the idea takes the shape of a dominion under 
 the British Crown, with others that of a confederation 
 of independent states. I am not now going to tread on 
 the delicate and forbidden ground of politics, but this 
 I will say, that whether we are to have a South African 
 dominion under the British flag or a union of independent 
 states under a South African flag, the advantages of a 
 common language will be equally gr.^at. What the 
 future will bring forth none of us can tell. Taken at our 
 best, the range of our mental visi< n is so limited that we 
 oftener than not fail to detect the full operation of all those 
 circumstances which are silently moulding the events of 
 the future. Sudden catastrophes, too, will sometimes 
 upset the most careful calculation-. But considerations 
 such as these need not deter us from studying the signs 
 of the times, and bringing our knowledge and experience 
 of the past to bear upon the probabilities of the future. 
 Something is gained if we are thus enabled to prepare 
 and bid others prepare for tho^e coming even's whose 
 shadows we see dimly cast before them, and nothing will 
 be lost if our anticipations should not be fully realised. 
 And where it is found as a fact that the current of events 
 is uniformly tending in one and the same direction, it 
 may be our duty to do everything in our power to stem 
 the current, or it may be a wiser course to accept what is 
 inevitable, but it would be sheer folly to close our eyes 
 to the existence of the fact. 
 
 Applying these remarks to the question with which I 
 started, 1 have only to add that all the facts and argu- 
 ments which I have to-day brought forward appear to me 
 to point to the conclusion that the time is still far distant 
 when the inhabitants of this Colony will speak and 
 acknowledge one common mother-tongue, that it will, how- 
 ever, come at last, and that when it does come, the lan- 
 guage of Great Britain will also be the language of South 
 Africa. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S-STREET, CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 Jf0rtn-(S%{rt|j llnnitemriT fleeting 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 19TH MAY, 1877, 
 
 HIS EXCELLEKCT THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR H. B. E. FRERE, BART., IN THE CHAIR. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1877.
 
 CumntUiu ; 
 
 DB. DALE, 
 
 C. A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esq., 
 REV. DK. CAMERON, 
 R. M. ROSS, Esq., 
 PROFESSOR GILL, 
 
 F. G. GOODLIFFE, Esq. (Treas.), 
 ADVOCATE BUCHANAN, 
 H. W. PIERS, Esq., 
 E. J. STONE, Esq. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. 
 
 | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 librarian anb Sweiarg : 
 
 F. MASKEW, Esq.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY, LADIES AND 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee in presenting a statement of 
 their proceedings during the past year have to 
 report that, in accordance with a resolution 
 passed at the Annual General Meeting of the 
 Subscribers, held on the 13th of May last, a spe- 
 cial meeting was convened for the purpose of 
 considering the propositions laid down, and the 
 resolutions taken, at a meeting of the Library 
 Committee, the Trustees of the Museum, and the 
 Trustees of the Grey Collection, with reference 
 to the Library and Museum Building and to the 
 future constitution and management of the Pub- 
 lic Library. 
 
 The Committee having taken into considera- 
 tion the foregoing resolutions, as well as the 
 general mode of administration of the South Afri- 
 can Public Library, decided to recommend to the 
 subscribers a series of propositions, which in 
 their opinion it was desirable to adopt, and which 
 was submitted at a Special General Meeting of 
 Subscribers on the 12th July last, when the 
 meeting unanimously adopted the first recom-
 
 mendation, viz : " That it is desirable that the 
 building occupied by the Library and Museum 
 should be considered a public one belonging to 
 the Government, the Committee of the Library 
 and the Trustees of the Museum, having the sole 
 use for their respective trusts." This resolution 
 was duly forwarded to Government. 
 
 The Committee have much pleasure in an- 
 nouncing that the Government, upon representa- 
 tions made by the Building Committee of the 
 Library, and Museum, on the state of the Build- 
 ing invited a sub-committee to meet a gentle- 
 man from the Public Works Department to con- 
 sider what alterations, and repairs were to be 
 effected, which resulted in alterations being made, 
 which improved the exterior of the building, 
 and the Committee confidently express a hope 
 that the Government and Parliament may soon 
 adopt means to replace by an Iron railing the 
 unsightly fence which at present separates the 
 Library and Museum Building from the Botanic 
 Garden. 
 
 The Committee have to state that they deemed 
 it advisable to make certain alterations in the 
 rules relating to the issue of books and periodi- 
 cals, to second and third class subscribers, by 
 which they are now entitled to receive books and 
 periodicals one month earlier than was permitted 
 heretofore and trust this will meet with your ap- 
 proval. 
 
 As a matter of experiment the Committee have 
 extended the hours to which the Library is to be 
 open during the summer months, that is, up to J 
 past 6 p.m and although they cannot report 
 that any large number of subscribers or the pub- 
 lic, have availed themselves of the privilege, 
 they would recommend their successors in office,
 
 to continue -the experiment during the next sum- 
 mer months. 
 
 With a view to the greater usefulness of the 
 Institution, the Committee endeavoured to aug- 
 ment the number of subscribers, and with that 
 object addressed a circular to non-subscribers 
 resident in the metropolis, and suburbs, who might 
 reasonably be expected to support the Institution ; 
 the Committee regret to state that, they met with 
 little response, and although the Committee can- 
 not help expressing regret at their want of suc- 
 cess, they have the satisfaction of knowing that 
 the value of the Institution continues to be appre- 
 ciated in proof of which they would mention a 
 presentation made by Colonel Blagrave, late of 
 the East Indian Service, now residing in Eng- 
 land, of a very valuable collection of books on 
 irrigation ; and our late Governor Sir Henry 
 Barkly on his leaving the Colony presented the 
 Institution with 159 volumes, of works on 
 Science and Literature, and a number of Par- 
 liamentary papers ; two legacies (one of which 
 was referred to in the last Report) have been 
 received from the late Mr. Joseph Maynard, and 
 from the late Mrs. Farmer, both of Wynberg, 
 the former amounting to 25, and the latter to 
 100, less legacy duty. 
 
 The number of entries for new books in the 
 proposal book indicates that the principal is ap- 
 preciated by the subscribers, and has received 
 due attention from the Committee. 
 
 During the year the Committee have augmented 
 the collection by the purchase both in England 
 and in the Colony, of many valuable works, and 
 they expect shortly to receive a further supply of 
 standard works now under order. 
 
 The accession of books in the various departs 
 
 B 2
 
 
 
 merits of Science and Literature, during the year 
 has been as follows : 
 
 VO!B. 
 
 1. Miscellaneous Theology ... 20 
 
 2. Political Economy, Government . . 29 
 
 3. Science and the Arts .... 93 
 
 4. Voyages and Travels .... 90 
 
 5. History ...... 55 
 
 6. Biography ...... 49 
 
 7. Novels 86 
 
 8. Belles Lettres 71 
 
 Total ~493 
 
 Amongst them will be found valuable works 
 presented by the Royal Society, "the Royal Astro- 
 nomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, 
 the Cobden Club, London, the Royal Academy 
 of Science, Munich, the Smithsonian Institute, 
 Washington, the Colonial Government, the Rev. 
 L. Cachet, E. J. Stone, Esq., Astronomer-Royal, 
 J. Gamble, H. Tennant, G. St. Vincent Cripps, 
 J. B. Smithers, R.F. Fairlie, and B. Hutchinsoii, 
 Esq., besides those already acknowledged, to all 
 of whom the thanks of the subscribers are due. 
 
 The issue of books in the several departments 
 during the past year, has been as follows, viz : 
 
 Vote. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology .... 69 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. . . 58 
 Science and the Arts .... 209 
 Biography . . . . . .767 
 
 History 512 
 
 Voyages and Travels .... 1,325 
 
 Belles Lettres 794 
 
 Works of Fiction 7,372 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals . . . .6,197 
 
 Total TT,303
 
 As compared with the issue of books during 
 the previous year, this statement shows a slight 
 falling off in some departments, but an increase 
 on the whole . 
 
 The attendance of readers and visitors, has 
 been much in excess of last year. From a record 
 kept by the officers of the Institution it appears 
 that the number of visitors this year exceded 
 that of the previous year by nearly 3,000, twenty- 
 two thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two 
 having visited the Library, being an average of 
 81 per day. The largest on any one day being 
 147 and the lowest 28. 
 
 Referring to an allusion, contained in the last 
 report, to the custodianship of the Grey Collec- 
 tion, the Committee received from the Superin- 
 tendent-General of Education a letter on the sub- 
 ject, enclosing letters from Professor Max Miiller 
 and one from Dr. Jolly of Wiirzburg, offering 
 his services for carrying on the researches of the 
 late Dr. Bleek, and for filling the office of Custo- 
 dian of the Grey Collection, for three years at a 
 salary of 300 per annum. 
 
 These communications received from the Com- 
 mittee very careful consideration, and led to a 
 correspondence -v/ith the Superintendent-General 
 of Education ana having fully discussed the sub- 
 ject, the Committee confirmed t\ e decision of 
 their predecessors as conveyed in the last Re- 
 port, and expro sed the hope that through the 
 instrumentality 01 the Superintendent-General of 
 Education, the Government may be induced to 
 provide for the further study of Native Languages. 
 
 The arrangement whereby Miss Lloyd was en- 
 gaged temporarily to copy and complete the un- 
 finished catalogue of the Grey Collection is still 
 continued.
 
 Among the accessions of the past year to the 
 literature of the Native languages contained in 
 the Grey Library, a generous gift from the 
 Native Training Institution at Lovedale demands 
 especial notice. It consists of eleven publi- 
 cations in the Kafir language, and one in Sesuto, 
 all printed at Lovedale, as well as bound there, 
 with a degree of taste and skill which re- 
 flects the highest credit upon all concerned. 
 Five of the above-mentioned Kafir works, viz., 
 Genesis. Second Lesson Book, Psalms, " Come 
 to Jesus " (printed in 1874), and a Hymn Book 
 (of 1875), had been particularly noted down b}^ 
 Dr. Bleek as still wanting to the Grey Library, and, 
 through the kind exertions of the Rev. Dr. Stewart 
 to whom this was made known immediately be- 
 fore his departure for Lake Nyassa, and of Mr. 
 G. M. Theal, they have now reached us ; with 
 the addition of " The Angels' Message," translated 
 into Kafir by Daniel Mzamo (1875); and "The 
 New Kaffir Primer " (1876) ; besides several 
 duplicates. The Rev. A. J. Newton has also 
 presented four Kafir books : the first, con- 
 taining three tales of the Amampondomisi, 
 taken down from the dictation of the Chief 
 Umditslnca, by the Rev. B. L. Key ; a 
 " Tract on the Communion," by the same author, 
 being the second book sent. The two others 
 are respectively entitled " Lessons in Words and 
 Phrases in English and Kafir," and Incwadi 
 Yentsomi. They were all printed at St. Peter's 
 Mission (e-Gicatyu), in 187G and 1877. To the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Waters, and his daughter, 
 Mrs. B. L. Key, we are much indebted for some 
 pieces of Aboriginal lore, mainly taken down, by 
 Mrs. Key herself, from various Native informants 
 (principally Gcaleka), at St. Mark's Mission
 
 Station. The few sheets already received afford 
 further evidence (were such required) of the wealth 
 of traditional literature existing among our 
 Frontier tribes, and of the necessity for a speedy 
 and well-organized effort for the preservation 
 of whatever may still be rescued from obli- 
 vion. 
 
 We have also to thank Archdeacon Waters for 
 copies of his Mission Reports for the two last 
 Quarters of 1876. 
 
 From the Bishop of Natal, three Zulu works 
 have reached us, viz., the "New Testament," 
 translated by himself; and a new edition of his 
 " Church of England Prayer Book ;" both printed 
 in 1876, at the Native Press at Bishopstowe ; also 
 " Genesis, with Commentary," printed at the 
 same place in 1877. A list of words in English 
 and Zulu, recently published by the Bishop of 
 St. John's, in the endeavour to secure a " uni- 
 form Theological Terminology " in various Kafir 
 dialects, has been presented by the Rev. Canon 
 Lightfoot ; and a a Spelling and Reading Book " 
 in Zulu, by the Rev. Charles Roberts, printed at 
 D'Urban (Natal) in 1876, has also been added to 
 the Collection. 
 
 From the Rev. W. H. R. Bevan, a book of 
 Prayers in Serolong (Setshuana) has been received, 
 printed, this year, at Bloemfontein, for the Church 
 Mission in Basutoland. The Rev. W. Crisp has 
 sent us four Serolong books, printed at the 
 Church Mission Press, at Thaba Ncho, from 1873 
 to 1875, viz., his Setshuana Reading Book ; 
 and also a Catechism and Hymn book, Gospels' 
 Harmony, and Church Prayer Book, translated 
 by himself, with the exception of the Epistles and 
 Gospels in the Prayer Book, which are the work 
 of the Rev. G. Mitchell. Duplicates of two more
 
 10 
 
 Serolong publications were also presented by Mr. 
 Crisp. 
 
 From Kurmnan, three Setshuana (Sexlapi) books 
 have been sent down by the Rev. J. S. Moffat, 
 viz., an illustrated Primer, by the Rev. A . Wookey 
 (London, 1876), and two Spelling Books (Kuruman, 
 1865, and 1869), which were still wanting to the 
 Collection. 
 
 From Bishop Steere, the contributor of the 
 main portion of the Swahili literature already 
 contained in the Grey Library, ten more works 
 have been received ; all of them printed in 1876, 
 at the Universities' Mission Press, Zanzibar ; and 
 eight, out of the nine Swahili books sent, trans- 
 lated by Bishop Steere himself. The Swahili 
 portion of this gift is as follows : " Twelve Dozen 
 Dhow-searching Questions, in English and Swa- 
 hili, " by Captain Malcolm, R.N. ;Prayers ; Epistle 
 to the Philippians ; Bishop Forbes' Catechism ; 
 Form for admitting Catechumens (translated by 
 the Rev. J. Farler) ; Baptismal Service ; Epistle 
 of St. James ; First Epistle of St. John ; and a 
 " Tract on Mohammedanism," hi Roman and Arabic 
 characters. The remaining book, is Bishop 
 Steere's "Walk to the Nyassa Country, " in Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 From the Rev. H. Beiderbecke, of the Rhenish 
 Mission Society, three Otyiherero books have 
 been received, printed, in 1875, at Cape Town, 
 under his own superintendence ; viz., the Book of 
 Psalms, translated by the Rev. H. Brincker ; and 
 reprints of Luther's Small Catechism, translated 
 by the Rev. C. H . Hahn, and a Hymn Book, com- 
 piled by the Revs. C. H. Hahn, H. Brincker, and 
 other Missionaries. The Rev. J. Rath has pre- 
 sented three sheets of manuscript, containing 
 Otyiherero German additions to his MSS.
 
 11 
 
 "Otyiherero Dictionary's Materials" (No. 3789), 
 which are already in the Grey Library. 
 
 From Mr. C. Ritter, Treasurer to the Finnish 
 Mission, at work in Ovamboland, a copy of the 
 first printed book in the Shindonga (Ovambo) 
 language has been received ; vz., a Primes, by 
 the Rev. P. Kiiivinen, printed at Helsingfors (in 
 Finland), in 1876. 
 
 From Missionaries in Madagascar, three gifts 
 have lately reached us ; viz., a copy of the first 
 number of the "Antananarivo Annual and Mada- 
 gascar Magazine," for Christmas 1875, presented 
 by the Rev. L. Dahlc ; the second number, for 
 Christmas 1876, presented by the editor, the Rev. 
 J. Sibree, Junr., of the London Mission Society ; 
 and a work entitled a South-east Madagascar," 
 being notes of a journey made in June and July 
 1876, through a part of the island, and likewise 
 presented by the Rev. J. Sibree, Junr., the 
 author. 
 
 To the collection of early printed books, the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Lloyd has contributed the 
 following specimens, viz., a Petrarch, printed at 
 Basle, in the Sixteenth Century (containing the 
 bookplate of Mr. W. Hammond); "L'Adone," 
 by Cavalier Marino, Paris, 1623 ; and the Second 
 Part of Camoens' " Rimas Varias " (vols. III. V.), 
 Lisbon, 1688. 
 
 The Colonial Estimates for 187677 were 
 kindly presented by Mr. J. Noble, and a curious 
 specimen of an American newspaper by Mr. J. C. 
 Juta. 
 
 Several Native Photographs have been added 
 to the collection ; and, among them, one which 
 was taken from a portrait of the Kafir Chief Kreti, 
 and presented by the artist, Mr. W. Schroder. 
 
 Mr. H. C. Schunke has also presented a copy
 
 12 
 
 of his Sketch Map of the scene of the late war in 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 The Treasurer's Account of the income and 
 expenditure during the past year, will now be 
 submitted.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 His EXCELLENCY SIR H. B. E. FRERE then 
 delivered the following address : 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, According to the 
 honoured custom of this institution, your 
 committee has called upon me to deliver to you 
 the annual address ; and in so doing they were 
 kind enough to offer me the widest possible 
 choice of all subjects in literature, science and 
 art. They put no restriction upon me, and, as 
 very often happens under such circumstances, I 
 found considerable difficulty in making any 
 selection, and came to the conclusion that I could 
 not do better than refer to the proceedings of my 
 predecessors, and take advice from those wise 
 and good men who have in bygone days ad- 
 dressed you from this chair. The committee were 
 kind enough to place at my disposal their records 
 of these discourses ; and I find that they touched 
 upon almost every possible topic likely to interest 
 those in South Africa connected with this insti- 
 tution. It struck me, therefore, that instead of 
 attempting to find anything new, with regard 
 to such topics, it might be of more practical use 
 to the institution if I were to take up the advice 
 of those who have gone before me and see how 
 for it had been acted on, and how what they have
 
 14 
 
 wants and defects, and the best means of reme- 
 dy in ; them. 
 
 Now let us consider, in the first instance, what 
 one would expect, on landing- in Cape Town, to 
 iind in an institution of this kind. One would 
 naturally suppose that in the capital of South 
 Africa ^ there would be a handsome building- 
 devoted to science, literature and art ; and 
 as far as the building is concerned here, it un- 
 doubtedly is in our Library and Museum. You 
 would then also expect to find adjacent to such a 
 building agreeable pleasure grounds such as, I 
 think we may say, we have in the Botanical Gar- 
 dens. You would expect to find on the shelves 
 of the Library a collection of books which would 
 leave nothing to be desired in history, literature 
 or science, relating to this part of Africa. 
 On the Museum side complete collections of the 
 Natural History, Geology, and the principal pro- 
 ductions of the country. 
 
 Now let us consider how far the reality answers 
 this description- Beginning with the exterior, 
 we all know what a handsome and substantial 
 building this is, but can anyone say that they are 
 satisfied with the state of things around it ? The 
 temporary fences are by no means what they 
 ought to be, and, above all, there are two points 
 which admit of immediate improvement, and they 
 are of great practical moment. One is the very im- 
 perfect access to the Library. In weather like this 
 said could be applied for our benefit. I gene- 
 rally found with regard to such advice that it 
 was, in every respect, most excellent advice, but 
 that it had been most imperfectly followed, and 
 that what was now wanted was to devise means 
 of giving effect to what we already know and 
 what is generally acknowledged regarding our
 
 15 
 
 you cannot get to the door dry-shod or free from 
 such a wetting as you may get in a very few 
 moments from a South African shower ; you 
 have no access to the garden close at hand. I 
 was very glad indeed to find that the committee 
 have already anticipated what is wanted in the 
 matter, and that they have pointed out the neces- 
 sity for improving the area in which this building 
 is situated ; but I noticed in the report a slight 
 vagueness as to how this was to be managed, and 
 having considered this matter with the advice of 
 the gentlemen interested, I find that we must 
 carry with us three or four distinct bodies. There 
 is not only your own committee and the body of 
 subscribers, but we must also get to unite with us 
 the committees and those interested in the 
 Museum and in the Botanic Gardens ; besides 
 the Municipality and a department of the Govern- 
 ment. This, in the first instance, is a difficulty 
 wliich has to be overcome. I beg you to bear 
 this in mind, because it will considerably affect 
 any suggestions with regard to the remedy. 
 
 Let us now enter the building and we shall find a 
 really magnificent collection of books. It has 
 long been the pride of Cape Town, and I think it 
 is a collection of which you may very justly be 
 proud. But when you go into details aud look 
 at the several departments of literature, it seems 
 to me, so far as 1 can judge, from a superficial 
 examination, to be very incomplete. Remember, 
 ladies and gentlemen, I do not come here to flatter 
 you or to say smooth things regarding this institu- 
 tion or anything else (applause). I come here in 
 the hope of telling you what is the view of an 
 outsider who has seen something of similar institu- 
 tions elsewhere, and who desires to give you his 
 honest impressions regarding those matters which
 
 16 
 
 interest you ; and therefore if at any time I may 
 appear to be censorious. I trust you will make 
 allowance for what seems to me the most useful 
 part of the duty I have to perform (applause). 
 Besides the incompleteness of the collection, there 
 is no space for expansion, and that is one of the 
 greatest and most serious defects which can afflict 
 a public library. You find it more or less affecting 
 every great and growing library, because no 
 library can be great or complete which is not con- 
 stantly growing ; and unless you have the means 
 of expanding you may say that a library has 
 already ceased to be complete, and must be verg- 
 ing towards decay. Now your committee has 
 anticipated this want also, and there is doubtless 
 a great deal to be done by altering the staircases, 
 and improving the shelf accommodation. You may 
 by this means get some more room, but not, I think, 
 as much as you require ; and this alone will prevent 
 any very great additions to your collection. If you 
 got, for instance, such a fine addition to your 
 library as I saw just now in the committee- 
 room a great collection of books on natural 
 history where are they to go ? Where will 
 you find the table-room on which great works 
 like those of Gould and others can be spread out 
 and looked at, without being perpetually in- 
 jured? And, above all, where will you find the 
 means of accommodating those who require to 
 study them? In some parts of the collection 
 there are very notable deficiencies. Your collec- 
 tion of books on philosophy and ethics is not 
 what my friend Dr. Dale would desire, and with 
 regard to architecture, you must recollect that 
 everybody here present probably belongs to a 
 nation which has studied, and is studying, archi- 
 tecture as an art applied to every-day life . Our
 
 17 
 
 best buildings here, are those which have 
 been built a long time ago, and with the excep- 
 of some of the great houses in your streets, the 
 domestic architecture is certainly not equal to 
 what it was during the time of our predecessors 
 (hear, hear), and even our predecessors are not 
 properly represented in this library. If anyone 
 was looking among these volumes for a good ex- 
 ample for a town hall, a great bank, houses of 
 parliament, or even a fine building for domestic 
 purposes, where ought he to expect to find what 
 he wants ? He would naturally wish to know 
 something of the halls and great buildings in 
 England, Belgium, France, and Holland, know- 
 ing that in records of them he would find a wealth 
 of architectural knowledge which has been fairly 
 represented by great illustrated works 011 archi- 
 tecture, accessible in almost every library in 
 Europe. But of these we find very few traces 
 here. Then, again, if we had such books we are 
 met by the same want of space. If you got the 
 great works of modern architects, where would 
 you spread them out here so that they should 
 not be perpetually injured ? Then, again, there is a 
 
 freat division of science as applied to daily domestic 
 fe which we find very imperfectly represented 
 here, and that is sanitary science. I would ask 
 Dr. Ebden how he is satisfied with the hooks 
 which are to be found in this department of the 
 library, as representing the modern sanitary 
 science of the civilized world ? This comes home 
 to us all very specially at this moment, and 
 though we may hope that that benevolent wind 
 which has done so much for us in time past will, 
 to some extent, purify the town in time to come, 
 still when we are advancing in the way in 
 which I see everything advancing in South
 
 18 
 
 Africa, I think we are bonnd to see how people 
 in other parts of the civilized world protect 
 themselves from the dangers incident to liv- 
 ing in large, crowded places (applause). The 
 same remarks would apply to the science of 
 Meteorology, which is almost, as regards this 
 part of the world, popularly speaking, a 
 blank. We have most valuable additions to 
 the science in the observations made at the 
 Observatory, but how far do those observations 
 do the work of similar observations at Green- 
 wich and Kew, in being immediately applied to 
 save the lives of citizens of this country, which 
 is, after all, one of their great objects ? When 
 you are complaining of the way in which your 
 health is affected in this country, the first ques- 
 tions you would ask would be about the winds 
 and the fall of rain, and of other data, of which, 
 popularly speaking, so far as they are accessible 
 to the active medical practitioner, you have very 
 few records. Again, with regard to foreign litera- 
 ture, consider how few shelves contain all we 
 possess as representing the classics of France, 
 Italy, or Germany. Last, but not least, I would 
 ask my reverend friends here present, how they 
 are satisfied with the theological collection ? I 
 should have hoped to find this branch of litera- 
 ture at any rate fairly represented ; and let us do 
 justice to our predecessors in saying that on the 
 shelves above you will find, in the Dutch collec- 
 tion, of the Dessinian Library the theology of 
 Holland a century and a half ago adequately 
 represented ; but with regard to all the strife and 
 struggle of modern days and the discoveries of 
 theology as connected w r ith antiquarian research, 
 where is the result which we may find upon our 
 shelves? And this is a very serious drawback to 
 us, in every respect (hear, hear).
 
 19 
 
 Having now gone through the very ungrateful 
 task of pointing out some of the defects, let us now 
 come to the more practical question of the remedy ; 
 and here I find I am treading upon debatable 
 ground, but I will tell you frankly what appears 
 to me to be the case, and if we differ I trust you will 
 convince me that I am wrong, and I shall only be 
 too glad if the result is that we come to the truth at 
 last. One remedy proposed for our want of space is 
 that this Library having already attained the 
 fullest dimensions of which it is capable, with 
 regard to the building assigned to it, should be 
 made a library of science, of works of reference 
 and solid learning, and that readers of light 
 literature should go to a circulating library for 
 novels, romances, and periodicals (applause). 
 Well, gentlemen, there is one thing that can be 
 said in favour of this plan, it is certainly very 
 effectual, ft is what you call very " root-and- 
 branch " kind of work ; but the difficulty you 
 will find, directly you begin to apply this prin- 
 ciple to practice, is to decide where you will 
 draw the line (hear, hear). Of course, if you 
 carried it out very rigidly indeed, you may as 
 well shut up the Library altogether, except to 
 a very few of those who would wish to consult 
 it (applause). Would you draw the line at science 
 pure and simple ? or at what branch of literature ? 
 Shall Divinity be included or excluded? What 
 will you say to history and the classics ? and, 
 when you begin shutting out works of fiction, do 
 you mean to exclude the Greek and Latin poets ? 
 or, if you allow them, how will you do with trans- 
 lations and imitations ? Practically, you will find 
 no such line can be drawn. There is but one line, 
 so far as I know in practice, that you can draw, 
 and that is, that you shall say that a work, no 
 
 c
 
 20 
 
 matter what its subject, which is valuable and 
 difficult to replace shall not be taken out of the 
 building. That is not by any means such a diffi- 
 cult thing to settle. You can at any time 
 say," This is a work which, if it is lost, we can 
 replace, and if damaged we can mend ; " on the 
 other hand, if it is a rare, valuable, or expensive 
 work, which it is difficult to replace and which it 
 would be a great reproach to injure, then I think 
 you may safely say, that " Such a book shall not 
 go out of the library ; it is quite sufficient to allow 
 everybody to come here and consult it." But 
 then the question how far your library shall be 
 simply a reading-room, and whether you shall let 
 any portion of it circulate beyond its walls is by 
 no means so plain a matter as it may appear, 
 because there are some libraries, like that in the 
 British Museum, for instance, which allow no 
 book to be taken outside the walls ; and there are 
 others, like the library at the India House, "where 
 there are a great number of very valuable MSS. 
 which, under proper restrictions, are allowed to 
 be sent to different parts of the world. Some of 
 them have, at different times, been sent to India, 
 Russia, Germany and other places. To do this in- 
 volves much trouble and some cost, but if you like 
 to go to the expense of so doing, you may make a 
 library as free as you please to all at a distance 
 as well as to those near. But if you do not do 
 this, and in our case we cannot afford the ex- 
 pense, you must draw a line between the costly 
 and the less valuable books, and not allow any 
 books to be taken out of the building which can- 
 not be easily replaced ; and I think that this is one 
 of the practical matters to which you should in the 
 first instance address yourselves. You have a 
 great number of very valuable works, many of
 
 21 
 
 which ought never to leave this library ^ some of 
 them, I am told, have gone to distant parts of the 
 colony, where they have been for several years, 
 and tlie sooner you get them back and never let 
 them go out again, the better for the library. 
 Then with regard to what you should do for the 
 future, and this is really the practical question. 
 It seems to me that both the extreme parties to 
 this discussion between the merits of light and 
 solid literature rather miss the mark that, after 
 all, there is a great deal to be said on both sides, 
 and that the true way is a medium course. Any- 
 thing like an exclusion of works of fiction or a 
 serious curtailment of works of imagination, 
 seems to me to go rather upon a mistaken con- 
 ception of the use of a library, because we know 
 that books are, after all, but the embodied thoughts 
 of mankind, and a great public library should 
 adequately represent the embodied thoughts of 
 all mankind who immediately or remotely concern 
 us in times ancient or modern. From this point 
 of view who can say that the greatest philosopher 
 or the gravest politician can do without the shelves 
 of fiction ? What historian could write of ancient 
 Greece, or Rome, or Syria, without a reference to 
 poets and dramatists? Who could picture the 
 England of the Plantagenets without Chaucer ? or 
 of the Tudors without a diligent study of Spencer 
 and Shakespeare and the dramatists? Milton, 
 Waller, and Lovelace are as necessary to a study 
 of the Stuart era as Clarendon or Bacon are. Can 
 anyone of us imagine Macaulay writing history 
 without his novels or his newspapers and his bun- 
 dles of lampoons and epigrams ? And let us come 
 closer to our own time : Who can understand the 
 politics or social problems of modern England 
 without at least some knowledge of Thackeray, 
 
 c 2
 
 22 
 
 Dickens, -and of our excellent contemporary 
 Punch, as well as of the works of Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth, of Tennyson and Browning? 
 I think you may get a good deal of 
 instruction on this point if you look at what any 
 great writer has told us of the works with which 
 he used to be most familiar as a youth. You will 
 probably most of you have very recently read 
 what Macaulay tells us on this subject, and what 
 his friends recount of him. If you look at 
 Southey's history of his own youthful studies, ycu 
 will find he read not only a great deal of history, 
 deep philosophy, and theology, but also that his 
 great favourites were works of fiction from 
 u Robinson Crusoe" and the "Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress " down to the poets and novelists of his 
 own time and that he set as much store, in 
 judging of what he should write for a grave 
 article in the Quarterly, upon his reading in fiction, 
 as he did upon his studies in history or philosophy. 
 I think we may look also at what is done by 
 modern students and philosophers in this matter. 
 At the " Athenaeum " Club in London, they boast 
 of having the best library of any club in the 
 metropolis, and I believe they are not without 
 reason in their boast. When you go in there, you 
 meet not only great divines and statesmen, men 
 of science like Huxley, Tyndal, and Carpenter, 
 and other modern philosophers, but you meet 
 practical men, engaged in engineering or 
 statesmanship, and every other walk in life ; and 
 if you watch their reading, you will find that they 
 do not by any means confine themselves to the 
 shelves of pure science. There are a con- 
 siderable number of standard works of imagination 
 and fiction on the shelves, but there is, in the middle 
 of the great room, a very long table at which you
 
 23 
 
 will find, as it comes out, almost every work of 
 poetry or imagination as it is published in 
 London, and the busiest and the most philosophi- 
 cal members are as constant in their 
 attendance there as any of the youngest and 
 least occupied (hear, hear.) I may tell you further 
 that this power of commanding all the stores of 
 modern literature may be combined with a due 
 regard to economy, for we must recollect that a 
 philosopher is not always nor often a very rich 
 man, and that he is obliged to study economy 
 even more than the general reader does. I will 
 give you an illustration from what I saw at a li- 
 brary in Kurachee, in India, the first library, by 
 the way, in which we had the same excellent rule 
 that you have here, of allowing all comers to 
 read. There was a man whom I used to observe 
 there a common soldier, who had never got 
 either a corporal's or a Serjeant's stripes on his 
 arm, and I was told afterwards that, not being 
 particularly smart, though a very good, steady 
 man, he did not aspire even to be a corporal. 
 But this private soldier was most constant in 
 his attendance, at the library, and I was curious 
 to know what was his course of reading, and I 
 found he had been reading the works of Jeremy 
 Bentham, straight through from beginning to 
 end. I would ask you to consider the amount 
 of determination and philosophical spirit that 
 must have been in that man to make him go 
 steadily through the works of Jeremy Bentham, 
 volume by volume. He had got through, I 
 think, ten volumes, which I found he had read 
 through and steadily studied, for I found he 
 knew very well what their contents were. But 
 how did he manage it ? I found he never took 
 two volumes running : he ahvays took between
 
 24 
 
 two volumes of Bentham one or two good novels, 
 and refreshed himself, after going over the dry 
 heights of political science, by a spell of Thackeray 
 or Dickens. It always struck me that that man's 
 example was an instructive one for us all. But how 
 are we to combine the power of consulting 
 valuable, solid works, and of reading the general 
 literatue of the day? It seems to me you 
 might very well adopt what is the plan at the 
 great libraries in London, for instance, the Athe- 
 naeum Library. We have a very jealous committee 
 there, who take very good care that they do not 
 buy or put on the shelves any work which is not 
 of standard merit. They take the greatest care 
 that, if a novel is purchased, it is a good novel 
 which has been stamped as giving its impress to 
 some thought of the age, and that it is properly 
 bound and placed upon the shelves. But the bulk 
 of what you may call circulating literature, current 
 words of imagination and fiction, is supplied to 
 the members by the great lending libraries, like 
 Mudie's, Hookham's, and so on, who lend out 
 their works to the club as to a private subscriber. 
 These great circulating libraries take a great num- 
 ber of every work that comes out, in proportion to 
 what they think is likely to be the public demand 
 for it fifty or sixty, or perhaps a couple of hun- 
 dred copies sometimes of one work, and they lend 
 them out at fixed charges to all their subscribers, 
 to institutions as well as to individuals. I know 
 institutions quite as distant as this, which mado 
 an agreement with one of these circulating libraries. 
 Sometimes they have such a circulating library 
 close at hand, and I hope we shall not be with- 
 out one here very long. The great library makes 
 an agreement with a circulating library to fur- 
 nish one or two or more copies of every work,
 
 25 
 
 which is likely to be popular, as it comes out, 
 and these are sent, if the subscriber is at a distance 
 from London, in a weekly or monthly box. You 
 could have no difficulty in getting such a box 
 sent out to you here every week. One merit of 
 this plan is that you can do everything that is 
 required by simply having one careful assistant 
 in addition to the ordinary libiarian. Mr. 
 Maskew, the librarian of this institution, could, I 
 am sure, easily manage with one intelligent 
 young man as an assistant. He could keep a 
 complete check upon a system of this kind, and 
 would let you have your works of fiction or imagi- 
 nation, or anything else, voyages, travels, or bio- 
 graphy as they came out, or as soon as they 
 could be got by anyone living at a distance of 
 three weeks' voyage from London. Now this, I 
 believe, is a most practical and easy matter, and 
 it is one which requires only a little corres- 
 pondence and attention to enable it to be carried 
 out. It would also avoid such difficulties as I 
 have been told of occurring to subscribers here 
 who live close at hand. I have heard of one 
 case where it took seventeen months to get a 
 copy of a popular work, which almost everyone 
 wished to read, which, of course, is quite equi- 
 valent to a prohibition. 
 
 In whatever aspect you view these questions 
 they seem to me always to point to want of more 
 room, and of more money. 
 
 Taking first the question of more room, the point 
 is how best to utilise what you have now got. 
 We have spoken of fresh shelves and of a fresh 
 staircase^ but one thing that occurs to me is, 
 that the large central hall is a sort of Nomans- 
 land, between the Museum and this institution. 
 I see that the great elephant-seal has got in
 
 20 
 
 there, and having got in there, I have no doubt 
 he would have come on and taken possession of 
 this room also, but he could not get through the 
 door, apparently, and there he is. There are also 
 some pictures which I think would probably be 
 as much appreciated if they belonged to an art 
 institution. They are at present indifferently 
 hung as regards light, and unless you get upon 
 the back of the seal you cannot well see the 
 merits and they are very great of those faith- 
 ful portraits of South African scenery (applause) . 
 I think that some of my friends here could tell 
 us how to make a fair division of that room 
 which would make it more useful to both the 
 Museum and this institution, and relieve, to some 
 extent, the present want of space. 
 
 Then there is also a mode of dealing with a 
 library of this kind, which I cannot recommend 
 should be carried out to any very great extent, 
 but which would furnish you with more room, and 
 that is that there might be some weeding. I do not 
 know that this could be carried out to an extent 
 that would give you any practical addition to 
 your room ; but if it could, let me suggest that 
 where you have several duplicates you might 
 send them to some of our friends at a distance, 
 to places like Port Elizabeth, Natal, Bloemfon- 
 tein and Kimberley. They are all parts of South 
 Africa, and I hope that they will, in time, have 
 libraries quite as large as this is at present. But, 
 however much you may weed, you would still 
 require more room, and looking at the question 
 in its entirety, I do not see how you can do 
 without building. You must add very consider- 
 ably, whether you look to the Museum or whether 
 you look to the library, unless you choose to 
 stand still and allow decay to commence ; be-
 
 27 
 
 cause any institution like that Museum or like 
 this library, which does not go on, must begin to 
 go back, and a condition of continual progress, 
 in this as in other affairs, is the only condition of 
 safety (applause). 
 
 A friend, to whom I am indebted for many 
 suggestions on these subjects, reminded me of 
 the great plan of Sir George Grey, to whom so 
 much of what we have around us is due ; namely, 
 to have a suitable building for the University at 
 the other end of the Garden, and the Library and 
 Museum at this end. That is an idea which, I 
 trust, will some of these days be carried out. I hope 
 the day will come when it will be a reasonable 
 and practicable thing to ask for such assistance 
 from the Government, as the erection of a really 
 handsome University building at the other end 
 of the garden (hear, hear). Meantime, however, 
 do not let us deceive ourselves in this matter. 
 To ask for such things just at this present mo- 
 ment is simply to ask for impossibilities. There- 
 fore, let us look at what is practicable and near 
 at hand, and looking at this I find that the whole 
 of this building- was evidently designed for 
 extension. Both ends of the building, and this 
 south-western facade, are finished architecturally, 
 but there is nothing at all in the state of architec- 
 tural finish on the side facing the Cathedral, 
 and there can be no doubt, if you look up the 
 plans of the building, as originally designed, you 
 will find it was intended to be extended in that 
 direction. I have not seen the old plans, but 
 I am quite certain that what the architect in- 
 tended was an extension in that direction ; and I 
 think you would find, if you referred the matter 
 to architects, and to the advisers of the Govern- 
 ment in such matters, that such extension, by
 
 28 
 
 means of a building of glass and iron, such 
 as would be constructed in Paris or London, 
 would be by no means a difficult or expen- 
 sive matter. I trust this will be one of the 
 subjects that will be taken up by your 
 new committee. 
 
 Then there is another matter which is also one 
 of very practical moment which greatly concerns 
 the utility of the library, and that is the want of 
 a catalogue. This is also a matter, to some extent, 
 of expense, but it would be very moderate, and 
 rnors a question of arrangement and perseverance 
 than of any very great cost. I should be very glad, 
 indeed, having had some little experience in 
 catalogue-making in large libraries in Europe, to 
 give niy personal assistance to those who are 
 interested in having a catalogue (applause). I 
 am quite satisfied, moreover, that the expense of 
 getting a good catalogue would pay for itself. 
 If you only do the thing well, it need be no 
 burden upon the funds of the institution. 
 
 There are two parts of this library, which I 
 believe to be unique in Africa and probably in the 
 civilized world. I refer to the Grey Library, and 
 to all you have there of the recorded labours 
 of the late Dr. Bleek. I know there are some 
 of my utilitarian friends who rather look 
 upon this portion of the library as an ornament, 
 and, in some sense, as taking up room which might 
 be used for what appears to be more immediately 
 practical purposes. But I would ask them to 
 consider what title w T e have in South Africa to 
 the respect and consideration of the civilized 
 world apart from our position as a great and 
 growing community ? Now, if you were to ask 
 anyone, say in America, in England, or in 
 Germany, any man who is connected with the
 
 20 
 
 great centres of intellectual thought, " For 
 what is South Africa famous?" I fancy, accord- 
 ing to his peculiar studies, his answer would 
 probably be : "It is the place where Sir John 
 Herschel lived for a long, time; where he ob- 
 served, and where he brought to the knowledge 
 of mankind all that he has told us of the South- 
 ern Hemisphere, and his reflections on what he 
 had seen in the Northern Hemisphere, and where 
 his work is being carried on by Professor Stone." 
 Another answer might also be : " It is the place 
 where Sir George Grey did so much for science 
 and for the country." But if the person interro- 
 gated were connected with ethnology or philology 
 or any of the learned branches of literature con- 
 nected therewith, which are most attended to in 
 Germany, Russia, France, England, and Holland, 
 he would say : u It is the place where Dr. Bleek 
 laboured so well, and made such wonderful dis- 
 coveries in philology and ethology " (applause). 
 In fact, what is contained in the Grey Library is 
 one of your best titles to a high place among the 
 civilized communities of the world (applause). 
 Now this work, as you are aware, has been left 
 unfinished ; but depend upon it, if we value our 
 own character, it must be carried on and com- 
 pleted, and I think the sooner we set ourselves 
 to work to do this the better. I am certain that the 
 Government of this colony is with us in this 
 matter, and that we shall have all reasonable 
 assistance from them ; but it is a question which 
 is much more for the consideration of the sub- 
 scribers to this Library, because if any 
 of us look upon this as more than a mere 
 circulating library, depend upon it the soul and 
 kernel of the institution is in that corner in the 
 Grey Library. I trust this will be taken seriously
 
 30 
 
 in hand, and that we may all think over the 
 matter, and see how this work of Dr. Bleek's may 
 be completed . Do not let us think it is by any 
 means a matter of mere science and literature. 
 I was quite startled on hearing the report read 
 just now, to find how far the influence of his 
 work had spread. We were told of the contri- 
 butions to the Grey Library from Finland and 
 Madagascar, but I would ask what title have we 
 to the attention of Finland and Madagascar if it 
 is not from their knowing that we attend to 
 these particular branches of study which Dr. 
 Bleek made his own, and that they hope we are 
 carrying them on. 
 
 But, again you have this year contributions in 
 your libraryof great value from Dr. Stewart, at Lake 
 Nyassa, and from Bishop Steere, of Zanzibar. I 
 need hardly remind you of what these men are 
 doing. It is true their primary function, is to 
 preach the Gospel to the heathen, but both of 
 them have given much time, labour, and atten- 
 tion, we can hardly say to the literature of the 
 heathen, because they have no literature at 
 present, but to the task of making a litera- 
 ture for them, to learn all about their language 
 and the affinities of their language. Just consider 
 for a moment of how much practical money value 
 is the work of Dr. Bleek to Dr. Stewart and Bishop 
 Steere and to all who are dealing with 
 the languages of South Africa, All of us 
 know and venerate Dr. Moffat; we know how 
 he has devoted himself to the translation of the 
 book of books, the Bible, into the language of 
 the Bechuanas, the people among whom he lived 
 and laboured. Apart from all questions of 
 theology and morality, that Book is the 
 Magna Charta of civilization \ to those people
 
 31 
 
 and it is the first business ot any man 
 who wishes to raise them or make them any- 
 thing better than they are, to give them a trans- 
 lation of the Bible. Here, then, we have men 
 who have devoted their lives first of all to learn- 
 ing the language, and then to translating the 
 Bible, and I was asking the oilier day just before 
 I left London,, why have not we got this 
 work of Moffat's published ? I was told 
 there were difficulties of transliteration ; it was 
 difficult to know how the Bechuana words were 
 to be properly expressed in tho alphabet we 
 use, and here this whole work of printing the 
 translation of the Bible has been kept back by want 
 of what it is the peculiar province of men like Dr. 
 Bleek to teach us. It may seem a very small 
 thing, but the proper expression in our letter 
 of a Kafir word is a matter of the utmost im- 
 portance to anybody dealing with Kafirs ; and 
 as we all have, more or less, to deal with them 
 and other native races in South Africa, do not let 
 us suppose that these questions of philological 
 scholarships are matters of purely theoretical 
 moment. They concern the printer, the missionary, 
 the legislator, the lawyer, and everybody connected 
 with practical life in Africa, and you have only to 
 give the very moderate remuneration which is 
 required, to secure the services of scholars who 
 work not for lucre, but for the love of the work 
 they are doing, and you may secure for yourselves 
 a good hard return in pounds, shillings, and 
 pence. I would, therefore, put this before you as 
 a practical matter, and I would ask you never 
 to think that the labours of Dr. Bleek or 
 those associated with him as men of pure litera- 
 ture and philologists, are matters which are not of 
 practical moment.
 
 $3 
 
 Then there is another part of the library which 
 is, I believe, also unique and it is the Dutch 
 library upstairs, which was left to the country so 
 long ago by patriotic Dutchmen and "es- 
 pecially by its founder Dessin. That part 
 of the library, is I believe, in particular branches, 
 quite unique, but^ again it is not complete. 
 You will search in vain for a proper represen- 
 tation of modern Dutch literature, and if Mr. 
 Motley came among us to-day, I fancy he would be 
 startled to find how very little bearing upon the 
 most interesting part of Dutch history we have to 
 show him. What was done in Holland two or 
 three hundred years ago is of infinite importance 
 to every Englishman, American, and Australian. 
 The history and struggles for freedom of that 
 nation are matters of home-life importance to 
 everyone of us. I think that this defect of modern 
 Dutch Literature ought to be looked to immediately 
 by all who consider themselves as representing our 
 great predecessors on this continent. There is no 
 doubt that but for our predecessors we should 
 not have been here ; we should not at any rate 
 have occupied the great position we do now, 
 and the sooner we set to work to let every 
 Dutchman who comes among us see that his 
 literature is adequately represented here,the better. 
 
 There is one phase of the matter in which 
 our Government has already taken action. 
 You will, I think, be pleased with the report 
 of Dr. Van Oordt, which has been submitted 
 to the Government, and which, will in due 
 time be laid before Parliament, regarding your 
 old records. All those records are now at last safe 
 from fire and further destruction and dispersion, 
 and in hands which will take care of them, and 
 I trust means will be found for publishing
 
 33 
 
 them or selections from them. You have 
 here an immense fund of what is of great 
 interest to everybody in South Africa. In 
 glancing over Dr. Van Oordt's report, I saw men- 
 tion of such things as the complete journals of Gov- 
 ernor Van Riebeek, containing weather reports 
 almost daily , and his j ourney s in different parts of the 
 colonv, which I will answer for it, would everyone 
 of them afford two or three good articles, very read- 
 able and very instructive to any of our friends 
 who have a little leisure to write for our instruc- 
 tion or amusement. Then you have reports upon 
 the Kafirs arid reports upon Indian affairs two 
 hundred years old of infinite interest. In this 
 century you have General Jansen's journeys for 
 three years ; then you have the journeys of Mr. 
 Lichtenstein " To vaccinate in the Karroo," and to 
 read what such an eminent man of science as he 
 was saw and observed in those days must be 
 highly interesting. Then there are some notes 
 by Mr. Rhynveldt On the introduction ofwoolled 
 sheep, which were then a perfect novelty. That 
 would be most interesting to our friends the 
 farmers. Then there are papers on missionary 
 matters eighty years ago, which must be of infinite 
 interest. I think among the things which we 
 ought to try to make one of the results of this 
 library, is the getting up of a society for the 
 publication of historical documents relating to 
 the Cape (applause). I trust a great many of 
 them will ba published in extenso, so that they 
 may speak for themselves. I believe that for 
 many years to come you wquld find an ample 
 supply of material to employ a good secretary of 
 such a society in preparing for the press, and 
 seeing through the press, some of the records of 
 our predecessors in this colony.
 
 34 
 
 To return, however, to the library, we come 
 back to the question of " How are the increased 
 means to be got for all we wish to do? " and 
 that means an increased number of subscribers. 
 There are many ways in which, I have no doubt, 
 if you had a little more space you would get a 
 great deal more in the way of additions to the 
 library. People talk in this country sometimes 
 as if public spirit in the w^ay of bequests or gifts 
 were something exotic or foreign ; but when I 
 look around me I find that this is far from being 
 the case. You have several instances of princely 
 munificence in the way of gifts, and when you look 
 at the records of those who followed Dessin the good 
 Dutchmen who founded the library, and read of 
 the bequests and gifts of Sir George Grey and 
 Mr. Porter, the Gill bequest for educational pur- 
 poses, and what Mr. Bayley left for art, I cannot 
 help thinking you have among you quite as 
 much public spirit in that way as any other com- 
 munity I ever had the honour of knowing, and that 
 it requires only that people should know there is 
 space to receive their gifts, and public spirit to take 
 care of them, for you to get much larger bequests 
 than those received hitherto. 
 
 There has been some endeavour to bring in 
 more subscribers by extending the hours during 
 which the library is open daily, but this has never 
 got to quite the length of adopting the suggestion 
 to light it up. It is quite possible there may be 
 objections in the apprehended danger of fire which 
 may be an obstacle to lighting up the library, but 
 let me on this point give you the experience of a 
 man who has probably known more of what it is 
 to have to do with valuable property, and to 
 guard it against fire than anyone else has. I once 
 heard the testimony given by Sir Henry Cole
 
 35 
 
 regarding precautions to be taken against fire in 
 such institutions as great Exhibitions where you 
 have temporary and very inflammable buildings, 
 and a vast amount of valuable property concen- 
 trated. The question was discussed, " What form 
 of building is best adapted for security against 
 fire ?" Sir Henry Cole stated, and I think his 
 view was agreed in by a very large number of 
 men, some of them dealing with large warehouses 
 and some of them with libraries, that the only real 
 safeguard against fire was watchfulness, and 
 having at hand the means of readily extinguishing 
 fir-3. If time permitted, I could go into the details 
 they gave, to show that no particular construction 
 of building, and no exclusion of lights or any 
 thing else will preserve a building from the risk of 
 fire. Nothing will avail except perpetual watchful- 
 ness, and having the means at hand of extin- 
 guishing the fire, in the shape of plenty of water 
 and buckets to use it always ready. When I 
 asked Sir Henry Cole how it was that during so 
 many years such an enormous extent of buildings 
 filled with inflammable materials and valuable 
 property as that in which he was specially inter- 
 ested, the South Kensington Museum, had been 
 free from serious loss by fire, he said, " Look at 
 those buckets hung up, and look at the water- 
 tanks which we take care to have always filled, 
 and look at the watchmen whom we have always 
 in attendance." It was stated by him, and by 
 others who had equal experience, that iron and stone 
 and cement were utterly vain to make buildings 
 fireproof, as could be seen from the numerous 
 fires which took place in warehouses, &c., where 
 there was no light used at night ; the only safe- 
 guard is perpetual watchfulness. 
 
 I should like before we part, to say a word on 
 
 D
 
 36 
 
 what I thii)k is due from everyone who uses this 
 library, and that is, that we should do something 
 to revive the former society which existed, for 
 making use of what you read here in the way either 
 of lectures or papers of permanent interest, given, 
 by those who use the library, to their friends and 
 fellow-students. It seems to me a very serious 
 reflection upon us as a community containing so 
 many people of culture, and with such a valuable 
 library, that we have nothing in the shape of a 
 literary society, and I should like to see, as one 
 of the results of this meeting a revival of the old 
 Cape Town Literary Society. A "Boyal South 
 African Society of Literature, Science, and Art," 
 would I am sure, find numerous supporters (hear, 
 hear). They say you cannot get people together 
 here, but 1 am quite certain if you set about it in 
 the right way, you will find plenty of people ready 
 to come forward. They may require, possibly, 
 some variation in the time of meeting. Some 
 of our societies at home make it a point to meet 
 at three o'clock, so that members can get out to 
 their dinners betimes ; others make it a point to 
 meet after dinner, and both plans have their 
 recommendations. Let us consider the matter, 
 and I am sure if we properly choose the day and 
 hour, even our men of business who are most 
 engaged, would find time to attend and help us 
 occasionally with a paper on some subject of 
 interest to us. There is an immense choice (as I 
 think anybody may see who looks at our monthly 
 magazine) of subjects in literature and science, 
 travels and statistics. On this point let me re- 
 mind you that all the astronomical observations 
 which we have, of such infinite value, and others 
 go into a very small compass. Papers of that 
 kind added to our transactions in other depart-
 
 ments of a literary or scientific society would 
 command the attention of the whole civilized 
 world, and scientific men would take in the trans- 
 actions of any such society simply that they might 
 get in a popular and accessible form the results 
 of the observations at the Cape Observatory. 
 Then with regard to natural history, Mr. Trimen 
 will tell us how much has still to be learned and 
 recorded in the way of botany and forestry, with 
 its bearing upon the commercial and economical 
 interests of the colony. The discussion of such 
 matters would afford the means of publishing 
 papers which would not only be of interest to us 
 here when read, but also of permanent interest to 
 people at a distance. I was a good deal interested 
 when I was in England in the Roj al Geographical 
 Society, and it seemed to me a strange thing that 
 we got so little directly from the Cape. I took 
 it for granted that you had here a branch of the 
 Geographical Society, and let me remind you 
 how many points there are here of interest to 
 
 feographers. I do not know whether Mr. De 
 midt can tell us the exact course of the Orange 
 River, or what is its average discharge, or how 
 its discharge varies at different seasons, but if he 
 cannot, let me point out to active young man travel- 
 ling about the country, that there is a great deal 
 yet to be learned regarding the geography of this 
 immediate country, which would be of great inter- 
 est, not only here, but also to people at a distance. 
 It was only just before I left home that it began 
 to dawn upon geographers in Europe that after 
 all the Kalihari desert was really no desert at all, 
 but probably a very profitable sheep walk and 
 in time I hope we shall have Kalihari wool as 
 much thought of in the market as any of the 
 merinos. I do not know of any desert spot be- 
 
 D 2
 
 38 
 
 tween this and the Zambesi, which you could say- 
 is a desert in the ordinary sense of the word 
 unless it is where you find the riches 
 of nature hidden beneath the surface, and these 
 are quite as attractive probably to mercantile 
 men and men of science as the parts which are 
 covered with verdure. 
 
 I must not, however, go through any more of 
 these topics, on which I could dwell to an extent 
 which would tire the patience of everyone here, 
 but I will briefly sum up what are the results 
 at which I would wish you to arrive. 
 
 First of all, I would wish you to pay a little 
 more attention to externals and consider that 
 it is a part of our duty not to let strangers, 
 Avhen they come to the Cape, wander in 
 the Botanical Gardens on the other side 
 of those stakes, and wonder why they cannot 
 get in here. It is a national duty to make the 
 best of what we have got in the first instance, 
 and we should call upon those who are charged 
 with the trusteeship of this institution and others 
 in the neighbourhood, to do their duty in telling 
 us what money is wanted, and how it is to be got. 
 Do not let us say that we will go to the Govern- 
 ment for it, because I think I can prophesy pretty 
 accurately that Government will very justly say 
 you must first of all do something for yourselves 
 (hear, hear). What I imagine is the only real 
 legitimate function of Government in connection 
 with such an institution is this that when the 
 institution becomes rich, and has a vast amount 
 of accumulated treasures belonging to the nation 
 at large, then the Government should take care 
 that it is not misapplied, and see that there is a 
 proper trusteeship, and under certain circum- 
 stances they may assist in providing a proper
 
 and secure habitation. But there the proper 
 function of Government ends, and beyond that, 
 for everything else that you want, you ought to 
 rely upon self-help (hear, hear). 
 
 Then I have alluded to the want of space, the 
 want of more-shelf room, and the necessity for 
 utilizing that central hall, and above all, the 
 want of some addition to the building. 
 
 I have spoken of the want of a catalogue, 
 and the want of proper arrangement for 
 light literature, literature of a kind that you do 
 not want to see put permanently on your shelves. 
 
 Besides this, you want proper provision for 
 the future utilization and perfection of the Grey 
 library, and of Dr. Bleek's labours. 
 
 Then I would ask you to consider the desirability 
 of having an historical society for the publication of 
 historical texts, and abstracts" of those texts and 
 translations, and so on ; and also of having 
 lectures periodically by those who value the use of 
 the libraiy, for their benefit of the fellow-citizens. 
 
 You should consider how Government may be 
 asked to take a proper interest in the library as 
 trustees, not, remember, as finding the means 
 of extension. 
 
 There is not one of these suggestions 
 which is new. I have merely taken them 
 from the labours of my predecessors, and tried to 
 condense and put them before yoa in a practical 
 shape. I would ask you to consider them, and 
 if you think proper, after considering them say 
 for a month or so, and adjourning this meeting, 
 you might call upon your trustees and the 
 committee you will now have to appoint, also 
 those in charge of the Museum, the Botanic 
 Gardens, and the art collection, to consult to- 
 gether and consider how this library, which
 
 40 
 
 is, after all, the central and most permanent 
 point of interest to all, shall be made most use 
 of, and how it shall be extended and made 
 worthy of your position as tlie greatest city of 
 South Africa. I only trust you will pardon me 
 for the very great length to which my remarks 
 have extended (loud applause.) 
 
 Dr. Dale said he rose to move a vote of thanks 
 to His Excellency for the very excellent address 
 just delivered. He felt sure that the incoming 
 Committee would take into their careful consider- 
 ation all that the Governor had suggested. The 
 most important suggestion of all, as regarded our 
 intellectual life, was the last, namely, if possible,to 
 revive the old Literary and Philosophical Society, 
 of which the late Sir John Herschel boasted he 
 was a member. \Ye ought to encourage the meet- 
 ing together of those interested in science, litera- 
 ture, and art, and so freshen ourselves up from 
 time to time by letting mind come in contact with 
 mind instead of rusting away, and, hermit-like, 
 reading our books by our fireside, and having 
 very little interchange of thought or opinion (hear, 
 hear). He was only afraid that, in offering any 
 remarks, lie should spoil the effect of the 
 practical address of the Governor. He felt sure 
 they were all indebted to His Excellency for 
 coming among them at so early a period of his 
 official career, and leaving all the more attractive 
 political duties to come down here to our quite 
 quiet home of literature. This used to be called 
 the great complimentary day of Cape Town, when 
 everybody met to pass compliments on everybody, 
 else. It was called by some the " Mutual butter- 
 ing day " (laughter). He was very glad that His 
 Excellency had adopted another course. He had 
 certainly not buttered them to-day, and, being an
 
 41 
 
 old resident himself, he did feel pretty consider- 
 ably ashamed at the catalogue of deficiencies His 
 Excellency had raked up against them (laughter). 
 He had the pleasure a few days ago of accompany- 
 ing the Governor to the back parts of the build- 
 ing, with a view to find out where an extension 
 could be made, but he was sorry to say that 
 when they had got a few paces, they could pro- 
 ceed no further, owing to the amount of mud and 
 other little addenda, which ought not to be found 
 in the precincts of the noblest institution in 
 South Africa. He hoped that others felt as 
 ashamed as he did, for if so, he was sure they 
 would all meet together, and by mutual co-oper- 
 ation, get rid of some of the present defects. 
 He moved that the assembly express its thanks to 
 His Excellency the Governor by rising (applause). 
 
 The motion was carried by acclamation. 
 
 His Excellency then said the only remaining 
 duty was to appoint the committee of manage- 
 ment for the ensuing year, which devolved upon 
 the subscribers but he would ask those who were 
 not subscribers, not to go away without determin- 
 ing to do something for the library. In this re- 
 spect the ladies had a great deal more influence 
 than the gentlemen. He hoped that they would 
 not none of them, not even the youngest, be con- 
 tent till they had secured at least one vote for 
 making the Library what it ought to be (applause). 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & Co.. PKINTEKS. CAPE TOWN.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FIFTIETH illlTlllllT lEETUft 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 &fricrat f ubltc f ibrarjr, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 21sx MAY, 1879. 
 
 n ntr. 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1879.
 
 )0 
 
 
 Committee : 
 
 Ho*. THOS. UPINGTON. | R. M. ROSS, Esq. 
 
 F. G. GOODLIFFE Esq. (Treas ) 
 E. J. BUCHANAN, Esq. 
 REV. Du. CAMERON. 
 Dp k . DALE. 
 
 PROFESSOK GILL. 
 H. W. PIERS, Esq. 
 W. HIDDIN'GH, Esq. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. | J. C. GIB, Esq. 
 
 aittr 
 
 F. MASKEW, Esq. 

 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In presenting the Report of the past year's proceed- 
 ings, the Committee have to state that they had an 
 interview with the Honourable the Colonial Secretary 
 in reference to the reduction made by his predecessor in 
 office, in the Parliamentary Grant in aid of the Library, 
 and explained to him that the Grant was originally made 
 without any stipulations whatever, and they therefore 
 respectfully requested the Honourable the Colonial 
 Secretary to reconsider the matter, and to sanction the 
 payment of the balance due for last year, as well as the 
 continuance of the Giant for the future. After some 
 discussion about the constitution of the Library, as well 
 as that of the Grey Collection, the Colonial Secretary 
 expressed the willingness of Government to restore the 
 Grant to its original amount, and to pay the balance 
 due on the last year's Parliamentary Grant. 
 
 The C)mmittee have to acknowledge with thanks 
 the presentation by William Hiddingh, Esq., of a com- 
 plete set of mahogany bookcases for the Committee 
 Room, which will afford additional accommodation for 
 about five thousand volumes. This generous gift is 
 another instance of the munificence of this gentleman, 
 to whom the Institution is already indebted for the 
 handsome cases which grace the hall as well as the 
 gallery of the Library ; and your Committee feel con- 
 fident that the present gift cannot but be highly 
 
 B 2
 
 appreciated by the " subscribers as well as the public 
 generally. 
 
 Application was made during the year by the 
 University Council for the use of the Library Hall, 
 for the purpose of continuing a course of lectures 
 which had been so successfully inaugurated last year, 
 and to which your Committee readily acceded, but 
 owing to unforseen circumstances the arrangement 
 could not be carried out by the University. 
 
 The Library Hall was, as last year, placed at the 
 disposal of the University for the annual ceremony of 
 conferring of degrees. 
 
 The accession of books in the different departments 
 of science and literature is as follows, viz : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... 6 volumes. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 10 
 
 Science and the Arts a, 25 
 
 Voyages and Travels 68 
 
 History 28 
 
 Biography 43 
 
 Belles Lettres 48 
 
 Miscellaneous 106 
 
 Amongst them are included many valuable works 
 presented by the Royal Society, the Royal Astro- 
 nomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the 
 Royal Colonial Institute, the Zoological Society, the 
 Managers of the Society of Gray's Inn, the India 
 Office, London, the Smithsonian Institution, Washing- 
 ton, His Excellency Sir Bartle Frere, the Hon. 
 Commissioner of Public Works, Professor MacOwan, 
 Somerset East, Rev. TV. J. Jeffreys, Worcester, Mr. 
 S. Alexander, and Mr. George Hodgskin, England, 
 to all of whom the cordial thanks of the subscribers 
 are due. 
 
 Duriijg the past year the Committee have had under
 
 consideration, the desirability of filling up from time 
 to time as the finances at their disposal will admit, 
 some of the departments in Literature and Science, 
 and for that purpose they have appointed a sub-Com- 
 mittee to make a selection of such works as might be 
 needed to supply the different gaps ; and in furtherance 
 of that object, an order has been forwarded to the 
 London Bookseller, which may shortly be expected to 
 arrive. The Committee have also to state, that at 
 their request Mr. Fforde, Chief of the Public Works 
 Department, has been so good as to furnish them with 
 a list of books on Civil Engineering and Architecture, 
 which in his opinion ought to be on the shelves of the 
 Institution, and which is at present under consideration , 
 Under the Copyright Act, the Committee have re- 
 ceived a copy of a Map of the Colony, compiled by 
 the Surveyor-General's Department, and several works 
 published in the Colony during the past year. 
 
 The attendance of readers and visitors to the Insti- 
 tution has been much in excess of that of the previous 
 year. From a record kept by the Officers of the 
 Institution, the total number of visitors during the 
 year amounted to 21452, making an average of 79 
 daily ; the largest number on any one day was 153, and 
 the lowest, 48. 
 
 The issue of books and periodicals during the past 
 year has been as follows, viz. : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 77 vol. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. ... 77 
 Science and the Arts ... ... ... 168 
 
 Voyages and Travels 1,098 
 
 History 449 
 
 Biography ... ... ... ... 568 
 
 Belles Lettres 642 
 
 Novels 6,100 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals 5,961
 
 From this return as compared with that of the pre- 
 vious year it will be seen that there is a falling off in 
 the circulation of standard works by 283 volumes, of 
 Miscellaneous 1272, \vhilstthecirculation of reviews 
 and periodicals is about the same as last year. 
 
 The Committee have much pleasure in stating that 
 the inventory catalogue has been completed, and that 
 the Librarian is about to commence the classification 
 of the same, with a view to the publication of an en- 
 larged catalogue. 
 
 P.S An important communication from the Hon. 
 the Colonial Secretary, in reference to the Grey Collec- 
 tion, was received by the Committee after the fore- 
 going Report had been dra\vn up. In this communica- 
 tion it is proposed that the Government and the 
 Library Committee should co-operate in the selection 
 and maintenance of a Philologist, who, while engaged 
 in scientific study of the native languages of South 
 Africa, should also be charged by the Library Com- 
 mittee with the custodianship of the Grey Collection. 
 Your Committee, considering that a matter of such 
 importance should not be disposed of without full de- 
 liberation, has left the decision on this subject to their 
 successors in office ; and the Government has been 
 informed that a special meeting of the new Committee 
 will at once be summoned for the purpose of consider- 
 ing the proposals of the Government. 
 
 The additions during the past year to the literature 
 of the Native Languages contained in the Library pre- 
 sented by Sir George Grey have again been both 
 numerous and important. 
 
 In Kafir, pieces of Native Literature accompanied 
 by translation into English have been received from 
 the Rev. A. Kropf, Superintendent of Berlin Missions 
 in British Kaffraria, Mr. G. Me. Theal, and Mr. W. 
 G. Stanford. The contribution sent by the latter
 
 gentleman contains a curious account of a recent event 
 in Zululand, as already related in a legendary form 
 among the Batembu. A copy of an English-Kafir 
 Dictionary, by the Rev. W. J. Davis (London, 1877), 
 has been pres3nted on behalf of the Author by the 
 Rev Wm. Holford ; and a Hymn Book, compiled by 
 the Rev. A. Kropf(Erm?, 1877), by himself. Nine 
 sheets containing Kafir Hymns with musical notation , 
 printed at Lovedale (the music being chiefly by Mr. 
 Knox Bokwe), have been presented by Mr. Theal, 
 and copies of a Kafir Almanac for 1879, printed at the 
 Wesleyan Mission Press at GrahamstoAvn, by the 
 Rev. Wm. Holford. From the Right Rev. the Bishop 
 of St. John's, fifteen papyrographically-printed sheets 
 have been received, containing Hymns in Kafir and 
 Zulu with musical notation ; likewise, thirty-eight ad- 
 ditional sheets, containing portions of a revised edition 
 of the Kafir Prayer Book, and a printed Report of the 
 Diocesan Synod held at St. John's, Umtata, in 1877. 
 From the Ven. Archdeacon Waters, the Quarterly 
 Reports of St. Mark's Mission Station have continued 
 to reach us. 
 
 In Zulu, thirty-five Proverbs, collected by the Rev. 
 R. Robertson, for many years a resident in the Zulu 
 Country, and printed in the Natal Colonist in August 
 and September 1878, have been received from Mr. 
 John Sanderson. Three Numbers of the Ubaqa (a 
 Zulu periodical), one of them containing a Zulu Al- 
 manac for 1879, have been forwarded by the Rev. W. 
 Ireland and Miss Hance. 
 
 A fine collection of thirty-five books, mainly in 
 Sesuto, and chiefly printed at Morija in Basutoland, 
 have been presented by the Rev. A. Mabille, of the 
 French Protestant Mission. Among these, are a 
 Sesuto Grammar, and Helps in learning the Sesuto 
 Language (Morija, 1878); a Sesuto-English Vocabu-
 
 lary (Morija, 1876); a small English Grammar in 
 Sesuto (Morija. 1878) ; four Spelling and Reading 
 Books (one of them printed at Paris in 1876 and the 
 three others at Morija from 1875 '77 ) ; three Cat- 
 echisms (Morija, 1875 and 1878, and Paris 1877) ; Line 
 upon Line, 2nd edition (Paris, 1877); New Testament, 
 3rd edition (Paris, 1876); fifteen separate volumes 
 containing- almost the whole of the Old Testament 
 (apparently printed in Basutoland and bearing the 
 dates of Masitise, 1872 and 1873, and Morija, 1871) ; 
 Tsela ca Poloko ( Morija , 1879); Pilgrim's Progress, 
 2nd edition (London, 1877) ; a Geography (Morija, 
 1878); an Arithmetic and Key (Morija, 1876 and 
 1877); and a Tonic Sol-fa edition of the tunes sung 
 in the Basutoland Churches (Morija, 1877). To these 
 Mr. Mabille has added a copy of the Laws of the 
 Country in Sesuto, and one of the Little Light of 
 Basutolaud for January, 1879, containing an Almanac 
 for the present year. The Rev. W. Crisp has kindly 
 sent us copies of two Setshuana works not previously 
 contained in the Grey Library ; viz.,Lokualo loa eintla, 
 printed at Hermaunsburg, Hanover, in 1865, and 
 Luther's Catechism, printed at the same place in 1868, 
 as well as a duplicate of the Gospel of Matthew in 
 Se^lapi (Grahamstown, 1837). Manuscripts con- 
 taining Native Literature in Setshuana, accompanied 
 by translation into English, have again reached us 
 from the Rev. A. J. Wookey and Miss Meeuwseu. Mr. 
 S. H. Edwards has also kindly forwarded two Se- 
 tshuana stories, taken down from Batlapin informants, 
 and twelve Proverbs, all with translation ; and two 
 short pieces of Setshuana Native Literature have 
 likewise been received from the Rev. Mr. Crisp. In- 
 formation regarding a few of the ideas and customs of 
 uhe Betshuana has also been communicated by the 
 Rev. Messrs. A. Kropf and Roger Price, and by Miss
 
 9 
 
 Mcemvseri. A duplicate copy of the Rev. J. Brown's 
 Setslmana-Euglish and English-Setshuana Vocabulary 
 (London, 1876) lias also been kindly presented by the 
 Rev. W. Ashton. 
 
 From Zanzibar, the Right Rev. Bishop Steere has* 
 among other works, sent us a copy of " Collections 
 for a Handbook of the Makonde Language " (Zanzibar, 
 1876). This language " is spoken by the people along 
 the East African coast from the Rovuma to Lindi, 
 and for some days' journey inland and is closely con- 
 nected with the neighbouring tongues." Swahili Ex- 
 ercises (Zanzibar, 1878), the Gospel of Matthew trans- 
 lated into Swahili (London, 1876), and lhat of Luke, 
 translated by the Rev. J. Rebman^ and printed at St. 
 Chrishonain 1876, have also been presented by Bishop 
 Steere, together with a Geography printed at Zanzibar, 
 " Swahili Stories from Arab Sources, " wifrh translation 
 into English, and a Hymn Book in Kinika, printed at 
 Ribe (East Africa) in 1878. Several other works 
 were most kindly sent by Bishop Steere for the use 
 of a Missionary in Damaraland, who desired to become 
 further acquainted with the languages spoken on the 
 Eastern Coast of Africa. 
 
 In Otyilierero four pieces of folk-lore have been 
 received, collected from the mouths of the Natives by 
 the Rev. C. G. Biittner, and accompanied by him with 
 a German translation and notes ; also a duplicate copy 
 of the Rev. H. Brincker's Otyiherero Psalrns (Cape 
 Town, 1875) from Mr. Maskew. 
 
 In Skindontja, a small volume of Bible Stones, 
 printed at Helsingfors in 1878 and published by the 
 Finnish Missionary Society, has been presented by 
 the Rev. G. M. Skoglund, the Editor. 
 
 A French-Mpongwe Dictionary, the work of Roman 
 Catholic Missionaries (Paris, 1877), has been pre- 
 sented by the Rev. Ch. Duparquet.
 
 10 
 
 In other African Jai guageg, the Church Missionaiy 
 Society has generously presented us with copies of 
 an English- Yoruba and Yoruba-English Vocabulary, 
 a Fulah Grammar by the Rev. C A. L. Reich ardt 
 (London, 1876), a Hausa-English and English-Hausa 
 Dictionary by the Rev. J. F. Schon (London, 1876), 
 and a Hausa Reading Book by the same Author 
 (London, 1877). 
 
 From His Excellency Sir Bartle Frere, some papers 
 regarding the Hottentots and their language, and the 
 Bushmen, by Dr. Th. Hahn, published in Continental 
 periodicals in 1870, have been received, together with 
 a duplicate of a work already existing in the Grey 
 Libraiy, and a copy of a " Diary of a Journey from 
 Kimberley to Delagoa Bay " in 1877, by the present 
 Acting- Administrator of Griqualand West. 
 
 A list of Documents relating to the Bushmen, Part 
 I.. 1769-1812, printed by order of the Government in 
 December, 1836, has been presented by the Rev. 
 Wm. Thompson, whose gift forms a valuable addition 
 to Part II. of the same publication, which refers to 
 the Kafirs (bearing also the date of December, 1836), 
 and already exists here. 
 
 A copy of Dr. Shaw's Geography of South Africa 
 (Cape Town, 1878) has been presented by the Author. 
 
 From Miss Cameron, a copy of the Rev. J. 
 Richardson's Account of a Journey in the South-west 
 of Madagascar in 1877 (Antananarivo, 1877) has been 
 received, together with two further translations, from 
 the Rev. L. Dahle's " Specimens of Malagasy Folk- 
 lore, " executed by herself. The Hev. L. Dahle has 
 also kindly sent us from Madagascar a duplicate copy 
 of the third number of the Antananarivo Annual, for 
 Christmas, 1877. 
 
 From Tasmania, His Excellency F. A. Weld, Esq., 
 C.M.G.j has been so good as to add to the informa-
 
 11 
 
 tion regarding the languages of Australia collected by 
 Sir George Grey, and already existing here, a " col- 
 lection of words used by the Natives about Eucla, at 
 the head of the ' Great Bight' between South and 
 West Australia." To these words, received from Mr. 
 Andrew Muir, of Eucla, His Excellency has added a 
 few notes by Mr. Muir concerning some Native cus- 
 toms, and a curious Native legend, in English ; as 
 well as a duplicate copy of a Vocabulary of the 
 Western Australian Native Languages. A copy of 
 Mr. Brough Smyth's work upon the Aborigines of 
 Victoria (London, 1878), compiled for the Victorian 
 Government, and generously forwarded by the latter 
 " for deposit in the Grey Library, Cape Town," 
 has safely reached us, through the Under-Colonial 
 Secretary, Captain Mills, and is hereby gratefully ac- 
 knowledged. This very interesting work, to which have 
 been added" Notes Relating to the Habits of the Natives 
 of other parts of Australia and Tasmania," is in two large 
 volumes, and contains an immense amount of informa- 
 tion regarding the Natives, their languages and ideas, 
 besides a number of illustrations representing the 
 Native? themselves, their weapons and implements, as 
 well as specimens of Native art ; and the kindness of 
 Mr. G. G. Macrae, who made known to the Victorian 
 Government the value which this work would possess 
 for students of the Native races in South Africa, must 
 here be thankfully recorded. 
 
 A copy of Maunsell's Grammar of the New Zealand 
 Language (Second Edition, Auckland, 1862) and of 
 Donaldson's " First Step to the Maori Language " 
 (Napier, 1861) have been presented by Mr. H. Willis, 
 together with" Lectures on Maori Customs and Super- 
 stitions," by Mr. John White, printed by order of the 
 New Zealand Legislature about 1861, and containing 
 much interesting information upon these subjects. A
 
 12 
 
 specimen of the " Maori Intelligencer, " printed in 
 1861, and six Numbers of the " Maori Messenger," 
 printed in 1862, have also been presented by Mr. 
 Willis, besides a number of papers relating to New 
 Zealand, mainly to Native Affairs there, and chiefly 
 printed in 1860 and 1861. We have also to thank 
 the Surveyor-General of New Zealand, Mr. J. T. 
 Thomson, for copies of five papers communicated to 
 the Otago Institute between 1871 and 1875 by himself. 
 Among these is one upon the " Whence of the Maori, '' 
 and another " On Barata Numerals/' 
 
 A Bushman Painting, representing a man and 
 animals, found at Bain's Kloof, was presented by Mr. 
 Theal ; and tracings of some curious paintings found 
 in the Clanwilliam Division, on the property of Mr- 
 E. H. Nieuwoudt, have been contributed by his son, 
 Mr. G. Nieuwoudt. The heads of the human figures 
 at one of the caves visited (viz., that in Pinaar's 
 Vlakte, Ceder Bergen, about 40 miles distant from 
 the village of Clanwilliam), have a similar outline to 
 those of the Shooli, met with by Sir Samuel Baker 
 somewhat to the north of the equator, and figured in 
 his Ismailia. 
 
 The only photograph which has this year been re- 
 ceived is one of Sir Th. Shepstoue, presented by Mr. 
 John Sanderson.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 Upon occasions of this kind, it is expected from the 
 Chairman, that he should have something new to tell 
 you in connection with literature or art. My own 
 scanty leisure has rendered this impossible , but in 
 place of it I propose to-day to put our books and reviews 
 on one side ; and confine my address to the discussion 
 of some social problem* which are pressing on our 
 attention, and which may not unfitly be solved in th e 
 serene atmosphere of a National Library. 
 
 Beyond these doors there exists a wider circle of 
 hearers, who are not readers, and who know but little 
 of the influence of the arts of peace, or of the internal 
 mechanism of Christian governmant. To educate 
 these, and make them happy and prosperous under our 
 rule, is a task which may fully employ the energies of 
 every citizen. If we really mean to elevate all classes 
 in the Cape Colony, and quicken their progress in the 
 paths of knowledge and virtue, we must break down 
 the barriers which separate them from ourselves, and 
 give an increased attention to the root of their moral 
 inferiority and weakness in times past. 
 
 With your leave, therefore, and in no narrow spirit, I 
 venture to-day to give brief expression to some thoughts 
 which from time to time have struck me as to our 
 common duty to South Africa ; and to ventilate the 
 policy of standing aloof from the concerns of our
 
 4 
 
 neighbour?, whic h practically means to forego all the 
 social advantages involved in the use and abuse of 
 personal influence. 
 
 To many, the exercise of this social gift is fraught 
 with ruinous consequences : and for one man who will 
 take the trouble to work out the obligations of a lead- 
 ing p'osition iu life, there are hundreds who make 
 shipwreck of their many opportunities for doing good 
 and perish in obscurity ! It is so much easier apparently 
 to drift with the stream, than to stem and control the cur- 
 rent of popular ignorance and folly, that the shores of 
 our existence are strewed with the flotsam and jetsam of 
 an ever restless and cruel sea of error ! Yet even in 
 children there is so much latent power, both for mischief 
 and for good, that the task of training them is wel- 
 worthy of the highest class of intellect ; while the in- 
 fluence of women alone if rightly directed is call 
 culated to fill us with gladness and riches, and to 
 revolutionise the world ! 
 
 Around us are ranged in goodly lines the histories 
 of many human lives. From the tangled yarn of 
 experience and thoughts both bitter and sweet 
 they there have spun the most delicate and charming 
 fabrics of the mind, and clothed their fancies in many 
 a glistening robe of wisdom and wit. What, think 
 you, was tho motive power that set th^ir peas to 
 paper ? Was it love, ambiti-m, or intellectual pride ? 
 Did they yearn for human laughter, approval, or tears ; 
 or did they hope to exercise a silent influence after 
 death on the countless ages that might follow their 
 teaching ? Does poetry still retain its hold over the 
 imagination, or satisfy the heart's passionate craving 
 after the Beautiful in Nature and Art? Does the 
 mystery of spiritual life excite within us a yearning 
 after purity and inward grace ? Has music ceased to 
 charm, or philosophy to allure us? In new shapes
 
 15 
 
 and in altered forms the protean character of hurnrm 
 nature is as subtle and interesting as ever ; but the 
 little leaven of past ages is fast leavening the whole 
 mass of mankind, and the world is not content to walk 
 in twilight for ever. The craving for more light by 
 the children of light is a natural instinct ; and just as 
 Geology, Physiology, and Natural Philosophy have 
 added to the wealth and material happiness of countless 
 millions by disclosing secrets of earth, of organic life> 
 and of chemical decomposition, so the magicians and 
 alchemists of old have been the avatars of modern 
 science, and found their most gifted followers ia the 
 chemists and magicians of to-day. 
 
 But what are leaders without a crowd of displecss to 
 propagate their doctrines? The influence of a Plato 
 or a Socrates was not confined to their lives ; but 
 grew with the growth and strengthened with the 
 strength of their followers. In search of truth under 
 every disguise, an ample field of enquiry was opened 
 up to every independent mind intent only on the 
 strict interpretation of Nature's laws, and seeking for 
 beauty on a logical basis of curious suspicion and 
 of positive proof. 
 
 In the realms of knowledge nothing is finite ! At best 
 we can only approximate to the real truth, and pass 
 on the secret for others to test. Strict accuracy as 
 to fact, cind high principle as the rule in the conduct 
 of our lives, are the only sound pivots upon which all 
 knowledge and moral rectitude can safely turn. Guided 
 by that compass we can steer our way calmly in the 
 widest seas of enquiry and doubt, and learn to lovo 
 truth in everything with which, we have to deal. 
 
 For the influence of a man or woman lies outside of his 
 or her personality. It is a natural gift and cannot be 
 acquired. It may be developed, but cannot be 
 invented, and rests mainly upon a recognition of the
 
 16 
 
 claims of others frtr its fructification and force. Some- 
 times we have it, without knowing how to use it ; and 
 then the waste of our power upon improper and 
 worthless objects is 110 less an abuse of influence, than 
 if we deliberately used it on purpose in a species of 
 self-degr ad ation . 
 
 By virtue of his office, the minister, the lawyer, the 
 statesman, and even the physician is capable of using 
 considerable influence in the attainment of legitimate 
 objects. The nature of culture, the need of friendship, 
 sympathy, justice, religion, and moral principle in our 
 several relations are not less foreign to their professions 
 than the practice of industry, sobriety, patience, and 
 truthfulness in honest dischai'ge of their obligations to 
 society. The minister of religion preaches his best 
 sermons out of the pulpit if he carries into his daily life 
 and conversation the faculty of leading his hearers' 
 thoughts to worthy objects and elevated aims. The 
 lawyer and the statesman have something more to do 
 than wrangle in courts or dazzle in debate, and" a 
 wise physician skilled to heal," is said to be " better 
 than an army for the public weal." For the intel- 
 lectual growth of a nation is not merely due to the 
 scholastic attainments of a few, or the gratified curi- 
 osity in knowledge of the many. The spread of ideas 
 may be as rapid in a railway as in books ; and the art 
 of conversing worthily on topics of the day may be 
 just as useful as an accurate knowledge, by reading, 
 of the wisdom of the past. Peace of mind and spirit 
 of content flow as readily from culture of the heart 
 and intellect as from fortune or physical comfort. 
 However poorly we may be furnished with this world's 
 goods, we may find a mine of wealth in intelligent 
 enjoyment of the many common objects of pity and 
 love that lie ready to our han'ls. There is not a star 
 that shine?, a flower that blooms, or a rustling blade
 
 17 
 
 of grass, which is not capable of filling the soul with 
 the highest and purest thoughts. The powers of 
 creation and nature are infinitely varied and ever fresh ; 
 and the wheels of thought go whizzing on for each 
 others benefit, in the darkest right or the loneliest cell ; 
 since man alone is capable of interpreting the subtle 
 influences which are always at work to lift him above 
 his earthly surroundings, and pierce the mysteries of 
 life ! 
 
 From the memorable cession of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, to the present moment, Avhen England is 
 straining every nerve to teach us self-reliance, and lead 
 the way to a brighter future a slow but certain pro- 
 cess of development has been silently upheaving all 
 the landmarks of the past, and irrevocably committing 
 us to the gradual defacement of much that was bar- 
 barous, cruel, and base. Silently but surely we have 
 seen this Colony emerging from the waves of supersti- 
 tion and the black night of paganism ; and we ourselves 
 are living witnesses to the power of the truth, and the 
 spread of the Gospel over large tracts of wild and long- 
 neglected territory. 
 
 What then is our mission, as offshoots of England 
 and Holland, to those thousands of British subjects, 
 who are at once the children of our adoption, and a 
 constant source of anxiety to their teachers ; and by 
 what influences do we purpose to lift into light the 
 great mass of ignorance aud sloth, by which we are 
 encircled and pressed to the earth ? 
 
 In an enquiry of this kind it matters little whether 
 our progenitors invaded this dark continent, or quietly 
 elbowed out the puny sons of the soil. Here we are, 
 and here, no doubt, we intend to remain ; and unless 
 we can show good cause why we should insist upon 
 remaining, and to what extent we are prepared to 
 make our settlement subservient to the spread of tiade 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 and civilization, we are but following in the footsteps 
 of all usurpers, and exchanging one form of bondage 
 for another more grinding still, 
 
 As a matter of fact, our earliest settlers can never 
 be regarded as pilgrim fathers or apostles of peace. 
 They landed here, as a convenient stepping-stone to 
 India, and as rude soldiers and mariners in want of 
 supplies and a port of call. Nothing was further from 
 their thoughts than to colonise and settle down. They 
 did not leave their brethren here as exiles in the sacred 
 cause of liberty, or to found a modern Utopia in the 
 burning plains of the interior, but to refresh their 
 weared and debilitated frames, and to rest awhile 
 under the shade of Table Mountain In course of 
 time their wants increased, and their borders had to 
 be enlarged ; but the pursuit of trade and agriculture 
 for the benefit of a private company was far removed 
 from dreams of conquest or elevation of native 
 tribes. 
 
 Here at the Cape, from the very first, settlers of the 
 European race were sternly repressed by those in 
 authority over them, and their sense of justice had 
 many a rude shock, which must have degraded and 
 kept them submissive to the laws. In those 
 Draconian days, even free burghers were ruled with a 
 rod of iron, and the state of the white slave was 
 much to be pitied, and never to be envied. 
 
 With the transfer of the Colony to the English, 
 there came the faint dawn of perfect equality before 
 the law to all, with full civil rights and personal free- 
 dom to the humblest in the community. But it takes 
 many generations to abolish the evils of slavery, to 
 liberate the minds, and enfranchise the souls and 
 understandings of the tillers of the soil. While the 
 white man now has every inducement held out to him 
 to raise himself in the social scale, and amass wealth
 
 19 
 
 by industry, sobriety, and frugality his brown brother 
 has still to contend against want of capital and defects 
 of early training, and to fight with the evils of his 
 savage and passionate blood. Still the work of his 
 taming and civilization has fairly to be entered upon, 
 and we stand committed, in the 19th century, to the 
 improvement and education in higher things of all 
 who may be brought in contact with us, and our insti- 
 tutions, whether they like it or cot. 
 
 And here let me ask, what has civilization so far done 
 for the direct descendants of the aborigines who 
 entered into treaties with Van Riebeek and others. 
 It found them timid, naked, and irreligious ; living on 
 bulbs and scanty fare ; and hiding from heat and rain 
 like conies on the hills. It has introduced them to drink 
 and punished them for vice ; it has ruined their morals, 
 absorbed their lands, and driven them to menial pur- 
 suits ; and in the present day the Bushman and the 
 Hottentot, as a distinct race, can scarcely be paid to 
 exist. But it may be said that in their place we have 
 called into being an olive-coloured class a jumble of 
 mixed nationalities who owe much to the Dutch, and 
 little to the aborigines ! It may be so, but even here 
 the taint of servitude has sapped and enfeebled their 
 manhood, and made them the creatures of their 
 unbridled passions. With these, true religion as an 
 intellectual 'necessity is still unfelt. The sense of 
 shame for sin, and the horror of gross falsehood have 
 still to be awakened ; and the curse of intemperance 
 as a social crime and the parent of disease has still to 
 be denounced and removed from their homes. 
 
 If we point to the Malays and half-breeds as hopeful 
 specimens of our rule, and find food for complacent 
 reflection in their clean and orderly appearance in 
 public, we are apt to forget the history of their origin 
 and importation here. Their love for dress and dis- 
 
 C2
 
 20 
 
 play, their keenness at a bargain, and their fondness 
 for litigation and prayer, are oriental, not barbaric ; and 
 to that extent their progress here has been subservient 
 to our own progress as an educational and conquering 
 race. Their rites, and prayers, and outward ceremonial 
 of devotion have not been derived from an European, 
 but from an Asiatic source. A s aids to the spread 
 of knowledge and the primary education of the raw 
 native, they may be of value hereafter, and may give 
 him the first rude idea of man's utter powerlessness to 
 cope with the forces of Nature, unless he has a creed 
 of some sort to sustain him in his need. The wild 
 legends of the Zulu and Kafir point to an ancient, 
 decayed, and forgotten civilization, long antecedent to 
 the Christian era, and having its foundation, perhaps, 
 in Coptic or Egyptian myths. The followers of 
 Mahommed, with their doctrine of fatalism, and union 
 of king and prophet in the person of a son of the desert, 
 appeal more strongly to the echoes of Kafir tradition 
 and the divine attributes of chiefs, than our own higher 
 views of Man's atonement ai d the need of a second 
 birth in Christ. Malay converts are not without their 
 value ; but before we can weld our scattered com- 
 munities and neglected heathen into a strong and 
 compact nation, we must hammer the law of obedience 
 to an overruling Providence into their heads and 
 hearts for obvious reasons. 
 
 For the basis of every true nationality is anchored 
 in unity of faith; and unless this faith recognizes 
 obedience, decency, natural affections, and inter- 
 change of good offices between the upper and lower 
 classes, what hope can we have for cementing, even 
 with our blood, the diverging interests which are 
 continually tending to keep us apart, and preventing 
 our native races from throwing in their lot with us, 
 as a strong and united peop-e !
 
 21 
 
 If widespread happiness be the summum bomi-n of 
 human attainment, the sources of individual happiness 
 must be open to all. Content of mind, security to 
 life and property, and easy enjoyment of the good 
 things of this world, may vary in degree but not in 
 kind. The pleasure of the mind involves the pleasure 
 of the body, and equality before the law includes the 
 duties and strict performance of moral obligatior.fi 
 involved in the maintenance of the law. There cannot 
 be two laws of life one for the ignorant and another 
 for the educated. Both are equally responsible for 
 the right use of their opportunities ; and it would be a 
 monstrous abuse of our acquired powers as a superior 
 race if we failed to open the eyes and enlarge the 
 minds of those beneath us, who owe their social 
 inferiority to want of culture and refining influences. 
 
 And herein we can see one great line of difference 
 between the plans pursued by the Dutch and 
 English in their mode of dealing with the native. 
 The " boers, " who trekked away into the wilderness 
 rather than tolerate restraints on their liberty by the 
 Council of Seventeen, were animated less by a 
 desire to grow rich as traders than to live contentedly 
 as cultivators of their own fields. The wild, free life 
 of the " voortrekkers " was just suited to their taste?. 
 They were tired of Dutch rule and the strictness of 
 sumptuary laws, and looked upon the deputies of 
 Holland as a set of exacting tax-collectors, who 
 ground them down to dust, and gave them little in 
 return. They went forth, therefore, beyond the 
 boundaries, and if left alone would have firmly 
 established themselves among the tribes, and by their 
 prowess as hunters and marksmen would have formed 
 the very best of all frontier guards. As pioneer 
 farmers, they searched for water and good pasturage, 
 and slowly with their flocks and herds moved acroes
 
 22 
 
 the stubborn face of the continent, piercing passes ? 
 subduing Nature, and fearing God. A rude form of 
 government of necessity united them, but its yoke 
 was easy and its burden light ; and not until their 
 neighbours of the aboriginal races began to be 
 troublesome as thieves, did they go out of their way 
 to smite them hip and thigh, in patriarchal fashion, 
 and teach them the biblical meaning of the laws of 
 property. Working in their fields with their own 
 servants brought from the Cape, they may be said to 
 .have practically taught agriculture to the surrounding 
 tribes ; and thus the first approach was made toAvards 
 absorbing the better disposed savages, by letting 
 them mix and intermarry with the labouring classes 
 of the old colony. As the " boers " got further and 
 further away from the laws and protective powers of 
 Holland, they ceased to be strictly Dutch in their 
 instincts and developed physically and mentally into 
 a distinct type of men patient, brave, plodding* 
 easily led, and perfectly happy in their isolation from 
 the old world. Their sole literature was contained in 
 the bible. Strictly conservative and honourable in 
 their feelings, they asked for no belter code of law 
 or morals, and conducted themselves in the new 
 ,Canaan as the old Hebrews would have done. 
 District by district they extended their influence over 
 much of the present map of South Africa, and 
 prepared the ground for those who were destined to 
 follow them as the employers of native labour, and 
 the fomentors of native discontent ! 
 
 On the other hand, the policy of England as a 
 trading nation is to encourage emigration and exchange 
 of commodities, by extending her flag over every 
 advanced post of colonists who have made their foo ing 
 good, and insisting upon fair dealing with the natives 
 within and beyond her declared boundaries. In course
 
 2* 
 
 of time the trading instinct of adventurers leads them 
 into trouble ; reprisals and difficulties ensue ; and 
 frontier farms and stations are the first to suffer at the 
 hands of savages who consider themselves cheated or 
 injured in any way. An appeal is made to the 
 Executive for assistance. A petty quarrel soon grows 
 into a regular campaign, and equally, as a matter of 
 course, we have to take possession of land which we 
 don't want, and when we are called upon, have to set 
 about and rule it. Meanwhile the duties of adminis- 
 tration have to be exercised over all who occupy the 
 space intervening between the old and new posse- 
 sions ; and permission is readily granted to native 
 refugees to live in peace and quietness on special 
 locations, but subject to their own laws and customs. 
 They take up the room, which more fitly might have 
 been occupied by a large white population (had we 
 been more indulgent to the Dutch who shied away 
 from our alliance, when we pursued them so mis- 
 chievously as refugees, from the flag of their alle- 
 giance) ; and then repay us with hatred. 
 
 As a natural consequence, the native races who 
 have fled to us for protection from their tyrants are 
 more and more confirmed in their hold upon the land. 
 Numerically stronger, and wedded to their own de- 
 graded views of life, they seek in time to impose the 
 rule of terrorism and insolence over those who are 
 trying to legislate in their true interests as our fellow 
 colonists. Instead of being respected we are defied, 
 and the ranks of free labour are still gaping for 
 recruits ! The contrast between black and white is too 
 sharply defined. There is no gradual blending of 
 tints no desire to approach each other for the sake of 
 fusion and union. On the one side we have pure 
 savagery tempered by missionaries and trade ; on the 
 other a dominant race in free communication with the
 
 24 
 
 mother country, and kept in check by the public 
 opinion of England, What is good for trade is held 
 to be good for the native ; and if the native wishes to 
 have very little to do Avith us, so much the worse for 
 commerce and civilization. 
 
 This is the great problem of our time how to 
 approach the native question in such a way as to 
 utilise the results of previous lines of policy, and blend 
 the interests of the aborigines with our own. "We are 
 tired of treating them on a separate system. The 
 white man, with his inborn respect for decency and 
 comfort, settles down as a colonist, and not as a lay 
 missionary. He has to make his way and living here 
 pretty much as he has to do it everywhere else ; with 
 this great difference that they who work for him are 
 infinitely distressed at having to work at all, and 
 cannot be brought to understand why labour and 
 sorrow should be so closely related. They dislike 
 our laws, and detest our principles. They feel us to 
 be stronger and richer, and less numerous than them- 
 selves, and they try by c:aft, and cunning, and 
 treachery, to outwit everybody who comes in contact 
 with them. They look to their god-descended chiefs, 
 and not to our Queen for guidance ; and when they 
 try conclusions with us, and are whipped, we have to 
 annex their country, and accept the responsibility of 
 taming them ! All this may be good for trade, but 
 it is not the way to succeed in establishing a colony. 
 Our growth is too rapid in territory, and too slow in 
 education. We are straggling and sprawling over the 
 land as an alien race, where we should have been 
 strong and compact as a community ; and they, who 
 should have been our servants and fellow-colonists, 
 are dreaming of the day when they can by a combined 
 effort push us out of the land, and return once more 
 to their primitive nakedness.
 
 25 
 
 Our first duty t'> the land we livo in is recognition 
 of llie fact that we hold it in trust, not for England 
 but for its people ; The assimilation of all our customs 
 and legislation to the English standard of perfection 
 is the highest tribute we can pay to the excellence of 
 home institutions ; and we have every inducement 
 held out to us, on all sides, to cultivate our mental 
 gifts, and imbibe the manly spirit of our forefathers 
 in the conduct of our lives. But a love of justice, 
 hatred of wrong doing, deep sympathy with sorrow, 
 and a leaning towards pity, mercy, and womanly 
 tenderness of feeling are not the only preservatives 
 which we have to guard us against the commission of 
 cruelty, and idle shedding of blood. "VVe, who have 
 been lifted on to the social platform from our birth, 
 and aspire to the higher education, have found in the 
 realms of knowledge and much goodly literature the 
 solace and encouragement of larger minds than our 
 own ; but they who have a right to look up to us for 
 guidance and help is the first stage of a nation's 
 adolescence are still of the earth earthy ; bound down 
 to clay and the infancy of thought; and must be 
 taken by the hand, gently but firmly, so as to show 
 them how to walk. If books could speak to the native 
 mind, they would appeal with trumpet tongues to the 
 innate goodness and better qualities of all classes of 
 men and women ; but the social and mental develop- 
 ment of the mixed races, in the midst of whom we 
 dwell, is not yet sufficiently advanced for strong meat 
 like this, and demands a special form of education, 
 based upon the teaching of books, and yet to soma 
 extent independent of them. 
 
 By precept and example it would be easy to unlock 
 these sealed volumes, and reduce to practice the 
 aspirations of higher natures ; but the work will have 
 to be done with clean hands and with generous warmth
 
 26 
 
 The modern Gospel of national friendship and good- 
 will to the prosperity and peace of every country has 
 ttill to be preached here. By patience, by kindness, 
 by gentleness of speech and manners to our dependents 
 and by a firm determination to uphold the laio, we shall 
 earn the reward given to those \vho essay to root out 
 barbarism ; and yet not so much by preaching peace 
 and goodwill, as by a lively example of what civiliza- 
 tion has done for ourselves as their rulers. This is the 
 weak point in our armour of proof. Herein lies the 
 fatal defect in our teaching, that we are so imperfectly 
 qualified to be guides to the ignorant. It seems to 
 me, as if our moral and intellectual fibre as whites has 
 become relaxed by residence in a warm climate ; and 
 that the chief aim of every home-staying colonist is to 
 seek a weak refuge from trouble and care, by giving 
 himself up to laziness and unmanly excuses. We are 
 satisfied with third rate work, and shirk responsibilities. 
 Comparatively few have either the stamina or the 
 moral courage to stand up vigorously for the truth ; 
 to court it laboriously ; to worship it openly; to 
 proclaim it in all places : and diffuse its pure light 
 over dark and degraded natures. There is a absence 
 of salt in the formation of public opinion here j an 
 obstinate persistency in imputing bad motives to those 
 who differ from us ; and a sneering spirit of detraction 
 abroad, which act and react most prejudiciously on the 
 growth of hearty and real manliness amongst our 
 youth. There is a want of confidence in employers 
 a poverty of resource in our workmen, and but little 
 love for doing a thing well and thoroughly for its own 
 sake, which is the test of good service ; for as George 
 Herbert says : 
 
 " A servant with this clause 
 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
 
 Makes that and the action fine I "
 
 27 
 
 Here, at all events, in pursuit of national happiness 
 and wealth, we have a great social evil to contend 
 with, which it behoves every true man or woman, with 
 the slightest personal influence, to root out of the 
 community ! It is of slavish origin, no doubt, and has 
 been kept alive by fear and association with native 
 races, but it has a leprous taint about it which 
 threatens to vitiate the industrial classes, and smirch all 
 our undertakings with the stain of insincerity and fraud. 
 Is it our mission then to civilize and develope, on 
 English lines of thought, the varied races of men now 
 brought under our rule and protection ? As a matter 
 of history we have made too much of the native as he 
 is, and too little of the circumstances which mould 
 and surround him from his birth. We are apt to re- 
 gard him at heart as a treacherous and irreclaimable 
 savage, steeped to the lips in cruelty and deceit, and 
 ever ready to drop the thin garb of decent behaviour 
 which we have imposed upon his recreant limbs. If 
 he has one redeeming trait in his ignoble and unlovely 
 views of life it is unshaken loyalty to his god-like chief 
 and hereditary ruler. Upon this point all men are 
 agreed. If out of the " nettle danger " we mean 
 to pluck " the flower safety " we owe it to ourselves 
 and our professedly humane creed, to respect this chiv- 
 alry of sentiment in our coloured subjects, and mould 
 our policy of restraint and development on respect for 
 justice and lawful authority. Sooner or later, for their 
 own good, the power of chieftains, recognized by us, 
 will have to be sapped, by securing individual proprie- 
 torship of the soil, and by giving the same privileges to 
 native women as those now enjoyed by every mother of a 
 family. Domestic life and private rights by marriage 
 can now scarcely be said to exist among the women of 
 our Colonial tribes, who feel no motive for personal 
 industry and thrift. They are at the mercy of their
 
 28 
 
 despotic lords, and the infamous quackeries of state 
 magicians ; and, as a class, are never likely to rise 
 in the social scale, unless we come to their rescue and 
 give them a voice in the disposal of themselves. By 
 disarming the masses who fear us, and permitting 
 natives to buy and sell laud on a registered title, the 
 local administration of colonial law will gradually 
 supplant the power and attributes of the chiif, and the 
 magistrate and the doctor will displace the despot and 
 the witch. But it must not be forgotten that custom 
 and superstition are hard to eradicate. When once 
 they are weakened by unrestricted intercourse with 
 men of a higher grade, the desire to trade will awaken 
 new wants and yearnings It will then be our duty to 
 compel the rising generation to go to school, and learn 
 the alphabet of civilization. With the creation of new 
 wants, and the sharpening of their natural abilities, 
 the Kafir and the Fingo will soou strive to outvie each 
 other in their scholastic and mechanical attainments : 
 and, as books and educated men -come to be better un- 
 derstood, our native domestic policy will naturally 
 result in keen competition for the solid rewards of 
 honest toil. 
 
 As Industrial Schools, on the plan of Lovcdale, 
 Blythewood, and St. Mark's Mission, attract their 
 bands of paying pupils to skilled handicrafts, a taste 
 will be developed for domestic comfort, and something 
 more substantial in furniture than a wooden pillow 
 or a mat. The hut will give way to the house : and 
 it will be our own fault if we do not succeed in making 
 the native thoroughly appreciative of ihe goodness and 
 justice of our rule. But something more than this 
 is required if we mean to discharge our duty to the 
 land we live in. We must take these people by the 
 hand, and treat them firmly but generously, and by 
 our example react on our neighbours, and encourage
 
 29 
 
 them to bring up their children us gently and as 
 generously as our own. As tLeie is no royal road to 
 knowledge, so the fact of there being nothing degrading 
 about honest labour is'one of the most difficult to instil 
 in a savage breast. The dignity of toil is foreign to 
 their ideas. Shut up in their narrow valleys, they 
 weave their childish dreams of conquest, and long to 
 dash their thick heads against the power of the whites. 
 They are all for war and the shedding of blood. Thus 
 our common safety lies in the growth of native in- 
 telligence, and the spread of Christian principles in 
 our several vital relations, so that at last th- y may see, 
 we bear them no enmity at heart, and are willing to 
 join hands with them on a platform of civil and religious 
 liberty and mutual support. 
 
 This question of honest labour and the possibility 
 of a happy home-life to the coloured inhabitants of the 
 Cape, is one which may meet with but little sympathy 
 among some in South Africa, but it cannot be ignored 
 by thoughtful men, as the chief factor in the chronic 
 discontent Avith colonial home politics. Of the many 
 hundreds who profess to be tired of the lying, drink- 
 ing, grumbling, and slurring propensities of our lower 
 classes, and of their patent antagonism to all law and 
 order, how few are there who recognise their own 
 share in popularising laziness, and reducing murder 
 of time and waste of golden opportunity to a fine art ? 
 It is so much easier to find fault than to suggest a 
 cure, and so much more popular to brand the short- 
 comings of a class with scorn and contempt as 
 agencies outside our legitimate influence, that I 
 hesitate to point out, for how much we shall hereafter 
 be held responsible, by standing aloof and letting 
 everything have its own way, because it is too muck 
 trouble to interfere, and bring our influence to bear on 
 the vagaries of grown-up children.
 
 30 
 
 And yet the status of the coloured folk is so 
 intimately bound up with the progress of the Cape, 
 that it would be wrong to ignore the strong claim 
 which the half-civilized races of the Western Province 
 have upon our forbearance and powers of compulsory 
 instruction. In comparison with the wild tribes of the 
 Eastern divisions, it is useless to deny, that the half 
 castes and Malays have taken kindly to domestic 
 service, and are not wanting in natural affections. 
 Their love of dress, of wine, of impromptu feasting and 
 merrymaking are unconscious tributes to the mildness 
 of our rule, and are far removed from the savage 
 customs or rude dances of frontier Kafirs. We have 
 taught them trades, and awakened some sense of 
 shame and self-respect in them ; but we have left it to 
 the State to look after their morals and reclaim them 
 from crime. They are mere hinds who are necessary 
 to our comfort, and from whom we look for nothing 
 more, and nothing better, than the physical strength 
 and mechanical obedience of a servile class. To en- 
 large their minds and expand their views : to give 
 value to their vote and health to their dwellings ; to 
 cheapen food and improve production; to teach them 
 manhood and the meaning of true patriotism ; all 
 these aids to progress and good government are left to 
 chance revolutions of the parliamentary wheel. 
 Directly and indirectly we tax them as consumers, 
 and we buy their votes with a glass of beer ; but for 
 all practical purposes their rulers ignore their existence 
 and then class them as clay, out of which to mould a 
 Dominion ! 
 
 If we look abroad at the condition and social status 
 of the people of Europe, with their free Schools, and 
 Libraries, and Museums of Art, with their well- 
 informed newspapers, places of worship, and abundant 
 public charities, we shall see that mere rank and riches
 
 31 
 
 have little to do in bringing about the national 
 advancement ; and that every effort for power or social 
 progress involves a search for the removal of abuses 
 among the people themselves. Home life and private 
 opinion have a force of their own in moulding public 
 action and modifying internal policy ; and the man 
 who works with his hands or his head very soon finds a 
 method or avenue for making himself heard if his 
 liberty is restricted. Any attempt to neglect the 
 claims of class is pretty sure to be followed by 
 reaction and excitement ; and neither in Germany, 
 England, or France, shall we ever see the sorry 
 spectacle of myriads of large families being allowed 
 to squat in ignorance and idleness in special locations 
 allotted to their preservation, without any attempt 
 being made to utilize their strength or remove their 
 children from debasing influences except through a 
 missionary ! 
 
 It has been well said by Dr. Johnson, that "the 
 mass of people must be barbarous where there is no 
 printing ;" but it seems to me that the want of books 
 and newspapers is a minor evil, in half-civilized 
 communities, to the want of separate home-life and 
 sacredness of mutual affection ! Polygamy must ever 
 be the grave of respect for woman ; and without this 
 respect the oringing up of children must be barbarous 
 and wasteful. The sting of poverty and the spur of 
 true affection drive all men to look for work and food 
 for their little ones ; but if poverty and affection are 
 unknown factors in the conservation of tribal power, 
 and everything depends on the caprice and strength of 
 the chief, the sooner we weaken the power and wealth 
 in cattle of the chief, by rendering free and individual 
 family life possible to the units of the tribe, the sooner 
 shall we be doing our first duty to the coloured gipsies 
 of South Africa. "If the native races of South
 
 32 
 
 Africa," says Mr. Carlyle, " have attained to the 
 conception of a higher ideal they have been 
 taught it by Christianity, especially in many instances 
 by the Mission Home. It is incalculable, in fact the 
 happy hallowing results that have accrued to the 
 native tribes from the presence in their midst of the 
 mission family, with its purity, intelligence, holiness^ 
 sympathy, beneficence, and peace. The natives know 
 that the missionary is their friend and their advocate 
 for justice ; that he is able by his intelligence to direct 
 them; that lie seeks not theirs, but them, and thus he 
 has often a deeper hold on the heart of the heathen 
 than their debased arrogant chieft, and obtains a 
 wonderful power to mould their nature and lift them 
 to higher aims." The example shown by men, who 
 are not missionaries, but keen hard-headed rulers, like 
 Brownlce, Shepttone, Griffiths, Stewart, and Ely the, 
 should not be lost on those who sneer at the possibility 
 of reaping love and gratitude from dark skinned 
 followers. They are no worse and infinitely more 
 teachable than the juvenile negroes who were taken 
 from slave dhows and apprenticed to respectable 
 people some forty years ago. The difficulty is to get 
 at them when young, and remove them at once from 
 the tyranny of native customs ; for if we do not accept 
 their charge in a kind and sympathetic spirit when 
 they enter our service, and help to bring them up in 
 decency and thrift, they will soon enough relapse into 
 barbarism, when released from their enforced appren- 
 ticeship. The chief, in short, is the stumbling block^ 
 and will remain so until he is paid for his compliance 
 with our views or promptly suppressed. But as the 
 Kafirs have been for ages attached to their chiefs, and 
 regard them as deities ^incarnate, without their assis- 
 tance and recognition of claims to compensation, we are 
 less likely to succeed in getting successive relays of it>
 
 33 
 
 telligent servants and mechanics than if we accepted 
 their services as middlemen. 
 
 It has long been the policy of native courts to en- 
 courage communism under feudal and pastoral forms : 
 but it largely embarrasses the spread or growth of 
 Christian principles among the heathen. In our own 
 experience, we know, that if home is happy and affec- 
 tion real, the inducement to crime and wrong-doing 
 are proportionately weakened ; for as " there can be 
 no happiness without participation, and no paticipation 
 without affection, so there is no difficulty, no toil, no 
 labour, no exertion that will not be endured where 
 there is a view of reaping this natural reward." It is 
 so with us, because we have liberty of choice and are 
 trained to expect it ; but is it possible to live thus 
 apart in happy possession of modest wealth and freedom 
 from care, when our coloured people are gathered into 
 kraals and ground down by their customs and native 
 rulers. 
 
 We cannot shirk the problem of our surroundings 
 by declining to have any social dealings with the fron- 
 tier tribes barbarous though they be. Year by year 
 they are increasing in numbers. To kill them off 
 summarily is out of the question. To drive them from 
 their lands would be cruel and wicked ; but it is quite 
 possible to tame them, and civilize their children by 
 early removal from the over-crowded kraals on a 
 system of assisted juvenile emigration to the West I 
 All over the colonial towns tradesmen are calling out 
 for apprentices and cannot get them for love or money. 
 The Eastern Province is rich in excess of native chil- 
 dren, and if the Colony studies its best interests, it will 
 encourage a movement which will revolutionise the face 
 of the country. 
 
 Any scheme of this kind for bringing home life and 
 home influences to bear upon the young and savage
 
 34 
 
 cannot fail to do us all good if we will honestly give 
 it a fair trial. It has been tried in the mother country 
 with great success ; and the street arabs and work- 
 house waifs, by the cottage system of outdoor relief 
 have been enabled to start fair in life, instead of being 
 crowded into prisons and reformatories. Being treated 
 like poor relations, severed from their parents, and 
 brought up from their teens in decency and comfort 
 by their registered teachers and employers, they have 
 over and over again repaid the extra trouble of 
 bringing them up by their subsequent careers as work- 
 men and servants. 
 
 It should need no very complicated machinery to 
 initiate this movement (in the cause of education) for 
 keeping up a constant supply of cheap labour from 
 our frontier reserves. The attempt to introduce Kafir 
 adults to the Western Province has been a partial 
 failure from a variety of causes ; but I see no reason 
 why both on philan trophic and political grounds an 
 attempt should not be made to introduce a continuous 
 stream of native youths to this end of the Colony ; 
 and apprentice them out till they are of age to respect- 
 able persons, approved of by a native protector, 
 and who may be willing to charge themselves with the 
 care and trouble of bringing them up free, in return 
 for their services. 
 
 If our magistrates and native residents had any real 
 influence over the chiefs with whom they are placed 
 they should have no great difficulty in inducing or in 
 persuading them to submit to the annual thinning out 
 of the junior population of their tribes, by making it 
 worth their while in some way or other. It is better 
 to meet the difficulty of overcrowding by measures of 
 this kind, than by transplanting the discontented adults 
 to fresh grants of land, where tribal power and tribal 
 pressure will be perpetuated and ever recurrent.
 
 35 
 
 If the mothers of families, both white and black, 
 would enter heartily into the project, there should be 
 the less difficulty in making a commencement in 
 industrial education. The time for book-knowledge 
 has still to be found and fostered by the State, but the 
 need of labour is pressing and persistent. This fine 
 country of ours is thirsting for three things cheap 
 labour, English capital, and a good supply of water. 
 At present they exist, but apart. To bring them to- 
 gether is more a social than a political problem ; and 
 it remains very much with ourselves, I think, as a 
 Christian community, to initiate the steps for exciting 
 native industry, and right culture of our inheri- 
 tance. 
 
 In looking at this matter in its domestic aspect, we 
 shall be doing for the coloured classes what books and 
 general literature are doing for us every day. If we 
 had not these wherewith to instruct and amuse ourselves, 
 and fill up our spare time, what would our maids and 
 matrons be reduced to ? They would find time hang 
 very heavy upon their hands, and in idle gossip, tea 
 drinking, and braiding of hair, they would have to eke 
 out the hours not devoted to dressing or sleep ! Hard 
 indeed must be the lot of our native women, with 
 their constant toil, frequent blows, and the bitter con- 
 tempt and harsh treatment of their lords and masters 
 to age them prematurely. In my opinion, it is a social 
 mistake to keep women in the background ; for the 
 first step in the emancipation of native intellect is to 
 educate women how to read and write, and make them 
 mistresses of their own hearts and hands. If there is 
 one reason more than another why the English and 
 Americans have taken such a foremost position in the 
 history and triumphs of the civilised world, it is because 
 they were the first to raise the value of women in the 
 social scale, and treat them as equals in every respect 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 If you have the ladies on your side, class legislation is 
 comparatively easy. If you have it not, you will find 
 their dull negation more active than pleasant. 
 
 It seems to me that the time is not far distant when 
 public opinion all over the world must force all classes 
 here to accept education from the state, and cause 
 every parent to make his election as to what trade or 
 profession he would like his children to be taught at 
 our public or industrial schools. In Germany every 
 adult male is forced to serve as a soldier for a given 
 time, whatever may be his rank or degree in life. In 
 France the conscription keeps alive the taste for mili- 
 tary glory, and prepares her thrifty sons for prowess 
 in the field, while in free England the pressure of com- 
 petition fills the ranks of skilled labour with excess of 
 apprentices. Out here the coloured youth of South 
 Africa have neither the fear of invasion nor the hard- 
 ships of foreign wars to encounter. They have no 
 poverty to contend with. They are not asked to fight 
 our battles for us. They are exposed to no oppressive 
 laws ; they bear no special burden ; they are simply 
 free to do just as they please ; and it is time they were 
 yoked in with the whites. There is ample scope for 
 all in every branch of trade. Yet though the harvest 
 is great and all things favourable to prosperity, the 
 labourers are few and anything but eager for constant 
 employment. 
 
 In the days of slavery, little boys and girls were not 
 allowed to curse and swear, and play about in gutters ; 
 nor were they sent to school to learn their letters. 
 But for all that they were most efficiently taught by 
 the Dutch to acquire handicrafts, and get a practical 
 acquaintance with the interiors of decent houses. 
 Though the solace of religious teaching was denied 
 them, and some doubt was felt and expressed as to 
 their possession of souls, they were practically bettev
 
 37 
 
 members of society than many of their freeborn but 
 neglected descendants. This knowledge of trades 
 they owed to the care and self-seeking pains of their 
 masters and mistresses, who had them thoroughly in- 
 structed in their own home?, and gave them an interest 
 in effecting their own manumission from modified 
 bondage. Thus they were encouraged to earn high 
 characters for skill and industry ; and as tailors and 
 carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, and what not, fully 
 supplied all the moderate demands of their day. 
 
 Not for one moment would I seek to defend the 
 practice of buying and selling slaves as of old ; but it 
 is more within our Jesuitical experience of modern 
 ethics to denounce slavery as abhorrent to English 
 feeling, and then to tacitly permit our native tribes to 
 sell their daughters into bondage as wives ! If slavery 
 is a curse to every country in which it has been in- 
 troduced, so much the more is the rearing of children 
 for the profit of parents a custom to be abolished. 
 Can we not go a step further in our views of Emanci- 
 pation, and put a stop to this unholy traffic, whereby 
 polygamy prevents the healthy growth of free institu- 
 tions, and drags native women down to the level of beasts 
 of burden. First free the body, then the soul, and 
 then the intellect may minister to both ! Not by sudden 
 enactment of Parliament would it be right and judicious 
 to spring such a great social revolution on the pastoral 
 subjects of Her Majesty ; but is it not our duty to pro- 
 tect theyoang and secure them the privilege of rising 
 in the social scale ; and how can we do this better than 
 by gradually adapting them to the exercise and 
 burdens of freedom, in the manner I have sketched 
 out? 
 
 It would be a waste of time to commence with the 
 adult population. They are already inoculated with 
 the evil customs of the tribes, and nothing will ever
 
 38 
 
 drive savagery out of them, unless at a very early 
 stage of their existence ! 
 
 The formation of the great Industrial School at 
 Lovedale has owed much of its success to the personal 
 high character and professional attainments of Dr. 
 James Stewart, who is equally ready to work with hi s 
 pupils, to preach to them, or to doctor them when 
 necessary. The personal influence of such a man is 
 as great as that of any hereditary chief; and the 
 discipline he enforces is not to he despised. The 
 degrading power of the witch-doctors has withered in 
 his neighbourhood as if they had been touched by 
 Ithuriel's spear ! And there is no doubt of it, that the 
 encouragement of medical and surgical knowledge 
 among the natives is greatly to be desired Sound 
 practitioners are much wanted. The ignorance of 
 blacks in time of sickness and distress is very much 
 to be deplored. It is hard to see how their hearts 
 can be opened to the benign influence of sympathy 
 and Christian charity except by medical missionaries. 
 When we consider how highly-born and delicate 
 ladies give up so much of their time in England to 
 visiting the sick poor, and think it not unworthy of 
 their stations in life to instruct the villagers in Sunday 
 schools and other places of worship, we see that labour 
 and poverty have claims on their pity, and stimulate 
 the growth of good feelings on both sides. Sickness 
 and sorrow and physical pain are the lot of all mortals, 
 tis true, but how much are they not intensified by 
 brutal indifference and savage neglect to the needs 
 of the helpless ? 
 
 The poverty we have to deal with is poverty of our 
 own creating. It is not the result of scanty wages 
 and uncertain employment. It is not the offspring of 
 bitter cold and pinching want. Nor is it by alms- 
 giving or raising of wages that we can hope to lessen
 
 39 
 
 the burden of large families, and restrain the pressure 
 on overcrowded locations, but by putting out our 
 strength, and compelling our youthful subjects to 
 attend school and be taught. The seed we have to 
 sow has been gathered from granaries like this Library. 
 It is not to be thrown away broadcast on unprepared 
 ground, but to be carefully introduced into the most 
 fruitful of soils. The things we know, and the prin- 
 ciples we practice, have been bequeathed to us in 
 books, and transmitted to us in dozens of civilized 
 channels. As books and learning have made us strong 
 and peaceable in our tastes, so might our living 
 exemplars teach the wild children within our influence, 
 how easy it is to earn wealth and happiness by the 
 practice of wisdom and civilized wants. 
 
 If ever this continent is to bloom in the desert, and 
 arts and sciences are to be carried into the wilderness, 
 we must initiate a social crusade, and take a less 
 passive share in the moral subjugation of the tribes 
 around us. Our natural allies are the dusky sons of 
 the soil. Their interests and welfare are wrapped up 
 in our own. For good and for evil we have been 
 joined together, and we stand committed to a policy 
 of union and not of division ! The Union Jack is the 
 emblem of protection to both black and white, and no 
 policy is worth following here if it does not include 
 the two within its folds. We cannot stand apart ; 
 we are bound to lean on each other and legislate for 
 both. In the interests of all parties we have it in 
 view to open up communication by land and sea, and 
 extend British influence and trade as far as the 
 Zambezi ; but if we educate the masses and break 
 down the temporal power of the chiefs, and release 
 their subjects from the thraldom of superstition and 
 sloth, we shall secure a yet wider field for our exten- 
 sive commerce, and do more lasting good to generations
 
 40 
 
 yet unborn. Then in the words of Lo veil, we may 
 sing : 
 
 " 0, dwellers in the valley land, 
 
 Who in deep twilight grope and cower, 
 Till the slow mountain's dial-hand 
 
 Shortens to noon's triumphant hour, 
 While ye sit idle, do ye think 
 
 The Lord's great work sits idle too, 
 That light dare not o'erleap the brink 
 Of morn, because it is dark with you ?" 
 0*00 
 
 " The Lord wants reapers ; oh, mount up, 
 
 Before Night comes and cries " Too late," 
 Stay not for taking scrip or cup, 
 
 The Master hungers while ye wait ; 
 ' Tis from these heights alone your eyes 
 
 The advancing spears of day may see. 
 Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise. 
 
 To break your long captivity !" 
 
 The Premier (Honourable Mr. Sprigg) said that he 
 had very much pleasure in moving a vote of thanks to 
 the Chairman for the address -with which they had 
 been favoured. It was by far the most interesting of 
 any to which he had ever listened in that place. It 
 might be that he took more interest in it from the fact 
 that Dr. Ross had dealt with questions which were 
 occupying his daily and even hourly attention, and it 
 might perhaps be a satisfaction to Dr. Ross to know 
 that he agreed generally with the principles laid down 
 in the address, and that it was upon those principles 
 that the administration of native affairs was being 
 carried on at the present time (cheers). He gathered 
 from the cheers which greeted the Chairman when he 
 resumed his seat that the audience approved of his 
 address. If that was so he wished to remark as a 
 caution that we must not expect these principles to be 
 carried out in practice without encountering opposition. 
 Dr. Ross had referred to the disarmament of the natives
 
 41 
 
 on the Eastern frontier. Last session an Act had been 
 passed for that purpose which met with the general con- 
 currence of the whole country, but when that Act is put 
 into operation it is natural to suppose that some of the 
 persons to whom it applies will not be altogether 
 pleased with it. We must be prepared for some op- 
 position, but the question for us to consider was, not 
 what the people themselves might like, but what was 
 good for them and for the whole country ; and having 
 arrived at a conclusion upon that matter, it was 
 the duty of the Government and of the people 
 with them to carry out their determination coura- 
 geously and resolutely (cheers). A suggestion 
 had been made by Dr. Ross, with the view of 
 civilizing the natives, that every year a number of 
 the youth should be brought down from the frontier 
 and placed out as apprentices to trades in the Western 
 districts. He (Mr. Sprigg) thought that was a valuable 
 suggestion ; it was not possible to do much in the way 
 of civilization with the old natives ; if we were to make 
 any considerable advance we must begin with the 
 young. But he desired to warn them of what would 
 certainly be the consequence of taking such a step. 
 They might remember that during the late war large 
 numbers of women and children, to the extent of five 
 or six thousand, were brought down to the Western 
 districts. In the case of some of them the object WPS 
 to prevent their giving assistance to those who were 
 fighting against the Government, and in the case of 
 many others to save them from death by starvation. 
 Upon arrival here they were hired as servants, but he 
 had noticed that this matter was to be brought 
 before the House of Commons as a most arbitrary 
 act upon the part of the Government, and he felt 
 sure that if the step proposed by Dr. Ross was 
 undertaken, the charge would be brought against the
 
 42 
 
 Government and the colonists, by people at home, that 
 they were establishing slavery in the Colony. He did 
 not, however, think that the idea should be abandoned on 
 that account. We should commit a great error if we 
 were to refrain from doing what would advance the 
 civilization of the native races simply on account of 
 public opinion in England, for the momeut, being 
 against us. Public opinion at the present time in 
 England was greatly adverse to public opinion 
 in the Colony. He thought he could observe 
 that the tide was turning in England already, 
 and he had little doubt that in a short time 
 the people in England would admit that we under- 
 stood better how to civilize and manage the 
 natives of South Africa than they could teach us 
 (cheers). The Government of the country was now in 
 the hands of the colonists. Great responsibilities, 
 especially as to the natives, were cast upon them, and 
 he felt confident that the future welfare of the natives, 
 and of the whole population of South Africa, were 
 safer in the hands of men who thoroughly understood 
 the character of the people and the complicated ques- 
 tions of Government in this country, than hi the hands 
 of men across the sea, who were showing every day 
 by their speeches and their writings their utter igno- 
 rance of the country and of the people in this part of 
 the Empire (cheers). He did not undervalue public 
 opinion in England, and it was his firm belief that if 
 we went steadily on in the course we were now 
 following we should ultimately lead that opinion to our 
 sid e (cheers). Perhaps he ought to apologize i a that 
 place for the political character of his observations, but 
 they were called forth by the very nature of the 
 interesting and able address to which they had 
 listened with so much pleasure. 
 
 Dr. Dale seconded the motion, which was carried 
 with acclamation.
 
 43 
 
 In reply, Dr. Ross returned thanks for the. very 
 kind and cordial manner in which the Meeting had 
 agreed to the motion made, and seconded, by the 
 Premier and the Superintendent-General of Education ; 
 and expressed his deep sense of the many obligations 
 incurred, and of the many hours of profit and quiet 
 happiness spent by him, as a very young Student in this 
 magnificent library. If any poor services of his own 
 could repay the debt of gratitude due from him as a 
 son of the soil, and a native of Cape Town, for all that 
 he owed to this fit abode of literature and fine art, they 
 might rest assured that they wou'd always be cheerfully 
 and spontaneously rendered, as a humble tribute to the 
 spread of knowledge, however imperfect and frag- 
 mentary. 
 
 The subscribers then proceeded to ballot for a new 
 Committee, and the Scrutineer, Mr. F. Goodliffe, de- 
 clared the following gentlemen elected : The Honour- 
 able Thomas Upington, F. G. Goodliffe, Esq., Treas- 
 urer E. J Buchanan, Esq., Rev. Dr. Cameron, Dr. 
 Dale, R. M. Ross, Esq., Professor Gill, H. W. Piers, 
 Esq , W. Hiddingh, Esq.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 HIIHII8! 1IIITE1I1II IEHIH 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 22m> MAY, 1880. 
 
 IHHWS &i\\, P.gi., in % Cjraitr, 
 
 CAPE TOWN: 
 
 PAUL SOLOMON & CO., STEAM PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1880.
 
 Committee : 
 
 DAVID GILL, Esq., 
 
 F.R.A.S. 
 
 DR. DALE. M.A., LL.B. 
 F. G. GOODLIFFE, Esq. 
 
 (Treasurer). 
 H. W. PIERS, Esq. 
 
 REV. DB. CAMERON, B.A. 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR GILL, M.A. 
 WM. HIDDINGH, Esq. 
 R M. ROSS, Esq. 
 HON. THOS. UPINGTON. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. 
 
 | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 librarian anb Sfmtiarjr; 
 F, MASKEW, Esq.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In submitting their report at the last annual meeting, 
 the then Committee stated that an important com- 
 munication from the Colonial Secretary had been 
 received after their report had been drawn up, in 
 reference to the Grey Collection. In this communica- 
 tion it was proposed that the Government and the 
 Library Committee should co-operate in the selection 
 and maintenance of a Philologist, who, while engaged 
 in scientific study of the native languages, should also 
 be charged with the Custodianship of the Grey 
 Collection. The Committee considering that a matter 
 of such importance should not be disposed of without 
 full deliberation, left the discussion of the subject to 
 their successors in office. 
 
 Immediately on assuming office, your Committee 
 gave the matter their full and careful consideration, 
 and informed the Government that they were willing 
 to co-oporate with them in the selection and main- 
 tenance of a Philologist to prosecute the study of the 
 South African Languages, and to appoint the person 
 so selected to be the Custodian of the Grey Collection ; 
 and further, that your Committee would be prepared 
 to attach to the office of Custodian, out of the Parlia- 
 mentary grant in aid of the South African Public 
 Library, a salary of two hundred pounds per annum. 
 
 Your Committee subsequently received a further
 
 communication from the Government, acquainting 
 them that Dr. Jolly, of Wiirzburg, had been strongly 
 recommended to His Excellency the Governor, as a 
 gentleman possessing the necessary qualifications for 
 the office of Philologist and Custodian, and requested 
 to be informed whether the Library Committee would 
 be prepared to approve of the appointment of Dr. 
 Jolly in terms of their resolution of the 16th of June 
 last. Immediately upon receipt of this, your Committee 
 brought to the notice of the Government that on a 
 former occasion they took into consideration Dr. Jolly's 
 proposals for a temporary occupation of the office, 
 which, it was understood, were afterwards withdrawn 
 by him, and that these proposals were in effect based 
 on Dr. Jolly's hope to obtain leave of absence for a 
 brief term of years from his duties as Professor of 
 Comparative Philology in Wiirzburg. 
 
 Entertaining grave objections to a temporary 
 appointment to the office, and as there appeared some 
 doubt whether Dr. Jolly, if nominated, would now 
 accept absolutely the vacant appointment to the joint 
 offices, your Committee express their willingness to 
 join the Government in placing the selection entirely 
 in the hands of Professors Max Mtiller and Sayce, of 
 the University of Oxford, to which the Government 
 assented ; and they trust that an appointment to the 
 vacant office will shortly be made. 
 
 In their report last year the Committee announced 
 that they had ordered from the London booksellers 
 several works in Literature and Science, to fill up gaps 
 in different departments ; and, further, that they had 
 under consideration a list of books, proposed by Mr. 
 Fforde, Chief Inspector of Public Works, whom they 
 had consulted on the subject. Your Committee have 
 now to state that these books were ordered and have 
 been received, and will prove a valuable addition to
 
 the standard works in the Library, especially in the 
 
 departments of Architecture and Civil Engineering. 
 During the past year the accession of books in the 
 
 various departments of Literature and Science have 
 
 been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 9 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 17 
 
 Science and the Arts 71 
 
 Voyages and Travels 77 
 
 History 51 }) 
 
 Biography 39 n 
 
 Belles Lettres 51 it 
 
 Miscellaneous 93 
 
 408 
 
 In this list are included many standard and valuable 
 works, presented by the Royal Society, the Royal 
 Astronomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, 
 the Zoological Society, the Royal Colonial Institute, 
 the Council of the New Zealand Institute, the Smith- 
 sonian Institute, Washington ; Miss Julia Lloyd, the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Lloyd, of Natal ; and Mon- 
 sieur Jouvencel, Paris ; to all of whom the thanks of 
 the subscribers and the public are due. 
 
 Your Committee have also to acknowledge with 
 thanks the presentation of 20 from Mr. Leon, lately 
 a resident of this city, which was conveyed through 
 Mr. C. A. Fairbridge, with a suggestion that the 
 amount should be devoted to the purchase of books on 
 Polish History, and Literature. The suggestion was 
 acted upon, and the books so ordered may shortly be 
 expected to arrive. 
 
 Your Committee have deemed it advisable to make 
 a slight alteration in the Rules for the management of 
 the Grey Collection, to prevent any misunderstanding 
 for the future, and with that view have decided that in
 
 those llules the word Custodian thall be substitute 1 
 for Librarian. 
 
 The Library Hall, as on previous occasions, was 
 placed at 'the disposal of the Council of the Cape 
 University for the ceremony of conferring degrees. 
 
 Your Committee have great pleasure in stating that 
 the number of visitors and readers to the Institution 
 during the past year has been much larger than in the 
 previous two years, thereby affording proof that the 
 Library is better appreciated. From a record kept, it 
 appears that 22,22 1 persons visited the Library during 
 the period that it was open to the public, from the 13th 
 June, 1879, to the 30th of April last, showing an 
 average of 85 daily ; the largest number of visitors on 
 one day being 187, and the lowest 44. 
 
 The issue of Books and Periodicals during the past 
 year has been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 50 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 57 
 
 Science and the Arts 225 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 1,047 
 
 History 538 
 
 Belles Lettres 724 
 
 Novels 6,871 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals 5,750 
 
 Comparing this statement with that of last year, it 
 will be perceived that the circulation of standard 
 works has been about equal ; whilst of works of 
 imagination there has been an increase of about 700 
 volumes. 
 
 Your Committee have to state that they applied to 
 Government for a grant in aid towards the publication 
 of a new and complete general Catalogue, which is now 
 ready for the press; and that their request was 
 favourably entertained by the Premier, who promised
 
 to place a sum of 300 on the Estimates for that 
 purpose. 
 
 To the collection of Native Literature, forming 
 part of Sir George Grey's gift, a number of accessions 
 have been received. 
 
 Hardly any of these, however, refer to Hottentot ; 
 the only additions of this nature being the copy of a 
 Manuscript containing names for various degrees of 
 relationship in the Nama dialect, the original of which 
 had kindly been supplied for the information of Sir 
 John Lubbock, by the Rev. J. G. Kronlein, and a 
 Hottentot Fable, in English, contributed by Mr. 
 Thomas Bain. 
 
 From the Transvaal, His Excellency Colonel Lan- 
 yon has been so good as to forward a number of replies 
 to an inquiry kindly instituted by himself in August, 
 1879, regarding the existence of Bushmen, Bushman 
 Pictures, &c., in that territory. These answers, 
 although chiefly of a negative character, yet contain 
 valuable material for the still to be written history of 
 the South African aboriginal races. 
 
 In Kafir, pieces of Native Literature, accompanied 
 by translation into English, have been received from 
 the Rev. A. Kropf, Superintendent of Berlin Missions, 
 and from the Bishop of St. John's. A Kafir version 
 of the Distribution of Animals, &c., after the Creation, 
 has been contributed, in English, by Mr. Bain. The 
 Bishop of St. John's has also presented copies of his 
 pamphlet entitled " Some Suggestions for an improved 
 Kafir Orthography " (King Willliam's Town, 1879); 
 a Church Catechism in Kafir ( Graham stown, 
 undated) ; eleven papyrographically-piinted sheets 
 containing further portions of a revised edition of the 
 Kafir Prayer Book ; and other publications connected 
 with his Mission, including a copy of the Address 
 delivered by him at the opening of the Synod at
 
 Umtata, in June last year. A Kafir Hymn, composed 
 by Ntsikana, " the first Kaffir who professed Chris- 
 tianity," and printed, with musical notation, at Love- 
 dale, has been contributed by Mr. G. Theal ; a copy 
 of the Ultimatum, in Kafir (Pietermaritzburg, 1878), 
 by His Excellency Sir Bartle Frere ; and the 
 Quarterly Reports of St. Mark's Mission, by the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Waters. 
 
 In Zulu, a valuable manuscript has been sent by 
 the Rev. O. Stavem, Norwegian Missionary, contain- 
 ing six pieces of Native Literature, collected by 
 himself in the Zulu Country, and accompanied by a 
 translation into English. Pieces of Native Literature, 
 with translation, have also been received from Mrs. 
 H. L. Carbutt, of Klip River County, Natal. The 
 Rev. William Ireland, of the American Mission in 
 Natal, has sent us another piece of Native Literature, 
 with translation, contributed, as before, by Jeremiah 
 Mali, one of his Native Teachers. From Mr. Ireland 
 himself, a valuable autograph manuscript has been 
 received, containing his own translations of three 
 pieces of Zulu Native lore, two of which are also 
 accompanied by a literal interlineary translation of 
 much value for students of the Zulu language. A 
 copy of the Ancestral Izibongo (" Praises ") of Magema 
 Magwaza, Printer to the Bishop of Natal, has also been 
 received, but without a translation. This, on account 
 of the allusions to past events therein contained, even 
 Magema himself is unable to supply. The Rev. .R. 
 Robertson has kindly sent us an English translation 
 of a Zulu Household Story, formerly communicated to 
 Dr. Bleek by Miss M. Lindley. The Bishop of 
 Natal has presented a duplicate copy of his " First 
 Steps in Zulu" (Second Edition, Pietermaritzburg, 
 1871) ; which is a work now very difficult to obtain ; 
 also a copy from the Second Edition of his Zulu-English
 
 9 
 
 Dictionary, printed at Ekukanyeni, in 1878, and 
 containing, at the end, a good number of Zulu Prov- 
 erbs, accompanied by translation into English. A 
 small Zulu Vocabulary and Phrase Book (Durban, 
 1879) has also been received; also a copy of Incwadi 
 Yabantwana (Durban, 1878). The latter was pre- 
 sented by the Eev. W. Ireland ; whom we have also 
 to thank for a number of other works most kindly 
 forwarded by him for the assistance of a party of 
 Missionaries proceeding to the interior, and unable to 
 obtain the greater part of the Zulu books required by 
 them at Cape Town. A copy of the Ultimatum, in 
 Zulu (Pietermaritzburg, 1878), has been presented by 
 His Excellency Sir Bartle Frere ; and six numbers 
 of the Ubaqa (a Zulu periodical) have been sent us 
 by the editress, Miss Hance. Some very interesting 
 accounts of Native Customs and Superstitions, and of 
 Children's Games, have been received from Mrs. H. 
 L. Carbutt, recorded by herself. An account of 
 " The Ordering of the Zulu People," and one of An 
 Interview with a Kafir Witch-Doctor, originally 
 printed in the Natal Colonist, have reached us from 
 Mr. John Sanderson, together with copies of two 
 papers by himself, reprinted from the Journal of the 
 Anthropological Institute, regarding " Stone Im- 
 plements from Natal " (August, 1878), and " Poly- 
 gamous Marriage among the Kafirs of Natal and 
 Countries around" (February, 1879). 
 
 In Sesuto, a Heading Book (Moria, 1879), and ten 
 Beading Sheets, have been presented by the Rev. A. 
 Mabille. In Setshuana, pieces of Native Literature, 
 with translation into English, have been received from 
 the Rev. W. Henry R. Bevan. The Rev. W. Crisp 
 has contributed a copy of his lately-published " Notes 
 towards a Secoana Grammar" (Bloemfontein, 1880). 
 The appearance of this work is most welcome to
 
 10 
 
 in tending students, as for some time past it has been 
 almost impossible to obtain copies of the " Sketch of 
 the Sechuana Grammar," written by the late Kev. J. 
 Fredoux, and published in 1864 at Cape Town. 
 
 In Swahili, Bishop Steere has been so good as to 
 send us two manuscript stories, accompanied by an 
 English translation. These were, as Bishop Steere 
 informs us, related by a girl in the School of the 
 Universities' Mission at Zanzibar, who had been 
 brought as a slave from the country near the Lake 
 Nyassa. 
 
 A Vocabulary of the Chigogo language, by the 
 Rev. G. J. Clark, Missionary in Usagara, East 
 Africa (London, 1877), has been kindly presented by 
 the Church Missionary Society, to which the Author 
 belongs. 
 
 In Otyiherero, the Rev. H. Brincker, of the 
 Rhenish Mission Society, has contributed six books 
 all printed at Gutersloh (Westphalia) in 1879, during 
 his recent visit to Europe. These are as follows : a 
 Reading Book, No. I. (third edition) ; ditto, No. I b. 
 (by the Rev. H. Beiderbecke) ; ditto, No. II. (by the 
 Rev. Mr. Brincker), containing several illustrations, 
 and accompanied by an Otyiherero-Euglish Vocab- 
 ulary ; a Hymn Book (third and revised edition), with 
 Liturgy and Luther's Small Catechism ; an illustrated 
 Scripture History, translated by Mr. Brincker ; the 
 New Testament, translated by the Rev. Messrs. 
 Brincker, Buttner, and Viehe, bound together with 
 a second (revised) edition of the Psalms in Otyiherero, 
 first published by Mi*. Brincker in 1875. In addition 
 to the above, Mr. Brincker has kindly furnished a 
 manuscript translation (in German) of thirty-five 
 sentences, given on pages 3 and 4 of his Reading 
 Book (No. II.) in Otyiherer6 only. 
 
 The Rev. C. H. Weikkolin, of the Finnish Mission
 
 11 
 
 in Ovambolaud, has sent us duplicates of two Shi- 
 ndonga works already existing here. 
 
 From the Congo, a copy of the title page of a 
 Cono-o Catechism, existing in the possession of the 
 Landana Mission there, has been obtained for us by 
 the Rev. Ch. Duparquet. This work, M. Duparquet 
 informs us, was formerly given by the Due de Palmella 
 to Monseigneur Bessieux, Bishop of Gallipoli and 
 Vicar- Apostolic of the Two Guineas, and by the 
 latter presented to the Congo Mission. Between the 
 document so kindly sent us by M. Duparquet, and the 
 title page of the manuscript copy of the second edition 
 of the Congo Catechism so long sought for in vain by 
 Dr. Bleek and presented in 1877 by Dr. D. C. Panta- 
 leoni of Rome, some slight variations are apparent. 
 
 Copies of some printed papers of great interest, con- 
 nected with Public, and principally with Native Affairs 
 in South Africa (dating chiefly from 1878 and 1879), 
 have been presented by His Excellency Sir Bartle 
 Frere. The Under-Secretary for Native Affairs (H. 
 E. Richard Blight, Esq.) has been so good as 
 to send us copies of the Blue Book and Appendix on 
 Native Affairs for 1879, as well as the Blue Book for 
 1880. Seven copies of Volume I. of tho Journal issued 
 by the South African Folk-lore So~._y (Cape Town, 
 1879) have also been received. 
 
 Another translation irom the Rev. L. Dahle's 
 " Specimens of Malagasy Folk-lore " has kindly been 
 supplied by Miss Cameron ; and from the Rev. 
 J. Sibree, Jun., have been received copies of 
 his papers on " Relationships and the names used for 
 them among the peoples of Madagascar," and on 
 " Malagasy Folk-lore and Popular Superstitions," re- 
 printed, respectively, from the Journal of the Anthropo- 
 logical Institute, for August, 1879, and from Part II. 
 of the Folk-lore Records.
 
 12 
 
 In the language of- Aneiteum (one of the principal 
 islands of the New Hebrides Group), a copy of the 
 New Testament (London, 1863) has kindly been 
 presented, through the Kev. Dr. Hole, by the Com- 
 mittee of the South African Auxiliary Bible Society ; 
 forming a valuable addition to the works in this 
 language already bestowed by Sir George Grey. 
 
 We have also to thank the Acting Under-Colonial 
 Secretary (H. Willis, Esq.) for the copy of a work 
 entitled " Observations on the state of the Aboriginal 
 Inhabitants of New Zealand," by F. D. Fenton 
 (Auckland, 1859) ; besides other publications relating 
 to New Zealand ; and for a duplicate copy of a work 
 reprinted, in 1858, at Cape Town. 
 
 Tracings of a number of Bushman Paintings, taken 
 by Mr. Conolly Orpen, in 1877 and 1878, in Bushman 
 Caves in the Highlands, Division of Wodehouse (Cape 
 Colony), have been presented by Mr. Richard Orpen ; 
 and a copy of some Paintings existing on the side of 
 a small cave at Jordaan's Kloof, about sixteen miles 
 from Worcester, made by Mr. A. Martin, has been 
 contributed by himself. 
 
 A good number of photographs of Natives have 
 been added to the collection of these already existing 
 in the Grey Library, and among them are the portraits 
 of four trained Natives, presented by Miss Waterston.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The whole tenour of the remarks I shall submit to 
 you is of the nature of an appeal. For a study which 
 has but recently established its credentials as a scien- 
 tific pursuit, and which has still to win its way to 
 general recognition, I have undertaken to plead. If I 
 fail in my object, I shall be glad to believe the failure 
 due more to my ineffectual pleading than to the weak- 
 ness of the cause. With a full consciousness of my 
 own inability to deal with the subject in a compre- 
 hensive and satisfactory manner, I have dared the risk ; 
 and I have done so, because I think it is a cause whi' -;i 
 has peculiar claims upon, and an especial value for, the 
 community of which we are members. Under the 
 circumstances, if I offer the customary propitiation to 
 Nemesis, I trust it will be accepted with more than 
 the customary meaning. At least I shall venture to 
 hope that the great interest and importance of the 
 subject and I fear I must add its need of more 
 extended advocacy may stand as my apology for 
 a somewhat presumptuous and certainly inadequate 
 attempt to secure for it a more general and earnest 
 support. There is indeed no little hardihood involved 
 in an attempt to make intelligible, to those whose 
 pursuits have lain out of the range of its activity 
 the claims of a science, which is the latest born of all 
 the sciences; which is still in the ebb and flow of
 
 14 
 
 speculation and controversy, which has hardly yet 
 formulated its articles of belief ; sketched out its rules 
 of procedure, or defined its area of operation. Hardly 
 yet, I say ; for, in spite of the splendid results already 
 accomplished, if we may judge of it by the analogy of 
 other sciences, we may fairly regard its actual achieve- 
 ment as but the first glimmer of a dawn of which the 
 full day is yet to be revealed. 
 
 More than once the question has been put to myself, 
 and I have no doubt to others " What is the meaning 
 of all this fuss about philology ? What is the good of 
 it?" And from the tone in which the question has 
 been put, I have been led to think the questioner has 
 entertained a strong suspicion that the pursuit of such 
 studies is a mere scholar's fancy, a leisure pastime of 
 crazy pundits, a shadow land in which intellectual Don 
 Quixotes tilt at imaginary windmills, a joy of wild 
 asses in the wilderness, a species of literary trifling 
 with which busy men and the practical affairs of life 
 have nothing to do. I shall endeavour to show that 
 comparative philology is something more than this ; 
 that it has very real practical objects ; that it opens up 
 vistas of promise, in which studies and interests most 
 momentous to human society seem to beckon the 
 enquirer forward ; that it ofiers a prospect of solution 
 to many problems social, political, and educational ; 
 that it holds out a guiding hand to other branches of 
 research ; that it is replete Avith questions that touch 
 the very core and essence of our being ; and there is 
 ground to hope that it will justify the labour bestowed 
 upon it by setting new stars in the firmament of* 
 scientific discovery. 
 
 Of the deep human interest attaching to these 
 studies, a bare recital of the names and achievements 
 of its most prominent champions would go far to 
 convince you. Many countries have contributed to
 
 the work. Indian Brahmins, Greek Sophists, Alexan- 
 drian grammarians, Roman generals and writers, have 
 transmitted enquiries more or less valuable into the 
 principles of grammar aad word-formation, as illustrated 
 in the narrow sphere of their own knowledge. The 
 comparative method, which changed the whole aspect 
 of these researches, was reserved for the wider outlook 
 and deeper scientific insight of later times. Early in 
 the commencement of the last century, that renowned 
 and many-sided philosopher, Leibnitz, suggested to 
 Peter the Great the idea of a comparative table of 
 languages, and sketched out the plan on which it 
 should be conducted. The Avork was actually carried 
 out by Catherine II., under whose auspices a rough 
 comparative analysis of nearly 300 languages Avas 
 compiled. More than a century since Halhed, called 
 by Caion Farrar the " Copernicus of Philology," in 
 draAving attention to the similitude existing between 
 Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, as \vell as Latin and 
 Greek, sowed the seed which the writings of Sir W. 
 Jones and Sir J. Colebrook subsequently nursed to 
 such goodly growth. The study of Sanskrit, stimulated 
 and fostered by the Avritings of these latter, gave the 
 first substantial impulse to the study of comparative 
 philology. From their day to this a succession of 
 eminent scholars, of whom Germany may proudly 
 claim by far the largest and most distinguished portion, 
 have delved in the mine thus opened to them. The 
 treasures already extracted have encouraged a host of 
 earnest spirits to join in the search. The literature 
 which records their labours has grown to such dimen- 
 sions, that the time-straitened student, Avho may desire 
 to master the results, already quails at the task. What 
 it has accomplished Avould be long to tell in detail. 
 In enterprise and zeal it has been served as loyally by 
 its votaries as any department of human activity or
 
 16 
 
 research. It has deciphered priestly tables buried for 
 ages in the dust, monumental stones, sculptured 
 columns and figured obelisks. Coins, epitaphs, and 
 mummy cloths, Chinese ideography, Egyptian 
 hieroglyphs, the arrow-heads of Nineveh and the 
 stamped bricks of Babylon all have been passed 
 through its crucible for the purpose of scientific 
 analysis. Much light it has thrown on ethnology and 
 the migration of races. Something it has added to 
 our theories of religious and moral development. From 
 the writings of Ulphitas it has deduced the identity 
 of the German and Gothic races. It has established a 
 common origin for most of the Polynesian languages. 
 It has discovered a remarkable congruity of structure 
 between the languages of the American continent. It 
 has classified the languages of Europe ; many of those 
 of Asia and Africa. The grandest of its discoveries, 
 however, I shall reserve mention of to a further stage 
 of my address. I have mentioned the word race : I 
 do so under correction ; for I am bound to state that, 
 as implying purity of blood-tie, it receives no sanction 
 from comparative philology. In the endless inter- 
 mingling, absorption, and migration of races reported 
 by its tests, it finds no room so far, at least, as the 
 nations of Europe are concerned for any such 
 significance. Even the more sober term " nationality " 
 loses much of its incendiary force in the light of historical 
 and philological research. It will be a happy thing 
 for Europe and the world when higher and purer bonds 
 have supplanted these irritating prepossessions ; and 
 when the maddening impulses of national assumption 
 and fancied blood-relation have given place to a more 
 generous rivalry in intellectual gains and in religious, 
 moral, and social development, philology will claim no 
 small share in the result. 
 But my purpose is rather to draw attention to future
 
 17 
 
 promise than to past performance, and to bespeak 
 your interest as possible co-operators in a work that I 
 trust you may be led to see is of no mean importance 
 to ourselves as a community, and to the general 
 welfare of mankind. I shall confine myself accordingly 
 to a view of the subject suggested by the doubts and 
 questions referred to ; and I shall be satisfied if those 
 who at present see but darkly are helped to a clearer 
 view of the meaning and object of these pursuits. 
 
 It will be consistent, I think, with my main purpose, 
 if I ask you first to consider the process by which a 
 child learns its mother-tongue. That process is vaguely 
 called association. As a mere objective designation, 
 it is correct enough; but it explains nothing. The 
 deep subtle process by which the conceptions embodied 
 in words are appropriated by the budding intelligence 
 is not characterised by any more descriptive term than 
 the one we have used. And it will answer our purpose 
 well enough. The child, then, learns its mother-tongue 
 by this process. It stores up symbols, as we call them, 
 which represent objects, ideas, states of feeling, and so 
 on, and it employs these in turn for the same purposes 
 and in the same forms. Some of these symbols have a 
 great deal of meaning attached to them. It is im 
 possible the child can hear in frequent repetition such 
 words as " town," " country," " church," " home," 
 without forming very complex thoughts in connection 
 with them. These thoughts are in a great measure 
 the counterpart of its own observations and experience. 
 Silently and unconsciously it gathers up certain images 
 in connection with uttered sounds, which enter into the 
 texture of its mind. The conditions of home life, the 
 features of the neighbourhood, the interests and 
 character of all about it, make each its own impress, 
 and help to quicken and inform the thinking faculty 
 The quality and bent of such activities as most concern
 
 it, contribute further to mould and direct the mental 
 habit. Feeling, sentiment, aspiration, conception, and 
 the measure of things known and familiar, have 
 entered largely into the foundations of the mental 
 structure, before its free and independent life has com- 
 menced. As experience and age increase, layer after 
 layer of thought-matter is deposited within the brain. 
 Can it be doubted that all this thought-material has a 
 close correspondence with its environment in other 
 words, with the soil in which it has grown? How 
 much of the entire build, moral, spiritual, and 
 intellectual, of the future man is due to the same 
 process, it would be beside my purpose to enquire ; 
 though the question lies close to the present borderland, 
 and may yet be included in the rightful territory of 
 philological research. The process is so subtle that it 
 eludes recognition ; and it is not in conformity with 
 human habit to take strict note of the steps whereby 
 the normal processes of mental and physical growth 
 have been carried out. Nevertheless association, in 
 whatever aspect it be regarded, is a powerful energy, 
 all the more powerful from its penetrating, insidious, 
 and semi-unconscious operation. I am inclined to think 
 its value as an available factor in social organisation is 
 not duly estimated. That it is the great formative 
 agency in the development of national character, 
 national institutions, and national speech, is a position 
 that cannot well be disputed. The fact derives special 
 confirmation from the comparative study of human 
 languages. 
 
 Here I must pause a moment to explain for the 
 benefit of those to whom the subject is more or less 
 strange, tl.at the study of language of which I am 
 treating, is not that which forms so large an element 
 of school teaching. The use and appreciation of 
 language as the instrument of thought, as the embodied
 
 19 
 
 form of what has been said, mitten, and done by other 
 men, is the special department of the schoolmaster. 
 
 Though essential to his purposes, and contributing 
 important help to the soundness of his work, philology 
 deals rather with the constituent elements of language, 
 with the genesis of words, with the natural growth of 
 dialects, literary and vernacular, and with the relations 
 by which families of speech are bound together. 
 
 Now let us consider what is meant by a ft word." 
 We have called it a symbol. But it is more than this. 
 It has a spirit and vivifying power of its own. It is 
 not a mere pellet of breath, jerked from the throat, 
 without sign or substance. It is sounded on an instru- 
 ment, which imparts to it a certain stamp and flavour 
 of the mind by which that instrument is controlled. It 
 carries a barb which causes it to cling to the 
 mind receiving it. It is like those wonderful 
 seeds, which are furnished with holdfasts, whereby 
 they secure a place in which to settle and germi- 
 nate. Briefly, of every verbal form uttered, it 
 may be said that it is spoken with a musical 
 accompaniment a tone, manner, emphasis, sometimes 
 an added gesture, which give to it a peculiar force, 
 kindling or agitating the recipient mind according to 
 its value and import. The ordinary counters of speech, 
 it is true, are passed from one to the other with little 
 or no mental disturbance. But each can recall for 
 himself certain pregnant terms, such as " religion," 
 "child," "home," the mere utterance of A\hich awakes 
 a whole orchestra of sensations and ideas. The chords 
 which are struck by these are the truest and most 
 essential part of our nature. They have grown with 
 our growth ; interwoven themselves with our most 
 numerous, most abiding, and most cherished experi- 
 ences. Their sensibility is the cumulative effect of 
 myriad sensations, linked with the hours, some even 
 
 B2
 
 20 
 
 with the moments, of life. If the brain be the subtle 
 receptive organ it is understood to be, the frequent 
 repetition of sounds by which it is most easily 
 and deeply stirred, must surely produce a sensi- 
 bility proportioned to their use. These, again, 
 being subject to closer and more constant criticism, 
 and being perpetually acted on by the forma- 
 tive and corrective agencies of the community, 
 will reflect most truly its characteristics. We are 
 all familiar with the tendency of bodies of men to 
 develope a word-currency of their own. We connect 
 instinctively the argot or slang of a great city with its 
 vulgar unlettered classes. A patois is assumed at 
 once to be the dialect of men whose mental texture 
 rejects the trammels of grammatical rule. Huntsmen, 
 artists, literary men, university students, evolve terms 
 and phrases which are maintained as watchwords of 
 the class. Dialects spring up everywhere, in every 
 country and in every language. They are local and 
 separate varieties of the common speech. England 
 could be mapped out with almost as much distinctness 
 by dialects as by the limits of counties. Somehow or 
 other, the people of a district have come to adopt 
 certain variations of the national speech, and by 
 association they maintain them. Here is an instance 
 in which I desire to impress the force of this law of 
 association. The local habit is a bond which is not 
 easily broken. A peasant child, transplanted from 
 Yorkshire or Normandy to a Hottentot kraal, would 
 probably learn to speak the language of the kraal 
 as easily as a Hottentot child. The doctrine of 
 " heredity " would insist, perhaps, on a shade of 
 difference^ due to the traditional aptitudes of 
 the vocal apparatus. The difference, however, 
 would be inappreciable, and would not materially 
 affects the argument. Once having learnt its
 
 21 
 
 language, whatever it may be, the child having 
 grown to manhood, becomes its slave. He carries 
 its signs, character, and shibboleths, with him 
 to the end. Not only does he find it difficult to assimi- 
 late strange forms and modes of articulation ; but even 
 more correct forms of the mother speech, as enunciated 
 by his betters, he shows no readiness to adopt. This 
 fact, too familiar to need discussion, has an important 
 bearing on my argument. But we must revert to our 
 word-harvesting, and consider it in another aspect. 
 We have watched the storing up of words by associa- 
 tion, and we have noted their reactionary and stimu- 
 lating influence on the growing mind. We must con- 
 sider them now from another point of view. Words 
 have their own limits of value, varying from age to 
 age, but fixed for each separate period. These 
 limits represent actual limits in the consciousness of 
 the community. The average association value of a 
 term fixes a point beyond which the general intelli- 
 gence does not work freely. So far as its use is con- 
 cerned, the average value of a term is the hinge 
 on which public apprehension, public opinion, and 
 public sympathy, must be made to turn. By way of 
 illustration, let us consider the different effect of that 
 famous line of Keats', " A thing of beauty is a joy for 
 ever," on two different types of intelligence the 
 artist and the mechanic. All the words are simple 
 enough, and of common usage. But in the word 
 " beauty " we have a difference of association and con- 
 ception which marks a wide interval of intellectual 
 latitude. It is fire to the one and ice to the other. 
 The recollection of a thousand fair images and 
 cherished scenes is stirred in the former, and he glows 
 and kindles with the sentiment : the latter is puzzled 
 at the meaning, and feels no inner response. Take 
 again the word " infinite," and consider what different
 
 22 
 
 force it bears to the unlettered clown and the man 
 familiar with the summation of series or the abstruse 
 calculations of astronomy. We need not multiply 
 examples. It will be readily admitted, I think, that 
 words have for each individual the accumulated 
 meaning which his experience and conception, however 
 developed, have gathered about them. And my con- 
 tention is that, in a community, the average import of 
 words is the real working force that which measures 
 the level of apprehension and sympathy beyond 
 which appeal, exhortation, and argument, are prone 
 to fail. Many terms of a fashionable philosophy of 
 the day are slowly securing for themselves a position in 
 the general apprehension. When the ideas involved 
 in the words " humanitarianism," " altruism," " cosmic 
 emotion," and others of the same school, are fully 
 grasped, so as to be sure of intelligent acceptance from 
 a general audience, we may be sure that the capacity 
 of sympathy has extended in proportion. This relation 
 between symbol and value is, I make bold to assert, a 
 matter of the last importance to those who are called 
 upon to exercise influence over men in masses. The 
 class import of a term is that in which it must be 
 presented to them ; for to that and no other is it 
 actively conscious. Nor should we be surprised at the 
 fact, that the symbol holds no more meaning than that 
 which has been required by the particular experience 
 Necessity, we are told, is the mother of all speech. 
 It governs, also, its form and growth. This necessity 
 covers the entire area of human life. Mental wants, 
 physical wants, spiritual wants, are all comprised in it. 
 Glance over an English Dictionary, or still better, 
 a Cyclopedia, and see what infinite wants of body and 
 spirit have been evolved and stereotyped in word-forms. 
 From mAny languages we have borrowed words 
 to suit special needs. Nearly the whole of our
 
 scientific nomenclature we have taken from Greek, 
 and it is being daily increased. Our " paper " smacks 
 of the reedy Nile: our Government Gazette recalls 
 the coinage of ancient Venice ; our " copper " is 
 associated with an island, which has figured very 
 largely of late in English political harangues. From 
 our own stores we take whatever is handiest, and adapt 
 it to new requirements. We " cable " a message, we 
 "cab" it or "rail" it, we "shoot" Niagara, "do "a con- 
 tinent, and " stethoscope " a patient. Ideas and objects 
 do not wait long for their christening, when once in- 
 corporated in current thought. Here then we have at 
 once the limit of speech and conception. We have 
 distinct names for varieties of boots ; we have none 
 for the odours of flowers. The former is a practical 
 want, the latter is not urged by actual requirement. 
 Possibly we prefer to associate their pleasant perfumes 
 with the cherished names of the flowers themselves. 
 Yet something might be gained to subtlety of concep- 
 tion and discriminating nicety, if these were embodied 
 in suggestive terms. More serious wants than this 
 may be named. The elasticity of the air is so marvellous 
 that it baffles human conception. We describe this 
 quality by the same term in air and india-rubber. 
 The difference is that between a pin's point and a planet. 
 Had the conception of the larger property been ever 
 so dimly foreshadowed in a special term, I venture to 
 think the telephone would have had an earlier birth. 
 The same may be said of lightning. The effect of 
 thunder on the ear is specialised in the word " hurtle ; " 
 and " roar " and " rattle " may, at need, do vicarious 
 service for it. But the effective force of lightning has 
 no distinct term . We have no better word fo r it, in fact, 
 than that which we measure by horses in speaking of 
 steamships. Between power or might and omnipotence 
 there is no intermediate term. The force of lightning
 
 24 
 
 accordingly is not rated in common speech. The 
 popular imagination has no presentative term, no 
 spectroscopic word-lens through which to view approxi- 
 mately and habitually this enormous energy. The 
 Esquimaux sees in the Aurora Borealis the spirits of 
 his forefathers disporting themselves. Their simple 
 minds are thus lifted to a transcendental conception of 
 the phenomenon. We have neither transporting 
 fancy nor adequate word-measure wherewith to asso- 
 ciate this tremendous power. Are we not all conscious 
 of the hard mental barrier that has so often delayed 
 the acceptance of modern inventions ? How scornfully 
 was the first rudimentary idea of the telegraph received? 
 Even the great Faraday himself suggested a doubt 
 to the enterprising American who first broached the 
 matter to him, as to whether a message could be flashed 
 right across the Atlantic. The doubt lasted but a 
 moment ; nevertheless it was expressed. The actual 
 difficulties thrown in the way of the first railway enter- 
 prise ; the derision with which the idea was scouted ; 
 the denunciations of its Avicked presumption, by no 
 means confined to the vulgar, must be familiar to all 
 of you. " A vast possibility," says Professor Tyndall, 
 " is in itself a dynamic power ; " and I venture to add, 
 if that possibility be familiarised in accepted symbols, 
 a pathway to general welcome and co - operation 
 is laid for the discoverer. 
 
 Of the reactionary value of language as an educating 
 and impelling force, it would be scarcely possible to 
 make too much. Happily the expansive property of 
 the human mind is bounded by no known limits. 
 Happily, too, its power of assimilating and secreting 
 thought, its responsive sensibility to images, verbal or 
 sensuous, is co-extensive with human necessity and 
 aspiration. By virtue of this quality, communities are 
 perpetually building up a monument of their intellectual
 
 25 
 
 achie vemenls and mental life, each advance being 
 registered in the general consciousness, as the symbols 
 are extended in force and import. Thus poetry is 
 enabled to clothe itself continually with new and good- 
 lier vestments, religion gleams with a clearer light, 
 opinion and ethical habit are moulded to truer and 
 healthier forms. And as the structure grows, new 
 starting-points and new vantage-ground are secured for 
 the advance of conception : 
 
 " As the temple waxes, 
 The inward service of the mind and soul 
 Grows wide withal." 
 
 This growth, I contend, is harmonious and progressive ; 
 and the thought-gains of one age are the heritage and 
 working capital of the next. Deepening, widening, 
 soaring into higher levels, the chartered and freighted 
 symbol carries forward the national consciousness, and 
 the generations succeed to an ever-increasing estate. 
 So much meaning gathered up in the word, so much 
 thought-material stored up in the brain, each change 
 or increase in meaning reflected in the consciousness of 
 those who use it, the actual thought-content of the 
 current language representing the intellectual wealth 
 of the period, and what is more to my purpose, the 
 measure of its emotional capacity and the reach of its 
 conceptive force such, I venture to contend, is one of 
 the lessons taught us by the study of language. What 
 promise, what warning, what resources it offers to us 
 I shall briefly notice by-and-bye. 
 
 But we must revert to our child. "We have watched 
 it acquiring the current forms of its mother speeoh j 
 and we left it at the stage at which the current speech 
 has become its master, and the child now grown to 
 manhood, the liege servant, the sworn upholder of all 
 its forms, idioms, and idiosyncracies. He has become 
 a member of a great speaking confederation. Thou-
 
 26 
 
 sands, it may be millions, of men, having most diverse 
 habits, tastes, experiences, and objects, meeting and 
 knowing each other only in small sections, permanently 
 separated many of them by wide distances, employ 
 for intercommunion a certain set of sounds. Into this 
 arrangement he has entered, and accepts it without 
 questioning. But in this unquestioning acceptance he 
 is brought under the dominion of law, as rigid as that 
 which guides the ocean current or the fall of an apple. 
 Every word he utters is made for him, must be pro- 
 nounced in a certain manner, must be combined with 
 other words on a fixed plan, must not be varied, clipped, 
 or mutilated. The very pitch of his voice, the rhythm 
 and force of his utterance, the sound-measure of each 
 syllable and each word in a sentence, are prescribed for 
 him ; and he dares not violate the order. Probably 
 it never yet entered the heart of anyone to do so. A 
 man would be as likely to quarrel Avith his own skin 
 as with his mother-speech. With all its conditions he 
 accepts it, and until study has taught him otherwise, 
 he is prone to regard it as among the unchangeable, 
 inviolable things of nature. But if circumstances lead 
 him to consider the past, history of the language, he 
 comes to a knowledge of the fact that it was not always 
 what he finds it ; that it has undergone many remark- 
 able changes ; and that as it recedes back into the pa-t, 
 it becomes more and more unlike its present form, more 
 and more unrecognisable. He will come at length upon 
 a period in which it can only be understood by him with 
 the help of a dictionary. This language, then, on which 
 he himself would not hope or care to make any impression, 
 has been undergoing variation through all its known 
 past. Our imaginary student will at once ask himself 
 how this constant change is brought about, whether it 
 is controlled by law, and if so, what is the source, 
 whence the motive-power of that law. He is conscious
 
 27 
 
 of neither desire nor power in himself to alter the 
 language to add to it or take from it. He probably 
 feels that any such attempt on his part would be both 
 ludicrous and futile. He believes that all other 
 speakers of the same language the many millions of 
 the same confederation are in like position. He 
 knows of no recognised agency, no artificial or con- 
 ventional force to which this variable character of 
 language can be traced. Yet, in the space of 
 three or four centuries, a mighty change has passed 
 over the face of his mother-tongue. Now if our 
 student reflects on the purpose for which language 
 exists, he will probably assure himself that it is in 
 no respect intended to subserve the purposes of 
 individual man ; but of men in the aggregate, of men 
 living, acting, and conversing together. He will 
 recognise it as the creation of social man for social uses. 
 This is the end and measure of its vitality. It has only 
 a corporate existence, and bears a distinct proportion to 
 the variety, fullness anil multiplicity of the social life 
 it is designed to serve. He will recognise this, I say ; 
 and it is an important fact to arrive at. The com- 
 munity, as joint- trustees of the language, can alone 
 dispose of its substance. They are the regulators and 
 pilots of its course. They revise and readjust ; they 
 reject and renovate ; they recast the music and retune 
 the instrument. They do this in their corporate 
 capacity ; and herein resides the law a law resulting 
 from the multiple qualities, physical and mental, of 
 the community. It is a mystery, as deep and complex 
 a phenomenon as any presented in human life. But 
 whatever its meaning, whatever its practical application, 
 it is a fact that is placed beyond the reach of contro- 
 versy. I will not venture to affirm, spite of the 
 emphatic and weighty protest of Professor Max 
 Miiller, that individuals can exercise no influence
 
 28 
 
 whatever on current speech. The Latinisms of a 
 Johnson, the Gallicisms of a Dryden, may set a fashion 
 and affect the currency for a time. The Euphuism of 
 Lyly undoubtedly influenced the court language 
 of his day, and produced a host of imitators in litera- 
 ture not confined to his own age. This singular 
 affectation had its counterpart in so many countries, that 
 it points to a generic rather than an individual fancy. 
 It appeared in Spain as the " cultismo" in Italy as 
 the " Marinesco " style. A similar whimsicality pos- 
 sessed the ladies of Paris towards the close of the loth 
 century, of whom John Baret says in his dictionary, 
 when speaking of the letter R : " This R is so neces- 
 sary a letter, that I think no man hath any colour to 
 barke against it. Indeed, some women in France, 
 and especially the fine dames of Paris (belike being 
 the disciples of Persius, who called R literam caninam), 
 are so daintie-mouthed, that they cannot abide the 
 jarring sound of R, but alwaies turn it into Z, for pere 
 and mere saying peze and m&ze." Before a literary 
 standard has been fully developed, or a code of taste 
 established, such tricks and vagaries will probably 
 appear in every language. It needs but a ruling wit 
 or a popular genius to set the fashion, and ambitious 
 imitators will take it up, and the fashion will run its 
 course. The love of the grotesque, the odd, the 
 fanciful, the new, are too permanent elements in human 
 nature to leave us any ground for surprise at this. 
 The spread of culture and the consolidation of taste 
 in accepted literary standards, tend to reduce this 
 mental capriciousness to its proper significance. 
 Among the direct agencies, therefore, that regulate 
 the true growth and development of language, it has 
 no permanent place. But as all eccentric movements 
 tend to reaction, and as we know that, in each of the 
 instances quoted, a very decided reaction followed,
 
 29 
 
 these developments or disturbances must be reckoned 
 with in tracing the progress of a language. But 
 beneath all such transient influences flows the deep 
 under- current of the informing spirit, the great secret 
 council of the national intellect, which fits the language 
 to its requirements, changes, prunes, adapts and re- 
 adapts it to its changing and growing necessities. We 
 may usefully glance for a moment at some of the effects 
 of this process in our own tongue. 
 
 English has passed gradually from an inflectional to 
 an analytical stage. It has dropped case endings, 
 retaining only signs of the genitive case and plural 
 number. It has abandoned the dual form of the 
 pronoun. It has got rid of declensions. Many minor 
 grammatical changes have taken place. Its vocabu- 
 lary has suffered still more. It is computed that 400 
 words found in the English Bible have lapsed out of 
 use. Shakspeare is said to have employed about 
 15,000 words in all, yet in spite of the enchantment of 
 his name and works, spite of his enthronement by the 
 first of German critics as the Emperor of Literature, 
 he has left us many phrases that have lost their 
 warrant, and a great many terms that we decline to 
 perpetuate. Most of us require, in the words of 
 Horatio, to be " edified by the margent," when we 
 read of " accomplishing the Knights," of " goodness 
 growing to a plurisy," of a ghost appearing in " ques- 
 tionable shape," of " forefended place," of the " snuffs 
 and packings of dukes," of " exsufficate and blown 
 surmises," of " kissing the jack upon an up-cast," of 
 " dumps merry " and " dumps doleful," of " what the 
 ocean pales or sky inclips," of " mulled peace," and 
 " cantelous baits," of " alms-drink " and " foizon," and 
 "garboils" and "hilding," and many other phrases 
 and terms now discarded and tabooed. The words of a 
 language share the vicissitudes of individual and family
 
 30 
 
 life. Some grow to honour, some to shame, some 
 having powerful connections, disappear from their 
 circle, and leave not a trace behind ; some survive their 
 kindred ; some lose their place and substance ; others 
 gather wealth and honour. Spenser abounds in out- 
 casts, in reduced families, and lost reputations. His 
 " Whilome " and " Whileere," his " weet " and " wot," 
 his " sith " and " eftsoons," his " deemen " and " wee- 
 nen " and "needen," his " wrathful wreaks," his 
 " sparckles that from the andvile used to fly," his 
 " advisement " and " dreariment " and " avengement ' ' 
 are gone for ever. His " worldly mucke " we repud- 
 iate in terms, though we have not ceased to appreciate 
 the reality. His * ' unsweet " and " covetise " and 
 " goodlyhead " have given place to more convenient 
 terms. u His sea of licour cold " has lost caste, and 
 suggests a process of degradation, not unconnected, I 
 fear, with national habits. He reveals a chapter also 
 in the gradual transformation of the French element 
 in the language to suit the changed home and utterance. 
 " Retourne " and " cognisaunce " and " temperaunce," 
 and " daunger " and " apparaunt " and " maistre " (this 
 latter pronunciation still surviving in English dialects) 
 recall the vocal traditions under which they were 
 introduced. A step further back, and the metamor- 
 phosis is so complete that the student is lost ; the 
 lights and landmarks have disappeared, and he finds 
 himself in a wordy wilderness. 
 
 One effect of this constant change and development 
 is an unhappy divorce between English spelling and 
 pronunciation. For two centuries almost continuous 
 efforts have been made to arrest this process, but with 
 little success. Better results have attended similar 
 efforts in Spain and Italy ; and many Germans 
 are agitating at the present moment for a like 
 reform in their own language. The subject is again
 
 before the English public, and Professor Max M tiller 
 and some of our foremost educators have given the 
 weight of their authority to the proposal. The 
 difficulty of the task is a fair measure of the conserva- 
 tive force which contends with the progressive tendency 
 in all languages to prevent a too rapid advance. I 
 cannot refrain from quoting here the argument put to 
 the Oxford Professor, just named, in favour of the 
 existing orthography, or, as Southey would call it, 
 " u glyg ra P n y>" by an English clergyman, who main- 
 tained it was a buttress of the national faith ; " for," 
 said he, " a boy who had once been led to accept the 
 marvels of Knglish spelling would be ready to believe 
 anything." Reckless of all such consequences, re- 
 newing, disrating, ostracising, readjusting, the lan- 
 guage proceeds, and the equilibrium between mental 
 needs and vocal expression is maintained. The law 
 is general ; it has no exceptional application ; it is 
 true of every language that is still subject to the 
 changing conditions of those who use it. And what is 
 there in these conditions that does not change ? What 
 is there in the England of the present day that is the 
 exact counterpart of its prototype of a century back ? In 
 every aspect of social and individual life ; in our arts, 
 commerce, agriculture, education ; in our weapons of 
 war, our means of locomotion, in our favourite pursuits 
 and amusements, there is change. Intercourse has 
 extended, knowledge has spread, sciences have de- 
 veloped. Not only a different set of men and women 
 occupy the land ; but the horizon of their thoughts 
 and experiences has so widened, that a deeper, stronger, 
 and fuller mental life results. The surroundings are 
 not the same ; the tone, character, and impress are 
 different ; the currents of thought have set in new 
 directions ; the brain is more sensitive and quick ; 
 intellectual forces have strengthened and extended ;
 
 32 
 
 there is a brisker stir in the pulse, a higher stress, a 
 more complex and varied impulse. The instrument is 
 changed can it be that the tones should not vary 
 also ? It is not even desirable that the vocal moulding 
 of thought should be fixed in unalterable lineaments. 
 Whilst thought itself is unconfined, living, and pro- 
 gressive, its vesture must be yielding and elastic. And 
 thought itself is ever-changing, decaying here, sprout- 
 ing into fresh life there. A cultivated people will 
 strive continually to mirror its mental images in the 
 form through which their living substance is to be con- 
 veyed to listening ear and inspecting eye alike. In 
 one direction we owe to this tendency those " thoughts 
 in music," termed onomatopoeia or sound-words ; hi 
 another, the straining after pictorial effect in word- 
 painting. Both are efficient factors in the evolution 
 of language ; both contribute to secure the " survival 
 of the fittest." I have no doubt myself that, as 
 musical culture extends, and the ear of the language- 
 making, language-shaping, community becomes more 
 sensitive and critical, the demand for harmony 
 between sound and conception will increase. The ear 
 has its part, and it seems to me a very important part, 
 in the elaboration of speech-forms ; I cannot consent 
 to regard it as an unconcerned or helpless spectator of 
 processes, of which it is the interpreting medium. I 
 venture on this remark, because, in discussing the 
 phonetic laws of language, physiologists seem to me 
 I trust I may say it with all becoming modesty not to 
 give this factor its due weight. Ease of utterance is 
 assumed to be the sole guiding principle hi phonetic 
 change. Undoubtedly it is the main element ; but I 
 cannot refuse to the ear a share in the work. The poet 
 and the word-painter would not allow their trusted ally 
 to be so discredited and put aside. Nor can ease of 
 utterance be 'altogether independent of aural effect.
 
 33 
 
 Poet, orator, and preacher know the value of " thoughts 
 that breathe and words that burn," nor are they 
 inclined to neglect the ear's intercession. Let us try 
 the line of Keats already quoted by this test. The 
 word beauty was not always pronounced as it is now. 
 The transition pronunciation booty bringing us 
 nearer to its French original, may still be heard 
 amongst the unlettered classes in England. Had the 
 more liquid sound of the first syllable not been adopted 
 in cultivated speech, we may doubt, I think, whether 
 Keats would ever have penned the line. And we 
 may be tolerably certain that, wherever the Endymion 
 is read, the now vulgar pronunciation of the word has 
 received its quietus. There are other conditions of the 
 phonetic laws of language which seem to me to point 
 to the same conclusion. Certain processes called 
 alliteration, assimilation, reduplication, differentiation 
 of sound, are common to all languages. In each of 
 these, I should say, the authority of the ear has asserted 
 itself. As an arbiter between speaker and listener, it 
 exacts from the former a reasonable clearness and dis- 
 crimination of sound. Relief to the ear, a < well as 
 the pronouncing organ, is surely sought in the infinite 
 modification of vowel-Bounds, and the careful variation 
 of recurring vowels, as in incapable, for instance, 
 where a occurs twice with different sound ; irremediable 
 where the second t is sounded full for variety of effect ; 
 as in proposition, where to obtain two distinct sounds of 
 o the natural division of the word, as in the two previous 
 cases, is set aside. I regret that time will not allow me 
 to enlarge further on this most interesting branch of lin- 
 guistic research ; but, as more or less relevant to what 
 may be said hereafter, I will ask you to consider, while 
 the subject is before us, what difference of organisation is 
 indicated in the constitution of ear and larynx between 
 the inhabitants of different latitudes. Compare the 
 harsh burr of the people of Northern Europe with the
 
 34 
 
 soft and languid articulation of the South, the strong 
 vocalism of the Cumberland miner with the clipped 
 and minced speech of the London shop-boy, the deep 
 organ-notes of the Berlin preacher with the more 
 tripping utterance of the Viennese ; the strong accent- 
 uating energy of the Latin-speaking Frenchman with 
 the " vowelled undersong," as Canon Farrar calls it, of 
 the Latin-speaking Neapolitan ; or again, the clicking 
 and castanetting of the Bushman and Koranna with 
 the deep, guttural resonance of the Zulu and Amaxosa, 
 and you will admit that there is abundant room here 
 for theorising and speculating on causes and effects. 
 The phenomena of articulation, as observed in Europe, 
 seem to justify the conclusion that its force varies with 
 climate, the striving after ease of utterance bearing a 
 direct relation to temperature. It is no fancy to say 
 that its lines might be traced co-ordinately with the 
 isothermal lines of the physical atlas. At least it will 
 follow that ease of utterance is not sought with uniform 
 eagerness. With these facts before us, we shall be 
 prepared, I think, to accept the dictum of the philo- 
 logist that the growth of languages is organic ; that 
 they have a tendency to individualise themselves ; and 
 that they reflect in some mysterious way the charac- 
 teristics and mental state of those who use them. 
 A question, however, suggests itself in connection with 
 certain new conditions pointed out, in what manner and 
 at what rate will the changing processes indicated 
 continue henceforth ? At what period in the future 
 will Macaulay and Tennyson cease to be in harmony 
 \\ith the current forms of the language? To what 
 extent are we prepared to endorse the melancholy 
 warning of Dean Swift : 
 
 (i Poets who lasting marble seek, 
 Must carve in Latin or in Greek ; 
 We write on sand ; our language grows, 
 And like the tide our work o'erflows."
 
 35 
 
 Undoubtedly the question derives a new bearing 
 from the altered features of modern life. The millions 
 who never read, and used in their intercourse but a 
 fraction of the language, will be replaced by millions 
 who read and possess a larger stake in the common 
 heritage. The ever increasing class of readers and 
 students must tend to restrain the erratic tendencies of 
 the language in which their intellectual life is embodied. 
 The conservative forces will be strengthened; the 
 directing spirit will be chastened and intensified ; but 
 that the law will cease to operate, though its mode and 
 rate may be changed, all experience forbids us to expect. 
 But I must make haste to redeem my promise. I spoke 
 uf the greatest discovery of comparative philology as 
 yet to be noticed. The facts are common-places 
 already of the school-room. Among the many eminent 
 philologists that Germany has produced, none is of 
 higher note than Jacob Grimm. No truth has been 
 elicited by these researches more pregnant and inter- 
 esting than that established by him viz., the unity of 
 the Aryan languages. The study of Sanskrit soon 
 revealed the identity of certain grammatical forms, 
 certain numerals, certain words of household usage, 
 and of many roots in the old classical language of India 
 and in the languages of Europe. A key was thus 
 placed in the hands of the philologist, and one after 
 another the secret chambers of the past, in its linguistic 
 development, were opened. The languages of Europe 
 Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, and Romance with al! 
 their subsidiary dialects, were traced to a common 
 source with the sacred language of the Hindoo. 
 A common mother had given birth to all. The process 
 of differentiation was explained, the laws of interchange 
 formulated, and the title-deeds of the family made out. 
 So far the fact has been established, that at some 
 remote period of the world's history the fair-haired, 
 
 62
 
 36 
 
 light-complexioned Saxon, and the swarthy Hindoo 
 were the immediate co-heirs of a common language. 
 Many rhetorical rhapsodies have been expended on this 
 fact ; whether the belief that in an infinitely remote 
 past the Anglo-Saxon and Hindoo were brothers is 
 matter for exultation, is a question that belongs to 
 the province of sentiment. We may Avell wonder, 
 however, at the marvellous contrast evolved between 
 them, in respect to intellect and character as well as 
 language. Is it ordained that the former, having in a 
 long course of material striving contracted a somewhat 
 cold mechanical temper and mode of thought, should 
 renew his spiritual fires in a land where imagination 
 runs riot, and the real is the mere handmaid of the 
 ideal? I cannot answer the question, but it will 
 suggest itself in connection with their present inter- 
 course and the more ancient relation. The evidence 
 on which this relation is based is elaborated in Grimm's 
 Law. Like many other results of scientific research, 
 it brings us to a point at which enquiry is baffled. 
 "Why the English replaces German t by d, as in bed 
 forbett, German d by th as in dein, thine, German ss 
 or z by t as in zwei, two ; vergessen, forget ; or why 
 the former lets make a thing, while the latter has or 
 gets it made, hears say, a thing which the latter hears 
 said, are questions partly physiological, partly meta- 
 physical, which await more light for their solution. 
 The differentiating process has established a still wider 
 gap between modern German and English in the apti- 
 tude of the former for combining words in a manner 
 impossible to the latter. The very word which describes 
 the studies on which I am now commenting sprachwis- 
 senchaft&n impossible formation in English, is a 
 typical illustration of this difference. The tie of con- 
 sanguinity, however, remains firmly rooted in the two 
 languages in identity of grammatical structure and
 
 37 
 
 a vocabulary common to both, which is the largest and 
 most important element of English. It is foreign to 
 my purpose to enter at length into the details of 
 linguistic development ; but it will be proper to remind 
 you here that German has acquired an authoritative 
 standard only in comparatively recent times. Before 
 Luther determined, and the printing press, through 
 school and pulpit, disseminated its present forms, 
 German was in a quasi-nebulous state, its many dialects 
 leading a separate and uncontrolled existence. Broken 
 into a hundred parts, influenced by local and very 
 varying conditions, having contact at its extreme points 
 with Lithuanian, Slavonic and Latin dialects, it 
 diverged very widely from other members of the Aryan 
 family. Before High German therefore was cast in 
 its present mould, Dutch and English, the sister off- 
 spring of the Low German branch, had commenced an 
 independent career. Their development accordingly 
 is of older date, and has more significance and a deeper 
 interest for the philologist. In scientific value no branch 
 of the Aryan family surpasses the neo-Latin or 
 Romance languages. The Roman conqueror laid a 
 heavy yoke on his subjects. Not content with political 
 submission, he made them in all things as like himself 
 as possible. The terms of surrender in hided the 
 adoption of the conqueror's laws, institutions, and 
 speech. Britain and Germany escaped the full 
 measure of his absorbing energy, but France and 
 South-western Europe were Romanised. Here the 
 legionaries planted the language, which has developed 
 into French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Celtic 
 speech of the original inhabitants disappeared almost 
 entirely, and the vernacular of Italy took its place. In 
 each case the original stock of words has been largely 
 recruited from foreign sources. French and Spanish 
 have borrowed from each other ; they have drawn
 
 38 
 
 something from Germany, more freely still from Italy. 
 Home has continually repaired and refitted the yoke 
 originally laid upon them. Ecclesiastical relations 
 have nourished and fed the literary element ; while the 
 armies of Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francois I., 
 and the close relations with Spain and Italy under 
 Philip II., introduced many additions from the parent 
 country into the common speech of either. Spanish, 
 however, has been more largely infused with foreign 
 elements than French. Its early commercial inter- 
 course with America, the Saracen conquest, and the 
 German associations of Charles V., opened the 
 resources of these countries to its verbal deficiencies. 
 In respect, then, of continuous and homogeneous deve- 
 lopment, French has an especial value for the philologist. 
 It has a peculiar interest for us also from its immediate 
 connection with a kindred element in our own tongue. 
 The manner in which each has dealt with this element 
 should illustrate the law of individualisation already 
 referred to. We know that the French has analysed 
 the Latin verb, employing three auxiliaries etre, 
 avoir, aller for the purpose. The Euglish has 
 analysed all its verbs, and with the help of its five 
 Teutonic auxiliaries has carried the analysis a step 
 further than the French. The case-endings of the 
 Latin have been dropped in both; the French, however, 
 makes amends to some extent by inflecting tAvo of its 
 prepositions. The Latin aspirate has disappeared 
 almost entirely from the latter, the English aspirates 
 strongly. The French retains the tonic accent 
 of the original, as in fact do all the Romance languages, 
 more or less faithfully. Content with this acknow- 
 ledgment of its origin, the French prunes away endings 
 and eliminates consonants so ruthlessly that frequently 
 mere skeleton representatives of the parent forms 
 remain. The process, however, is controlled by law,
 
 39 
 
 a law sufficiently clear and regular to be of great impor- 
 tance to the schoolmaster. English draws the accent 
 back, and throws it, whenever possible, on the first 
 syllable. These are differences that distinguish the 
 phonetic and constructive properties of the two 
 peoples. The inexorable limits of time allowed 
 me, and a due regard for your patience, forbid my 
 pursuing this subject further. The instances given 
 are sufficient to illustrate the position maintained, that 
 adaptation presides over the formation of speech. The 
 law is very happily exemplified in the Romance 
 languages, where the same material has, within a 
 measurable space of time, been wrought into such 
 diverse patterns by the separate communities. Each 
 has taken the cloth and cut it to its own measure. 
 The new dress in either case is sufficiently distinct to 
 escape identification from all but trained experts. 
 The people have moulded the language to suit their 
 own idiosyncracies, and the result is four forms of 
 speech (I omit less important descendants of Latin)* 
 the speakers of which cannot understand each other, 
 yet to the eye of the philologist having the closest 
 relation and a common origin. The same process, on 
 a wider and grander scale, has filled Europe with 
 languages all sprung from a common stem, yet unin- 
 telligible beyond their own limits. I have wholly failed 
 in my argument, and philology is the idle pastime sug- 
 gested at the commencement of my address, if all this 
 mutation and development are not marked and 
 controlled by law. No alternative theory will explain 
 at least to the satisfaction of science the individual- 
 ising tendency of national forms of speech. The 
 centrifugal forces which produce internal change, 
 checked and governed by a centripetal force, which 
 keeps it ever true to a fixed standard, this standard 
 being the faithful impress of national characteristics
 
 40 
 
 such is the conclusion affirmed by philology, the only 
 one compatible with the evidence adduced. The con- 
 clusion, with the reasoning by vvliich it has been 
 arrived at, has wide and important applications. I 
 have spoken of the influence of association in building 
 up the mental structure of a people. Some years ago 
 an experiment was made in America in reforming 
 criminals by solitary confinement. Had the power of 
 association in sustaining mental lite been duly under- 
 stood, I venture to think that experiment would never 
 have been thought of. It was abandoned in haste : 
 too late, however, for many who reaped in blighted 
 reason the fruits of this empirical folly. Of its bearing 
 on linguistic teaching, I will quote an illustration from 
 Brachet's Dictionary : " By the rude guess-work of 
 the old etymology, the French word paresse was con- 
 nected with a Greek word resembling it in form and 
 meaning. The methods of philology rescued it from 
 this anomalous position. The analogy of tristesse, 
 mollesse, accounted for its termination, the analogy of 
 entier and noir explained the loss of the g in the 
 Latin original, and established its true paternity. But 
 the relevance of this conclusion to the main object of 
 my address I must no longer delay to notice. Most 
 of the native languages of South Africa belong to 
 the second stage of growth, called agglutinating, 
 The Aryan languages have passed from the first stage 
 through the second, or agglutinating, to the third and 
 highest, called the inflectional. Many of these have 
 entered on a more advanced stage still, the analytical. 
 A complete English dictionary should contain, it is 
 computed, over one hundred thousand words. The 
 Zulu language contains, roughly speaking, about ten 
 thousand. It has a marvellous capacity for modifying 
 the meanings of words by the help of certain suffices 
 and prefixes, but those in actual use do not exceed, I
 
 41 
 
 believe, the number given. Ninety thousand then 
 represents the difference in word-wealth between the 
 subjects of Queen Victoria and those of the late King 
 Cetywayo. Add to this the difference in thought 
 value, and what a wide abyss separates the two con- 
 ditions ! Estimate still further the relative habits of 
 thought and powers of conception implied, and little 
 room is left for comparison. Faculties that have 
 never been exercised in a people may be dormant, but 
 they must be treated as dormant, not as active and 
 available forces. The Kafir or Hottentot can think 
 keenly and precisely. Appleyard tells us the Zulu 
 speaks with remarkable precision. We should infer 
 as much, perhaps, from the specialising tendencies of 
 their language. This tendency is common to the 
 languages of all primitive races. The Hottentot has 
 thirty-five words designating varieties of colour ; but 
 he cannot speak of a rich blue or a delicate pink. 1 he 
 Zulu has three terms for day, one general, another 
 distinguishing day from night, a third defining it as 
 a measure of time. He has many words for man, dis- 
 tinguishing him generically as to sex, and as to con- 
 dition, natural or accidental. He has four terms for 
 marriage, one of the man, another of the woman, a third 
 applied to the father who gives away, and a fourth to 
 the priest who performs the ceremony. Many of 
 these terms are modifications of a single root, but they 
 illustrate the discriminating individualising genius of the 
 language. Objects of sense enter largely into the 
 architecture of primitive speech. The sun to the 
 Hottentot is a " warming-pan " or " boiling-pot ; " the 
 Kafir speaks of a dependent as a " dog," of a superior 
 as a * father." The Zulu describes something valuable 
 "umkaunto" or assegai with splendid irony he 
 speaks of a proud man as " eating himself," and with 
 humorous quaintness he designates a man with
 
 42 
 
 whiskers as, " one who laughs out of a forest." These 
 are indications of a mental hr=bit, a mode of viewing 
 tilings, a presentative reaction, which is correlated to 
 their physical life and associations. But the strongest 
 and most impressive contrast lies deeper than this. It 
 consists in the almost entire absence from the one, and 
 the rich abundance in the other, of abstract terms. 
 These are coral islands in the great ocean of language. 
 While the waters flow and change around them, they 
 continually gather fresh substance, and grow in bulk 
 and height. They supply terra firma to the wander- 
 ing imagination ; they conserve what is durable and 
 solid in national thought, and it is here that the 
 creative and cumulative forces of the national mind 
 have spent their highest and fullest energy. Here 
 then we should expect to find, as we do find, the 
 boundaries between culture and barbarism most rigidly 
 defined. The kernel of the problem that affects all 
 our relations with primitive man must be looked for in 
 this difference of mental habit. In his sensuous 
 affinities, in his unfamiliarity with abstract conceptions, 
 in his unreadiness to comprehend associated ideas, con- 
 densed forms of thought, classified relations and 
 grouped resemblances, he is removed from us by 
 barriers which centuries of energising and accumu- 
 lating thought have created. AV e know that the high- 
 est form of this conceptual energy is confined to the 
 cultivated classes of civilised communities ; but in the 
 close contact and interfusion of the social strata 
 sufficient scope is secured for its activity. In savage 
 life it is an undeveloped factor, an unformed habit. 
 Eighteen centuries of experience, sad, solemn, and 
 chequered, speak to us in the word " religion." The 
 good spirit's gift of rain and the evil spirit's influence in 
 drought, are all that Bushman and Namaqua can offer 
 as equivalent. The solitary camel-thorn and the deep
 
 43 
 
 primeval forest represent the difference in thought- 
 endowment between the dwellers in cities and the 
 dwellers in huts. The aspects in which our civilization 
 is presented to the latter are not always attractive ; but 
 its best features are the result of a long, gradual, and 
 consistent evolution, no part of which is paralleled in 
 his own experience. At a hundred geographical 
 points the Queen of England is neighbouring chief 
 to a man to whom the whole structure of our civilisa- 
 tion and mode of life is an inscrutable mystery, and 
 whose attitude towards these is perhaps as little under- 
 stood by us. Again, Christianity is being preached in 
 various parts of the world to races whose mental 
 furniture and range of conception are of the 
 meanest and most limited kind. Is it always 
 remembered how wide is the difference between 
 learner and teacher ; by what ages of slow elaboration 
 and continuous progress they are divided; how special 
 to the Christian-bred man are such terms as " brother- 
 hood," " mercy," " holiness," " duty ; " how large 
 the meaning they convey, and the emotional capacity 
 which they have assisted to develope ? Trees will 
 not bear the grafting of alien buds ; and human 
 nature is receptive only of that for which it is pre- 
 pared. I deduce from this no lesson but one of caution ; 
 certainly no warrant for despair. Philology, that has 
 accomplished so much, will not shrink from attempting 
 more ; nor will it fail, I hope, to discover clues to 
 mental action and aids to its control, which will not 
 only speed the missionary's labour, but furnish new 
 methods of influence in many directions. The facts of 
 linguistic phenomena are partly metaphysical facts : 
 if ever a science of social metaphysics is developed 
 and social science Avill walk on crutches until it has 
 such scientific support the discoveries of philology 
 will be among its most important data.
 
 44 
 
 Science works blindfold to an unseen goal ; the 
 glory and chivalry of its labours would be less if its 
 objects were defined and visible. Hope, and not cer- 
 tainty, is the mainspring of its energy. The horizon 
 is bright before it, but with the reflected hues of past 
 achievement, and a golden haze of possibility. In the 
 words of the German Heine it recognises its appro- 
 priate motto " I see clearly the wonder of the past, 
 a veil is spread over the future, but it is a rose- 
 coloured one, and through it gleam golden columns and 
 glittering gems, and sweet sounds fall upon the ear." 
 Surely the teaching of the time is not with those who 
 question the value of any form of research. 
 
 With these remarks, sketchy, superficial, and, I fear, 
 somewhat incoherent, I must leave you to consider 
 whether the case submitted did not deserve a more 
 effective advocacy. I shall be well content with such 
 a verdict. I have trespassed long on your time and 
 patience, but the theme was a tempting one ; and, 
 indeed, in so wide a subject, the difficulty was to 
 know not what to say, but what to leave unsaid. The 
 vast interests committed to us, in respect to our 
 coloured brethren, m-*y well prompt the feeling, that 
 whatever is to be known in directions through which 
 they may be influenced, we should spare no pains to 
 learn. A vote of the Cape Parliament has provided 
 for the continuance of the labours so ably begun by 
 the late Dr. Bleek. The devoted services of the lady 
 who has continued his work with such loving zeal 
 have been fairly seconded. But, if I may be per- 
 mitted the remark, the machinery by which the 
 missionary or future Resident may be helped to a fair 
 start in their career, is still wanting. No blessing is 
 promised to work that ignores its special conditions, 
 or neglects available means. And I cannot think that 
 the work of elevating races so unlike ourselves in
 
 45 
 
 mental texture and habit can be successfully under- 
 taken, without a full and conscious appreciation of the 
 differences that divide us. In a more extended and 
 searching study of those differences lies our best hope 
 of a prosperous and honourable fulfilment of our 
 responsibilities. 
 
 A solid foundation has been laid for the work to be 
 undertaken. No one, I believe, takes a more hearty 
 interest in the cause than His Excellency Sir Bartle 
 Frere, and there can be no better augury for its 
 advancement. One sure result of the studies indicated 
 we may safely anticipate : they will give to native 
 questions an interest very unlike the undisciplined 
 feeling through which they are too commonly re- 
 garded. Under such conditions and with such aims, 
 philology appeals for support. Deeply convinced as 
 I am of the soundness of its claims, I feel no less 
 assured, that in respect to what has been submitted to 
 you, the fault will be mine, and mine only, if the 
 appeal is made in vain.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FIFTBECOII) AIIIYEIISIRY MEETING 
 
 OP THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 ^friran flublir f 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON FRIDAY, THE 20th MAY, 1881. 
 
 f. Sifoforigfei, (Esq., !.$.,.$.., in t^t 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & Co., PRINTERS, .ST. GEORGE'S-STREET. 
 1881.
 
 Town, there to be deposited, subject to the following 
 conditions : That I may at any time remove from the 
 Library, as long as I require them, any books tr 
 manuscrip's for my own use. That I may give the 
 like privilege to the'occupants of any institution I may 
 hereafter found in South Africa. That during my 
 lifetime all other persons shall be admitted, under the 
 rules and regulations of the Library, to use the books 
 and manuscripts, but that no person shaUj without my 
 consent, be permitted to remove any of them from the 
 building. After my death, the Trustees of my collec- 
 tion shall make such regulations 011 this last subject as 
 they think proper, as I do not wish to attempt to bind 
 posterity by any unalterable rule. 
 
 " I propose, that for the purpose of seeing these con- 
 ditions fulfilled, I should, in the first in-tance, appoint 
 eight Trustees, and that when any vacancy occurs, the 
 remaining Trustees should from time to time fill it up.'"' 
 
 The accession of books during the past year has 
 been a? follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 7 Vols. 
 
 Poltical Economy, Government ... 17 
 
 Sciences and the Arts 95 
 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... 79 
 
 History 93 
 
 Biography 48 
 
 Belles Lettrcs ... 69 
 
 Miscellaneous ... ... ...110 
 
 Among the presentations received, and included in 
 the above list, are the last year's Transactions and 
 Proceedings of the Royal Society, the Royal Astro- 
 Bomical and Geographical Societies, of the Zoological 
 Society, and the Royal Colonial Institute, the Smith- 
 sonian Institute, Washington, and from the 
 Royal Dublin Society a complete set of their
 
 Scientific Transactions and Proceedings up to date. 
 The Committee have also to acknowledge the presen- 
 tation, by His Excellency the Minister of State for 
 Holland, of eight folio volumes of plates and two 
 volumes of letterpress, relating to the ancient ruins in 
 Java ; from P. J. Kotze, Esq., a valuable contribution 
 ot a pictorial magazine, entitled the " Florist and 
 Pomologist," from 1848 to 1876, in twenty-nine 
 volumes ; besides many others presented by the Right 
 Honourable Sir Bartle Frere : the late Sir Redmond 
 Barry, Melbourne ; the Hon. W. Littleton ; the Viue 
 Diseases Commission; Capt. Henry Wilson; the Rev. 
 W. Thompson ; J. W. Van Rees Hoets, Esq., London ; 
 M. Antoine Charlin ; and Advocate P. M. Lawrence. 
 The Committee last year mentioned the application 
 to Government for a grant in aid of the printing and 
 publication of a complete Catalogue of the books in the 
 Library. They have now much pleasure in announcing 
 to the subscribers and the public, that a sum of three 
 hundred pounds has been voted by the Parliament for 
 this object. The Catalogue is now passing through the 
 press, 176 pages having already been printed, and it is 
 expected that the Catalogue will in a few months be in 
 the hands of the subscribers. 
 
 The issue of Books and Periodicals in the several 
 departments of Science and Literature, up to 30th 
 April last, has been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 35 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 70 
 
 Science and the Arts 149 
 
 Voyages and Travels 1,076 
 
 History 486 
 
 Biography ... ... 699 
 
 Belles Lettres 696 
 
 Miscellaneous 7,816 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals ... ... 4,895 
 
 B2
 
 From this statement, as compared with that of last 
 year, it will be seen that the circulation in standard 
 works has been about the same, whilst there is a falling 
 off in Reviews and Periodicals, but a corresponding 
 increase in light litera'ure. 
 
 The Committee have special gratification in stating 
 that the number of readers and visitors availing them- 
 selves of the valuable treasure-* of the Institution, has 
 been greatly in excesa of last year or of any previous 
 year. During the period the Institution was open to 
 the public, the number of persons who visited it 
 appears from a record kept to have been 29,255, 
 making an average of 109 daily, the largest number 
 on any one day being 177, and the lowest 59. 
 
 An application was recently made by the depart- 
 ment of the Honourable the Commissioner of Crown 
 Lands and Public Works for the occupation of a room 
 jn the Librarian's quarters, for the accommodation of 
 the Colonial Archives, and as the Librarian waived 
 his right to the room, the Committee willingly placed 
 it at the disposal of the Government. 
 
 This report would be incomplete without a special 
 reference to the death of the Honourable William 
 Porter, who, during his long connection with the 
 Colony, was a generous supporter of the Public 
 Library. His name will ever be honourably associated 
 with the Institution, not only through the munificent 
 gift of the Porter Collection, and his recent bequest, 
 but also by his having introduced, some forty years ago, 
 the now time-honoured custom of making this anniver- 
 sary an occasion for an address on some subject of 
 Literature or Science. 
 
 The following are the accessions to the Grey Collec- 
 tion during the past year by presentation : 
 
 Memoranda of Trading Trip into the Orange River, 
 Free State, and Country of Transvaal Boers, 1851-52,
 
 by John Sanderson ; with map. (London, \V. Clowes 
 & Sons) ; from Mies Julia Lloyd. Collections for a 
 Handbook of the Makua Language by Chiuncy 
 Maples, M.A. (London, 1879 or 1880) ; from tlie 
 Author. Ubaqa for July, 1880; from Miss Har.ce. 
 " The Dawn of Pay" for June, July and August, 
 18SO; from the R :v. E. L. Coakes. Duplici'c, appa- 
 rently incomplete, of Lipcroverlia tsa Solomon ; from 
 F. M askew, Esq. " The People of India" (London, 
 1868-72), six volumes ; "The Descriptive Ethnology 
 of Beng.l" (Calcutta, 1872); "The Daivadna' 
 Dnatiya " (Bombay, 1807) ; ami a duplicate of 
 Accession, No 253 ; from His Excellency Sir Bartle 
 Frere. Tshi Proverbs, a Collection of 3o,OGO 
 collected by the Rev. J. G. C hi istaller (Basel, 1879)? 
 from the Author. Portions of a "Dictionary of the 
 Asante and Fante Language" (evidently pissing 
 through the press in 1S80); fr m the Rev. J. G. 
 Chri-sialler. Portions of a Tshi Hvmnbook (con- 
 taining "Remarks" by the Rev. J. G. Chri tuller, 
 dated August, 1878) ; from the Rev. J. G. Christaller, 
 Compiler. Quarterly Report of St, Mark's Mission, 
 for quarter ending 30th June, 1880, by the Venerable 
 Archdeac n Waters (Grahamstown, 1880) ; by the 
 Anilio". "Madignsknr," by the Rev. L. Dahle 
 (Ihristiariia, 1876); from the Author. The Umtata 
 Parish Magazine for September, 1880 ; from 
 the Rev. E. L. Coakes. Ord?r of the 
 Services at St. John's Cathedral fir 14th Sunday- 
 after Trinity, 1880, Papyrographically printed 
 on half a sheet of note paper ; from the Rev. 
 E. L. Coakes. Ubaqa, for September, 1880; from 
 Miss Mance. Trans-ic'ions of the Philological Society, 
 1873-4 (London, 1873); from A. J. El'i*, Esq., 
 F.R.S., F.S.A. "Noies on the Makua Language, ' 
 by the Rev. Chauncy Maples, M.A. (Hertford, 1880);
 
 8 
 
 from J. Furnivall, Esq. " Historical Sketches of 
 Savage Life in Polynesia, &c. ;"' by ihe Rev. W. "W. 
 Gill (WellingtDn, 1880) ; appnrently ihe New Zealand 
 Government. The Umtata Parisk Magazine, No. 16, 
 for October, 1, 1880 ; from the Rev. E. L. Coakes. 
 "Industrial Education," an Address delivered by 
 the Rev. Dr. Stewart to the Lovedale Literary 
 Society (Lovedale, 1880, ; from the Author. " Swahili 
 Exercises Key" (without title page, pp. 1-56) ; from 
 the Right Rev. Bishop Me. re. " Maten lo ya Mitume" 
 (Zanzibar, 187,8) ; " Kitabu cha kwanza cha musa 
 Alwanzo (Zanzibar, 1879); Bantu Orthography, (a 
 Letter from Bi-hop Steere, two copies) ; Ly the Right 
 Rev. Bishop Steere. De Bernardy's " Nt-xt of Kin 
 Gazette," No. 18, for November. 1880; with supple- 
 ment (London, 1880) ; from the Publisher. Report of 
 Archdeacon Waters, for quarter ending September 
 30th, 1880 (Grahnmstown, 1880); from the Venerable 
 Archdeacon Waters. Freuden und Leiden in 
 Afrika, original ; erziihlet auf Fiirsch v. P. Kurvinen; 
 parts I IV (Helsingfors, 1877-1880) ; from the 
 author. Ubaqa f>r November, 1880; from Miss 
 Jlance. "Some Principles of Native Government, 5 ' 
 illustrated (Cape Town, 1880); from the Author, J. 
 M. Orpen, Esq., M.L.A. Light, for Saturday, 
 January 8th, 1881. Zulu Tzaga, collected, translated, 
 and interpreted, by a Zulu Missionary, reprinted from 
 the Natal Colonist (Durban, Natal, 1880); from the 
 Editor, John Sanderson, Esq. Ubaqa, for January, 
 1881; from Miss Hance. Report of Archdeacon 
 Waters, lor quart r ending December 31st, 1880, in 
 duplicate ; from the Venerable Archdeacon Waters. 
 The Dawn o.f Day, f r November 1st, 1880, and for 
 December 1st, 1880; from the Rev. E. L. Coakes. 
 Baker (E.\ Outline of a Malagassy Grammar ; from 
 Dr. James Cameron. Theal (Geo. M.), Catalogue of
 
 Documents from the Colonial Archives; from the 
 Colonial Government. View of the Guano Caves, 
 and Copy of Bushman Paintings near Montagu ; from 
 Max Jurisch, Esq. Peschel (O.), Volkerkunde ; from 
 Rev. A. Nachtigal. Summers (Rev. James), Rudi- 
 ments <f the Chinese Grammar. KunucUib-Nama 
 Spelling Book (six copies) ; from Dr. Theoph. Hahn. 
 Catafago (Joseph), English and Arabic Dictionary ; 
 from C'has. A. F airbridge, Esq. Die Ostasiatischen 
 b'tudien uud die Sprachwissenschaft ; from Georg 
 von der Gabelentz. Anleitung zum Studium der 
 Bantu-Sprachen ; from C. G. Bfittner. Kafir 
 New Testament ; from W. B. Chalmers, Esq. 
 Petermann (A.), Map of the Cape Colony ; bought. 
 Cape of Good Hope Blue Be ok on Native Affairs, 
 1881 ; from the Under Secre'ary of Native Affairs, 
 wi'h six extra copies for distribution to Scientific 
 Societies and Ethnologists Roberts (Rev. Chas.), 
 English Zulu Dictionary ; from the Public Library. 
 Cust (Robert N.), the Languages of Africa, from the 
 Author. Fragments of the famous Tain Manuscripts ; 
 from Charles A. Fairbr'.dge, Esq. Two Photographs of 
 the last Tasmmians (man and woman) ; from Canthal, 
 Esq., passenger by the u Sobraone." Triibner's 
 American, etc., Records ; from tha Publisher. Bleek 
 ( W. H. J-), a Comparative Grammar of South African 
 Languages; part II ; presentation copy; the binding 
 presented by Mrs. Bleek.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IV hen your Committee, a few weeks ago, invited 
 me to fake ihe place here to-day, which Dr. Gill 
 was to have filled, and informed me that the main 
 duty I would be called upon to discharge would be 
 the delivery of the Library Address, which has come to 
 be regarded as an annual institution in Cape Town, I 
 felt considerable hesitancy in accepting the honour thus 
 sought to be conferred upon me. I could not disguise 
 from myself the fact that there was little likelihood of 
 my official duties, which from a variety < f causes had 
 been pressing somewhat heavily upon me, decreasing 
 much in weight between then and now, and I feared 
 that the mental leisure would not be mine which I 
 deemed necessary for tha preparation of anything 
 suitable to such a gathering as thia. Upon the under- 
 standing, however, that I was not to be debarred from 
 taking as my theme the Science which is always more 
 or less present with me, I cons nted to appear before 
 you, and I selected as the subject of my address a con- 
 sideration of some of the influences which that Science 
 brings to bear upon the progress of Civilization. 
 
 Before entering upon the subject of Electric Science 
 specially, I propose to consider briefly the influence 
 which physical research generally ha 5 ) exerted upon 
 the course of civilization. An estimate of this miy 
 be formed by comparing the earlier civilization of 
 countries where the mind being completely over- 
 powered by the natural phenomena with which it was
 
 12 
 
 br. light into contact, and the understanding being thus 
 made the slave of the imaginali >n, physical science 
 was in consequence unknown, with the state of civili- 
 zation in other countries where natural phenomena 
 occurring on far more limited scale, the intellect 
 dared to' grapple with them, and physical research 
 thus became possible. Yet it is not, I think, necessary 
 for me to go so far back as this ; it will probably be 
 sufficient to draw your attention to the change which 
 has taken place within the last two centuries. The 
 Royal Society of England, which has done more than 
 any other body in the Avorld to foster physical research, 
 and whose records have been not inaptly termed the 
 records of human progress itself, was formed in the 
 year 1660. Its charter states that it was established 
 for the improvement of natural science. The epithet 
 "natural,' Dr. Paris states in his life of Sir H. Davy, 
 <c was originally intended to imply a meaning of which 
 *' very few persons are, I believe, aware. At the period 
 " of the establishment of the society the arts of witch- 
 *' ci aft and divinaticn were very extensively encouraged, 
 te and the word ' natural' was therefore introduced in 
 " contradistinction to Supernatural.'" 
 
 The influence which \ hysical science hns exerted 
 s'uce th se days in sweeping away the two most 
 powerful barriers in the path of civilization I mean 
 superstiti >n and ignorance need be only alluded to. 
 So long as superstition oversludows the human miud, 
 so lon.r is it impossible ior any real progress to be 
 made : attendant ignorance prevails, and blind cre- 
 dulity is dominant. AVc have but to look at the stag- 
 nation of civilization in what are known as the Middle 
 Ages, in order to appreciate the truth of ihis. I" in erg' ng 
 from a state of rude barbarism the nations of Europe 
 seemed to remain for centuries well nigh at a siandstill. 
 1 hose in whose hands the keys of knowledge almost
 
 13 
 
 entirely rested, found it to their advantage ton tain 
 them there. They eurroundeJ with mystery every 
 subject of which either little was known or they 
 desired that little should be known : by various 
 systems of torture enquiry was stifled, freedom of 
 thought was in cons quence unknown, and the march 
 of intellect was hopelessly obstructed. But towards 
 the close of the 16th century originated in England 
 th it spirit of doubt which has been well named the 
 precursor of improvement: the nation at last awoke 
 from its long sleep : the spirit of enquiry went abroad 
 and in time forced its way into the other countries of 
 Europe. One by one the strongholds of superstition 
 have since these days been attacked, and while many 
 have already crumbled away before it, those which 
 still stand show daily increasing sigaals of distress. 
 In their train many of the ideas of the supernatural have 
 also gone and they are fast disappearing altogether. To 
 take just one instance in support of this from the most 
 perfect, at the present day, of all the Physical Sciences; 
 the appearance of comets and eclipses, which in earlier 
 ages have been known to turn whole armies to flight, can 
 now be predicted wiili the most minute exactness, nor 
 are prayers any longer offered up that we may be 
 I reserved from their baleful effects. 
 
 The beneficial influence which has been exert :d 
 by physical research, viewed at in this light, on the 
 march of civilization cannot possibly be overestimated. 
 The human intellect, hopelessly surrounded by mys- 
 teries, would in time have retrograded into a condition 
 of grovelling imbecility. Freed, on the other hand, 
 and successfully grappling w.th difficulty after diffi- 
 culty, it inhales fresh vigour wilh every new discovery 
 and g eater encouragement to proceed onwards to the 
 solution of the many problems around us which still 
 icmaiu to Lc solved.
 
 - 14 
 
 Passing on now to the special subject which I have 
 set before mo, I propose to consider, first, the 
 assistance rendered by Electric Science tj the cause 
 of civilization in helping to clear away much < f the 
 superstition and ignorance clinging to the Weather 
 Phenomena, and so raising Meteorolgy to the ranks of 
 a Science. 
 
 Every science has in its time to pass through three 
 stages before it can be considered perfect. There is, 
 first, the st'ge of observation, when as many facts as 
 can p s.sibly be gathered together are duly marshalled 
 in thei' proper order : next comes the eta^e of reflec- 
 tion, when theory steps i i and adduces order from 
 apparent disorder, by explaining away the darkness 
 hanging over these facts and by unravelling the causes 
 which have led to them : finally there is the prophetic 
 stage, in which the phenomena of the past and present 
 being satisfactorily accounted for, those of the future 
 can be foretold with certainty. 
 
 "There can be no question as to which of these stages 
 Meteorology is in :it the present moment. Many 
 there are who would gravely doubt if it will < ver 
 get far beyond the stage of observation, yet those 
 who are best qualified to judge, can entertain only one 
 opinion upon the subj -ct, and that is that our present 
 ignorance and the consequent widespread sui erstition 
 with respect to it c inn -t la-4 for ever. '1 he weather 
 phenomena also must yield to that irresistib'c spirit of 
 enquiry which has never yet fjiiled in eventually sur- 
 mounting whatever difficulties it has attacked. Thus 
 Sir John Leslie, in his work on Natural Philosophy, 
 says, "It cannot be disputeJ that all the changes 
 which happen in the n ass of our Atmosphere, involved, 
 capricious and irregular as they may appear, are yet 
 the necessary results of principles as fixed, and perhaps 
 as simple, as tho-e w' ich direct the revolutions of the
 
 15 
 
 Solar System. Could we unravel the intricate maze, 
 we might trace the action of ench distinc* cause, and 
 hence deduce the ultimate effeo s arising fn m their 
 combined operation. With, the p( s?e>sion of such data 
 we might safely predict th j state of the weather at 
 any futura period as we n^nv calculate an eclipse oi 
 the sun or moou, or foretell a conjunction of the 
 planets/' 
 
 To unravel this " intricate maze" by gaining pos- 
 session of ihe data which are required is the object of 
 Meteorology in its present stage. The initiative for this 
 purpose in England was taken by the late Sir John 
 J3urgoyne, who, as recently as the year 1 852, proposed 
 that lind observations should be made by ihe Corps 
 of Roy;il Engineers. Commodore M sury had been 
 working at Washington fcr some time previously in 
 the same direction, and the United States Government, 
 on being consulted, expressed their entire wil ingness 
 to co-operats in the scheme, and suggested that marine 
 observations os well should be taken. Since then, 
 one after another, the maritime nations of the world 
 have taken up the idea, and throughout the whole 
 civilized globe at the present moment not only are 
 observers stationed at what hive been considered to 
 be the most advantageous points, but m<ny of the 
 steamship companies have lent their assistance to the 
 work. Observations are taken on board their vessels 
 by competent observers with first-class instruments, 
 who upon their return render these observations to the 
 Meteorologicd Office in London. 
 
 To America belongs the credit of h iving bet n the 
 first to suggest the employment of electric science in 
 the collection of these observations, and the utilisation 
 of the results deduced fr-m them when once obtained. 
 As far back as the year 1846, we find Profes-or 
 Redfield thus writing to the Americm Journal of
 
 16 
 
 Science and Art-.- "In the Atlantic ports the 
 approach of a gale may be nude known by means of 
 the electric telegraph, which probably will soon extend 
 from Maine to the MUsissipi.'' The idea thus 
 originated, was actually realised and carried into prac- 
 tical execution by Professor Henry and his assistants, 
 at the Smithsonian Institution, between the years 1850 
 and 1855, and the subsequent impu'se given to 
 meteorology amongst the nations of Europe was 
 unquestionably owing mainly to their exertions in this 
 direction. In 1854, Le Verrier, in France, came to 
 advocate the immense value of a system of telegraphic 
 weather reports; whilst in 1861, Admiral Fitzroy, in 
 England, devised a code of meteorlogic d telegraphs, 
 instituted a regular service by means of which weather 
 reports Avere received from various stations on the 
 coast, and laid the ba>is of that weather study which, 
 notwithstanding the innumerable difficulties it has to 
 contend with, gives already diily evidence of its value, 
 and holds out the brightest hopes for the future. On 
 the death of Admiral Fitzroy, an able successor was 
 found in Mr. Robert Scott, under whose direction the 
 Meteorological Office in London is now conducted. 
 Daily weather reports are there received by telegraph 
 from no fewer than fifty- two stations, extending from 
 Haparanda, at the extreme north of the Gulf cf 
 Bothnia, to Toulon, on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean ; from Christi insund, on the western coast 
 of Norway, to Corunna, in ths north-west corner of 
 Spain. The following particulars are sent from each 
 of these at 8'0 a.m. dai'y ; the htight of the barometer, 
 the height of the thermometer in the shale, the 
 direction and force of the wind, ihe amount of cloud, 
 the state of the weather, the rainfall for the previous 
 twenty-four hours, and the sea disturbance. These 
 are tabulated. Four charts, one for the barometer,
 
 17 
 
 another for the thermometer, a third for wind and sen, 
 and a fourth for cloud and rain, are drawn up from the 
 data thus obtained ; they are published, and issued the 
 same day. Incorporated with the&e are reports giving 
 the same particulars at 0'45 p m. on the previous 
 afternoon for fifteen stations, and at 6 p m. for nineteen 
 stations. 
 
 Great as the service may be which electiic science 
 thus renders to meteorology in the collection of 
 these observations, it renders a still greater practical 
 service even now, and one which, a3 the science 
 advances, will be more appreciated, in giving tiinely 
 warning of the approach of rough weather. For 
 although no attempt has as yet been made at a theoretical 
 explanation of meteorological phenomena, there are 
 already certain valuable facts established from an 
 observation of them. The motion and force of the 
 wind, for instance, depend upon what his been named 
 the " barometric gradient," that is to say, if there is a 
 difference in the height of the barometer at any two 
 places, a wind sets in between, them, with a force 
 proportional to that difference ; the area of depression, 
 again, is found as a general rule in Europe, to travel 
 eastwards at an average rate of thirty miles an hour. 
 Thus it is that as most of the storms which vi it the 
 British Isles are first of all felt upon the western shore 
 of Ireland, timely warning of the approach of them can 
 be given to the seaports on the Irish Sea, the English 
 Channel, the East Coast, as well as to France and the 
 Eastern Shores of the North b'ea, all of which are 
 warned of the expected approach of storms by the 
 Meteorological Office in London. Many sugges- 
 tions have been made ns to the best means of 
 obtaining in formation regarding these storms on then- 
 easterly journey. The Portuguese meteorologists 
 proposed furnishing observations from the Azores by
 
 18 
 
 means of the cable, which touches there; this proposition 
 was declined on the ground that no connection could be 
 discovered between the movements of the barometer 
 at Valentia, the most westerly point of observation in 
 the British Isles, and at the Azore?. The storms 
 which pass ovtr the Azores, take a south-easterly 
 direction towards the continent of Europe, and do 
 not geem to approach Great Britain. Equally 
 valueless was at first deemed the proposal to 
 receive information from the United St tes, for it was 
 found that the character of the storms became entirely 
 changed alter travelling over any considerable area of 
 the earth's surface. Of late, however, a connection 
 has been established between the gales on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, which although not yet so complete as 
 might be desired, and as it eventually will be, is yet 
 deemed of sufficient importance to warrant intimation 
 being sent by telegraph from America, when storms of 
 unusuil violence prevail there. 
 
 In another important respect electrical science brings 
 with it valuable aid to meteorology. No great 
 meteorological change takes place without its being 
 accompanied by marked disturbances in terrestrial 
 electricity, either in the air, in the earth, or in 
 both. And simultaneous observations of these distur- 
 bances, carried out in different quarters of the world, 
 and now for the first time rendered possible by the 
 development of electrical science, would place in our 
 hands the only means by which we can hope to get at 
 some definite understanding respecting them. The 
 theory of the lightning and the thunderstorm is now fairly 
 understood the Aurora Boreales or " Merry Dancers " 
 of Northern latitudes those " fearful lights " which 
 Aytoun, flinging himself back to the days of Flodden, 
 tells us "never beckon save when tings or heroes die," 
 have now been robbed of their terror and awe, and are
 
 19 
 
 generally believed to be the result of electrical dis- 
 charges through the rarified strata of our atmosphere, 
 comparable in every respect to the passage of electricity' 
 through the so-called vacuum tubes. The earth 
 currents, again, which are constantly flashing to and 
 fro through the crust of our globe, but which at times 
 appear with far greater violence than at others, are still 
 unintelligible ; and have, in fact, only of late years 
 commanded the attention which they merit. The 
 cause of the changes in terrestrial magnetism is like- 
 wise still wrapped in mystery ; yet, notwithstanding 
 the many barriers which stand in the way, " no 
 philosophical mind," to quote the words of Dr 
 Whewell, " can doubt the fixity of these rules, which 
 are followed by the causes ever at work in producing 
 those changes of winds and skies." And when the day 
 does come when these changes are perfectly under- 
 stood, only then can the aid which electric science has 
 rendered be fully recognised : no longer under the 
 cloak of Religion will our ignorance be driven to seek 
 shelter nor the aid of the Deity be invoked, as it now 
 is, to supply the deficiencies of Science. 
 
 Before quitting this branch of my subject, I am 
 irresistibly tempted to bring before you the eloquent 
 utterances of one of my predecessors in this chair 
 Mr. Stone, our late Astronomer- Royal who, standing 
 here nine years ngo, and speaking on a cognate 
 subject, said : 
 
 " Slowly, and by the accumulated labour of innumer- 
 able generations of men, astronomy has reached its 
 present proportions, the noblest monument ot the 
 commanding powers of the human mind in grasping 
 the laws of nature. Placed by an all-wise Creator 
 amid such conditions of life, that an ever-broadening 
 knowledge of nature is an ever-increasing necessity of 
 his happiness and existence, man must learn to convert 
 
 c
 
 20 
 
 to his uses the teeming bounties of his wondrous mother 
 earth. Magnificent as have been the achievements of 
 the past, they appear almost dwarfed in proportion to 
 the visions now arising before us. The arbitrary 
 boundaries of the sciences are being washed away, and 
 knowledge is sweeping on in broader channels. 
 Splendid generalizations have bound together whole 
 sciences. And views almost bewildering to our half 
 perceptions, from their magnitude, are opening upon 
 us on every side. 
 
 These are but broken lights of Thee ; 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 " Bold, over bold, perhip 3 , might that man yet be 
 deemed who, glowing from a participation in the 
 glorious struggle in progress around him, should dire 
 to forecast the future, and to predict that man might 
 yet rise from a knowledge of nature to that of nature's 
 God ; but bolder far would he be who should deny its 
 possibility ; and all attempts to stem that onward pro- 
 gress of natural knowledge which the Great Father of 
 all has made a necessity of nun's existence must be as 
 futile as they would be presumptuous." 
 
 Professor Reynolds, in his excellent little work upon 
 the " I linical Uses o( Electricity," speaking of painful 
 affections such as neuralgia, migraine, sciatica, tic- 
 douloureux, and the like, says : " I know of nothing 
 more distinct or more satisfactory in Therapeutics than 
 the relief which mny often thus [i.e. by means of 
 electricity] be given to sufferings of the most intense 
 character ; the relief being very rapidly induced, and 
 in many cases permanent." Had electric science 
 brought with it no other aid than what is here stated 
 to the science of medicine, it would still have conferred 
 a boon upon civilisation by alleviating to some extent 
 the amount of human suffering in the world. Yet this
 
 21 
 
 is only a small portion of the service which electricity 
 renders in this respect. It certainly is not the panacea 
 for every woe which many fervently hoped that it would 
 become, nor have the idle dreams once cherished as to 
 its close relation-hip with the vital force itself been 
 verified. But for the diagnosis, prognosis, and curative 
 purposes of a large class of diseases, notably those of the 
 nervous system, an ever increasing number in these days 
 when life has to be lived at so high a pressure elec- 
 tricity is simply indispensable. In cases of paralysis it 
 renders in valuable aid ; and under the name of faradi- 
 zation it is applied with the most beneficial results. To 
 the military surgeon it brings an indicator which enables - 
 him to deal more effectually with gunshot wounds, by 
 clearly showing the existence of any metallic substance 
 in the body of his patient, by tracing its course, and 
 thus facilitating its extraction; while the beautiful 
 researches of Mr. Hughes, resulting in the production 
 of the microphone, have within the last year placed in 
 the hands of the physician an instrument which for 
 stethoscopic and similar purposes is almost too delicate 
 for use. With this brief reference to the influence 
 which electric science by its direct practical application 
 to the alleviation of physical suffering exert* on the 
 course of civilisation, I shall now pass on to consider 
 the indirect aid which strange although this at first 
 sight may appear it brings towards the same object 
 by its application to the art of War. 
 
 Of all the evils which mankind has inflicted upon 
 itself, there is none which in point of magnitude can 
 be compared with War; none which has more retarded 
 the progress of civilisation than this. That it is upon 
 the decline may seem at first sight a bold statement to 
 make in face of the wars which have been waged 
 during the present generation, and in spite of the 
 bloated armaments and the military activity which, 
 
 C 2
 
 22 
 
 during the last decade or two, have converted Europe 
 into :t camp of military instruction. Yet so sure as 
 knowledge increases, so sure must this barbarity 
 gradually yield before it. Occasional circumstances 
 in the histories of nations may from lime to time arise, 
 when their rulers having fallen out, the people are 
 driven to war ; nevertheless, the principle still remains 
 true, that the warlike sj irit i.e. the love ot war for 
 its own sak e must yield before an advancing knowledge. 
 An examination of the earlier stages of national 
 existence would show us that wars were then of daily 
 occurrence. Every man was at that time of necessity a 
 soldier. Fighting being the only art in which eminence 
 could be achieved, the necessary consequence was 
 that so long as such a st \te of things lasted, the intel- 
 lectual pursuits and the arts of peace were either 
 entirely, or almost entirely, neglected. But when a 
 revolution in the art of war was effected, and a new 
 system of conducting it had to be established, when 
 all the citizens of a state could no longer afford to 
 become soldiers, but in their place standing armies 
 were instituted, then a portion of that energy which 
 had previously found vent in fighting, turned itself to 
 the arts of peace instead. Trade and commerce 
 assumed a more flourishing aspect, the intellectual 
 powers were alloweJ time and scope for their exercise, 
 and a decided impulse wa3 thereby given to the 
 progress of civilisation. 
 
 The main cause in effecting this remarkable change 
 was, I need not gay, the invention of gunpowder, an 
 invention, to quote the words of Adam Smith, "wl ich 
 although at first sight it Appears to be so pernicious, is 
 certainly favourable both to the permanency and to 
 the extension of civilisation." 
 
 In addition to the security against barbarians which 
 the more civilised nations now acquired from it, the
 
 23 
 
 direct effect of the introduction of firearms was to 
 make wars far less frequent and, when once entered 
 upon, far more speedily concluded. The introduction 
 of electric science into war is a most powerful auxiliary 
 towards effecting the same object ; it must act, as I 
 shall endeavour to show, as a deterring element in the 
 calculations upon which the declaration of war is 
 ba.^ed, and it leads to a speedy termination of war 
 when once waged. To illustrate j'artly what I mean, 
 I cannot do better than take the case of the last but 
 one of the great European wars, viz., that between 
 France and Germany, and show how powerful an 
 auxiliary to the art of war electric science proved 
 itself to be during that marvellous campaign. There 
 may be a difference of opinion as to whether the cause 
 of civilisation has benefited or not by the issue of 
 that great war ; whether the estab'ishment of a solid 
 German Empire in the heart of Europe will favour 
 the cause of peace and advancement or not. 'ihat 
 question does not at present concern us. But few, I 
 thiuk, will contend that when war once was declared it 
 was not in thd interests of humanity that it should be 
 terminated as tpeedily as possible with some decisive 
 issue. The Germans, in that splendidly organised 
 military S) stem of theirs, had not overlooked the v lue 
 of electric telegraphy ; on the contrary, no arm of their 
 service was more perfectly managed than this. Fr. m 
 the campaign of 1866 they had clearly learnt, as one 
 who afterwards held a high command* puts it, " that 
 u.odcrn warfare was almost an impossibility without 
 the aid of the electric telegraph in the field." 
 Immediately upon the outbreak of ho.-tilitierf in 1870, 
 300 telegraphists were prepared to start with the 
 advanced portion of the army, and communication was 
 
 Mr. Von Chauviu.
 
 24 
 
 at once established between the van and the rear. AB 
 they made their way into the French territory their 
 telegraph lines kept pace w'th them By means of 
 them, that vast armament was in constant and 
 immediate communication with its base of operation. 
 All advices as to the supplies of food and materials 
 from their own country, were sent by telegraph, stating 
 when they might be expected to arrive. To the tele- 
 graph lines it was due that the excellent arrangements 
 for the speedy conveyance of the eick and wounded to 
 the hospitals, where they could be well cared for, were 
 carried out ; and when the system was properly estab- 
 lished, it was thrown open for the dispatch of private 
 messages from the officers and men of the army to their 
 homes. 
 
 Yet, great and undoubted although these advantages 
 were, they were of miner importance for the attainment 
 of the ultimate object in view, compared with the signal 
 services rendered by the telegraph upon the field of 
 battle, and at tha sieges of towns and fortresses. 
 Around Paris, for instance, a circuit of twenty German 
 miles was established. Two sets of lines, each 
 consisting of four wires, were erected beyond the reach 
 of the French bullets, and along them hundreds cf 
 messages daily passed. Troops were moved to and 
 fro, and massed at the points where a sortie was 
 expected, and if hard pressed at any one point, 
 reinforcements could speedily be summoned from 
 another. By means of this electrical communication, 
 a'l the mov ments which had been planned could be 
 made in concert, and the risk of failure in the execution 
 of these from defective mechanical signals was thereby 
 avo'ded. The same was the case at Metz ; and so 
 admirably was the entire telegraph system worked, 
 that the Emperor of Germany expressed to General 
 Von Moltke an opinion shared in by everyo .e who has
 
 25 
 
 studied the subject : that "without the telegraph, the 
 siege of Paris could not have been made, nor that of 
 M-etz maintained so long." And in General Sherman's 
 " Recollections of the American Civil War," in which 
 he played so conspicuous and effective a part, he 
 states that " for the rapid transmission of orders in an 
 army covering a large space of ground, the electric 
 telegraph is far the best." He further says: 
 " The value of the electric telegraph in war cannot be 
 over-estimated, as was illustrated by the perfect 
 concert of action between the armies ia Virginia and 
 Georgia in all 1864. Hardly a day intervened when 
 General Grant did not know the exact state of affairs 
 with me more than 1,50D miles off as the wires ran .' 
 No higher tributes than these can possibly be pud. 
 
 Another important part played by electrical 
 science in war, to which a reference, no matter how 
 brief, must be made, is its application for torpedo or 
 mining purposes. For military operations by land 
 the electrical torpedo is necessarily in the pre- 
 sent f-tate of our knowledge exclusively c >nfmed 
 to defensive measures ; for whilst submarine wires 
 may under cover of darkness be successfully 
 submerged iu the teeth of an attacking fleet without 
 the slightest trace being left on the trackless 
 water to indicate to the enemy the position <>f 
 the sunken mine, the same secrecy cannot be 
 obseivcd with sub'erranean wires. It is impossible 
 to dig trenches and mine before an advancing foe 
 without, at least, some trace being left behind to show 
 what has been done, and immediately a clue is dis- 
 covered as to the po-ition of the wires the circuit can 
 be cut and the torj edois rendered useless. The intro- 
 duction of the electric torpedo into military operations 
 would appear to dale from the Crimean war. Some sort 
 of defence of tLis nature for the ft* alakofl Tcwer seem
 
 26 
 
 to have been devised by the Russians ; as in digging he 
 trenches for the assault on that citadel, insulated wires 
 buried in the ground were found and cut by the 
 besieging party. In a wore advanced stage, and with 
 better success, the Americans used it during their civil 
 war. The German ports in the Bahic bristled with 
 torpedoes during the war to which I have already 
 referred, and in consequence very little was heard of 
 the operations of the French fleet during the progress 
 of it. It had also been intended to cover the chief 
 approaches to Paris by a series of subterranean 
 electrical mines, which would have effectually closed 
 them, except at a destruction of life which it is frightful 
 to contemplate. But, owing to the incapacity which 
 made itself so painfully evident in many departments 
 of the French service at that time, no practical steps 
 were taken, and the German Uhlans were in sight of 
 Paris before these well devised schemes could be 
 earned into execution. It is not the actual loss of life 
 enormous although that must be which alone has to be 
 taken into account in estimating the va'ue of electric 
 torpedoe?. The wholesome moral effect which their in- 
 troduction into military tactics must necessarily exercise 
 cannot be overlooked. No admiral would willingly lead 
 hi* fleet into waters known to be infested with deadly 
 volcanoes from which there is no e>cape, any explosion 
 being synonymous with certain destruction. No general 
 would march his army over ground suspected of being 
 mined in all directions with treacherous pitfalls laid 
 down with mathematical precision and concealed under 
 cover of verdant pastures and a smiling landscape, in 
 each case devised to explode only when the advancing 
 foe is within their grasp. 
 
 Readers of Bulwer Lytton will recollect the won- 
 derful eff; cts which amor gs-t his " Coming Kace" were 
 \vroughtby the ir.fluence if thrt magic " Vril" which,
 
 27 
 
 lo Jged in the hollow of a ro 1 directed by the hand of 
 a child, could shatter the strongest fortress, or cleave 
 its burning way from the van to the rear of an embat- 
 tled host. If army met army, and both had the com- 
 mand of this agency, it could lead "but to the annihila- 
 tion of each. Electric science may, I think, be not 
 inappropriately even now ranked side by side with 
 that, nor do I think that it is too visionary a hope to 
 indulge in, that its practical applications, when carried 
 to their fullest development, may yet produce the 
 s.ime effect amongat the present r..ce as u Vril " did 
 amongst " The Coming Kace," and in the same indirect 
 way, by annulling all superiority in discipline, num- 
 bers, and military skill, hasten the advent of that 
 happy millenium: 
 
 When man to man the world o'er shall brothers be for a' that. 
 
 The enormous development of travelling in recent 
 years is second in importance only t ) the introduction 
 of t cience into the military art in its influence upon 
 war. JF. r as nations just like individuals come to 
 know more of each obher they assure Jly find more to 
 admire in each : their silly prejudices, which arise mainly 
 from a want of knowledge, are uprooted and give wa7 
 either to mutual respect or to charity that charity 
 which " b.arot hall things and hopeth always for the 
 best." In facilitating the means of intercourse and 
 promoting the development of steam for this purp sc* 
 electric science has rendered the gr-atest possible 
 service. Its application t ) railways on the trunk lines 
 is universal, not only in England, but also in most of 
 the continental natiojs of Europe. It has been 
 introduced f r the purpose into In<!ia, and will un- 
 questionably take its place eventually by the side of 
 every railway line that may be laid down. Without 
 it, that enormous expansion of travelling which of
 
 28 
 
 recent years has taken place could never have been 
 made ; without it the regulation of the present traffic 
 in most countries would be an utter impossibility. Into 
 the method of railway signalling time does not permit 
 me to enter ; yet I can confidently assert that were 
 the block system universally carried out in its entirety 
 with the improvements which experience has suggested, 
 collisions upon railways would be rendered all but 
 impossible. I say "all but," because no system, however 
 perfect, can get rid of the risk of human liability to 
 error. So long as this has to be taken into account, 
 so long is there a possibility of collisions happening at 
 any moment. 
 
 Having thus glanced at the aid which electric 
 science has rendered to meteorology, to medicine, to 
 the cause of peace (by rendering war less likely to 
 arise, and of shorter duration when once waged), and 
 to the development of travelling, I shall now proceed 
 to mention briefly some of the advantages which have 
 been conferred upon civilisation by the ordinary every- 
 day commercial telegraphy. When it is remembered 
 that it was not until the year 1846 that a company 
 was established for the purpose of putting electricity 
 into harness, everyone will admit that the advances 
 which electric te-egraphy has made since that day are 
 simply um quailed; there is nothing in the history of 
 the world to which they can for a moment be compared. 
 Taking the statistics of England alone in 1851 48,490 
 messages were dispatched ; in 1873, 16,000,000 mess- 
 ages were dispatched; while in 1880, 26,547,000 mess- 
 ages were di>patched, exclusive of 313,500,000 Avords 
 of news which were deliver* d lo newspapers, &c., 
 in the United Kingdom. 
 
 Turning to this colony, where many special diffi- 
 culties have to be overcome, we find the results of t' e 
 extension of telegraphic communication equally
 
 29 
 
 encouraging. The number of miles of wire working in 
 1874 was 945 in 1880,4,102. The offices open in 
 1874 numbered 22 in 1880, 121. The expenditure in 
 1874 was8,378 in 1880, 39,335 ; whilst the revenue 
 which in 1874 was only 13,669 has, notwithstand- 
 ing the very great reduction in the tariff that has since 
 then been made inasmuch that a message of 50 words 
 to East London, in those days costing l 11s., can 
 to-day be sent for 5s. 6d. reached for the year 1880 
 the magnificent total of 60,829. The number of 
 messages sent in 1874 was 55,534, audin 1880, 398,277, 
 leaving out of sight altogether the press messages. 
 
 These figures speak for themselves ; yet they are 
 only an index of what is taking place all over the 
 world. Every nation now boasts of its telegr.iph 
 system. JS'o sooner is it established than the cry is 
 heard on every side for its expansion. And of late 
 years international telegraphy has assumed such gigan- 
 tic proportions that it is actually impossible to keep 
 pace with the demand for it. Atlantic cables are 
 one after another quietly submerged, and the comple- 
 tion of an undertaking which only a few years ago 
 would have aroused the attention of the whole civilised 
 world, is n<.w signalised in about half a dozen lines in 
 the morning papers, and dismissed as if it were an 
 every-day occurrence. A 11 .the contii ents are now in 
 communication with each other, and only one link is 
 wanting, to complete the circle of the globe, and thus 
 to form a belt far more wonderful and capable of doing 
 far more than that magic girdle which Puck boasted 
 he could place " around the world in forty minutes." 
 
 The advantages which civilisation has derived from 
 these achievements }>re so numerous and so self-evident 
 that my difficulty lies in knowing which to select. 
 Yet I think that that which will most readily occur 
 to the minds of all of you, that which was firdt recog-
 
 30 
 
 nised, and was the means of bringing forward electric 
 tflegraphy, is its effect on crime. It was this which 
 first opened the eyes of the pub'ic to the marvellous 
 power which the mystic agent could wield. The 
 circumstances, although generally forgotten now, may 
 be remembered by some of you. A young woman 
 had been murdered at Saltliill, near Slough, on the 1st 
 of January, 1845. The following message was on 
 that day sent from Slough to Paddington : " A murder 
 has just been committed at Salthiil, and the suspected 
 murderer was seen to take a first-c'ass ticket for 
 London by the train which left Slough at 7 '42 p.m. 
 He is in the garb of a Quaker, with a brown great 
 coat which reaches nearly down to his feet ; he is in 
 the last compartment of the secoii'l first-class carriage." 
 Shortly after the di-patch of the previous message the 
 following reply was received: "The up-train has 
 arrived, and a person answering in every respect the 
 description given by the telegtaj-h came out of the 
 compartment mentioned. I pointed the man out to 
 S rgeant William*. The man got into a Kew-roa 1 
 omnibus, and Sergeant Williams into the same." 
 TawelljtheQua'cer and suspected m:ar Jere tvas appre- 
 hended, convicted, and executed. Since his day 
 more than one criminal his been bung by means of 
 the same cords. I should not care to say, nor even so 
 much as to hazard a gue^s as to h/w many have been 
 deterred from crime by means of them, nor can I prj- 
 duce any statistics which would go to prove that 
 t'iv> anount of ciime ha* diminished in co ^sequence of 
 the establishment of electric telegraphy. Still it 
 stands to reason that m -ny a would-be criminal must 
 think twice before criminating himself when he r flec:s 
 upon the net in which he is placed, and the fact that 
 tliere is next to no possibility of escape lying open 
 before him. The wholesome dread which is thus
 
 31 
 
 imparted to the minds of the criminal section of 
 society is one decided advantage. And next only ia 
 importance to the prevention of crime is the appre- 
 hension of the offender when a crime has been committed. 
 1 he excitement which ran through England at the 
 murder of Mr. Briggs some years ago, the mortifi- 
 cation which was felt when it was found that Miiller 
 had made his escape, the exertions which were made 
 for his capture all these would have been spared to 
 us, ha-1 one of the cables been laid which now connect 
 England with America. Within a few minutes 
 after the discovery had been made that he had sailed 
 for New York, the instructions would have been there 
 that he was on his way, and the necessary steps would 
 have been taken to ensure his having a fitting reception. 
 The nr xt point I would suggest as aiding the cause 
 of civilisation is the good which telegraphy has done, 
 not only to nations looked at as a whole but to indi- 
 viduals as well, in preventing any misunderstanding 
 from rooting itself and an imaginary grievance thereby 
 begetting unfounded irrltabi ity and a whob family of 
 troubles. To illustrate what I mean, let us take the 
 case of the negotiations which passed between England 
 and the United States respecting the Alabama arbi- 
 tration. Many there were who at the time considered 
 that England in seeking for a peaceful solution of the 
 question was sacrificing her dignity, and declaimed 
 loudly for our withdrawing from the position we had 
 taken up. 'J hey declared that the proj er course to 
 adopt was to plurge into war a war which no man could 
 pretend to see the end cf, a war which, no matter hew 
 short a time it lasted, would have embittered the rela- 
 tions between the two nations for all time, Jnd would 
 have done more to impede the progress of civilisation 
 than any wars or persecutions ever waged. On 
 the other side of the Atlantic the rowdy element
 
 32 
 
 \va?, if anything, even more blatant than the war 
 clement in England. Now, if these negotiations 
 had been carried on -without the aid of the telegraph ; 
 had three weeks, at least, been allowed to elapse 
 between the receipt of each successive despatch; had 
 timo been given for any misconstruction to be placed 
 upon any single sentence contained in thorn that could 
 p >ssibly hive borne such, the temper of both nations 
 at the time was such that it would have taken very 
 little to rouse the f elings of a large section of each : 
 and although we cannot say that the negotiations 
 would have been broken off and that war would have re- 
 sulted, there would have been at least the probability of 
 fcuch a catastrophe occurring. Fortunately, nothing 
 of the sort could happen, any rmVunderstanding in a 
 despatch was by the help of the cable cleared up before 
 a second opinion could be iormed respecting it ; wiser 
 counsels prevailed, and by the amicable settlement of 
 our difficulties an example was set to the world, and 
 the possibility of a war ever occurring between the 
 two Anglo-Saxon nations all but entirely removed. 
 And I cannot help thinking that had an electric cable 
 been lying across the Atlantic a century earlier than 
 it was, that manly struggle which the North 
 American colonies, provoked by intolerable injustice, 
 made against despotic oppression would not have 
 been made. Those annoyances and grievances to 
 which they were subjected might have been avoided ; 
 in the fulness of time they would have undertaken the 
 management of their own affairs without that fee'dng 
 of irritation on the part of both nations which, only 
 now after the lapse of over a hundred years, is 
 gradually dying out; and that noble "Declaration of 
 Independence" which, as Buckle eloquently observes, 
 " ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and 
 blazoned on the porch of every royal palace," would
 
 never have been penned. And as with nations, so 
 with individuals. Every day the telegraph is cilled 
 into use to prevent hasty conclusions from being jumped 
 af, and to remove misunderstandings, which, wi'h all 
 our petty weaknesses, we are only too willing to form 
 regarding each other. 
 
 The only other subject which I wish to mention before 
 concluding is the aid rendered by telegraphy to the 
 diffusion of knowledge. The benefits which have been 
 conferred on the human race by the diffusion of know- 
 ledge are second to none of those which have been 
 already alluded to. To a lack of it the transitory 
 nature of what appears to us now to have been a com- 
 paratively advanced state of civilisation in some of 
 the early nations of Asia and Europe is undoubtedly 
 largely to be attributed. The phys : cal discoveries ; 
 such as they were, which had been made, and the sub- 
 lime teachings of their sages, were known to very few; 
 travelling, as we knowit,was impossible, and the diffusion 
 of knowledge lay in the hands of wandering minstrels, 
 whose garbled statements, transmitted from mouth to 
 mouth, by eventually propagating error and falsehood, 
 did more harm than good. All through the Dark Ages 
 the most abject ignorance prevailed. Neither was there 
 a desire for knowledge, nor even if there had been was 
 there the power to gratify it, for the reasons which I 
 have already given. But side by side almost with 
 that spirit of inquiry which went abroid in the 17th 
 century, grew up a thirst for knowledge, which had to 
 be allayed. To satisfy its demand, there was then 
 established one of the noblest of human institutions 
 the public press which in England and in the English- 
 speaking colonies, has waged many a fierce battle for 
 the popular independence, has done more signal service 
 than all the legislators that have existed since the 
 wcrld began, in bringing to light and stamping out
 
 34 
 
 abuses, which has over raised its voice in the cause 
 of liberty, and has earned for itself a name which* 
 throughout the entire world, tyranny quakes to hear. 
 The simple mention together in the same breath of 
 The Newspaper Press and Telegraphy is of itself suffi- 
 cient to suggest to the minds of all of you the valuable 
 aid which electrical science has thus brought to the 
 cause of civilization. Not only has the press, aided 
 mainly by the telegraph, penetrated into many of the 
 hitherto dark corners of the earth, carrying thither the 
 benefits of diffused knowledge ; but where, previous to 
 the introduction of electric telegraphy, the press had 
 already established a sound footing, a revolution in the 
 principles upon which it is conducted has since bren 
 effected, a' tended with the most beneficial results to 
 human progress. 
 
 Many of the other useful practical applications of elec- 
 tric science I am from lack cf time compelled to pass by 
 unnoticed, each of which in its own way is contributing 
 more or less to the gradual elevation of man. Yet the 
 main service which electric science renders to the 
 cause of civ lisation is in helping to clear from its path 
 the rank undergrowth of superstition and credulity by 
 dispelling the clouds of ignorance which are its main 
 source of nourishment ; in destroying that government 
 by force which has wrought incalculable evils upon our 
 race; and eventual'y substituting in its place a more 
 benignant system whose broad foundations are intel- 
 lectual freedom and mutual forbearance, a system 
 where persecution both mental and physical, \\ ill be 
 alike unknown, and where the mind of man, that " divine 
 inspiration of the Almighty," will finally occupy the 
 exalted position to which even now it is surely 
 although perhaps slcwlj- advancing.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FIFTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY MEETING 
 
 OF THE SUBSCBIBERS TO THE 
 
 ^fricaix public 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 291H APRIL, 1882. 
 
 THEOPHILUS HAHN, Esq., Ph.D., Colonial Philologist, 
 
 IN THE CHAIR. 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S-STREET. 
 1882.
 
 Committt* : 
 
 LANGHAM DALE, Esq., M.A. 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 C. A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esq. 
 H. W. PIERS, Esq. 
 REV. J. CAMERON, B.A., 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. 
 
 F. G. GOODLIFFE, Esq. 
 
 (Treasurer). 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, Esq., LL.D. 
 REV. H. M. FOOT, LL.B. 
 HON. THOS. UPINGTON, M.A. 
 DAVID GILL, Esq., LL.D. 
 
 | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 anb mdarg : 
 F. MASKEW, Esq.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee of Managers of the South African Public 
 Library, in presenting their statement of the last year's pro- 
 ceedings, have in the first place to report with regret that 
 there has been a considerable falling off in the amount of 
 Annual Subscriptions ; this is attributable partly to a want 
 of public interest in an Institution which ought to be looked 
 upon as having peculiar claims on all who are interested in 
 the Educational progress of the Metropolis ; and partly to 
 the death, or departure from the Colony, of many who have 
 for years liberally promoted the interests of the Library. 
 Your Committee would therefore strongly urge upon all 
 those who value the" Institution, the necessity of contributing, 
 by Annual Subscriptions, towards its maintenance, so that 
 the many advantages at present afforded may not only be 
 continued but enlarged from time to time as circumstances 
 permit. 
 
 Your Committee, whilst regretting the inadequate support 
 afforded to the Institution by public Subscriptions, have 
 nevertheless the satisfaction of announcing that Mr. "William 
 Hiddingh has presented the Library with a sum of Two 
 Hundred Pounds Sterling, to be appropriated towards the 
 purchase of Standard Works in the various departments of 
 Literature and Science, and they have much pleasure in 
 stating that some of the works ordered have already arrived^ 
 and many others may be shortly expected. The Committee 
 feel confident that this additional act of generosity on the 
 
 A 2
 
 part of Mr. Hiddingh will be duly appreciated, not by the 
 Subscribers only, but by the public in general. 
 
 In the report of last year Your Committee mentioned 
 that a general catalogue of the books in the Library was 
 then passing through the press ; they have the satisfaction 
 of stating that the new catalogue is completed and is now 
 available for reference and distribution. 
 
 Your Committee have further to report that the custodian 
 of the Grey Collection is engaged in the compilation of the 
 catalogue of the books and manuscripts under his special 
 charge. 
 
 The accession of Books during the past year has been as 
 follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 34 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Govt., &c. ... 21 
 
 Sciences and the Arts... ... ... 80 
 
 Dictionaries, &c 24 
 
 Voyages and Travels 80 
 
 History 57 
 
 Biography ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 Belles Lettres 65 
 
 Miscellaneous... ... ... ... 151 
 
 Included in the above are many valuable works purchased 
 in Cape Town, as well as presentations from His Excellency 
 Sir Hercules Robinson, the Royal, the Astronomical, the 
 Royal Geographical, the Zoological, and the Royal Dublin 
 Societies, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Drs. 
 L. Dale and Th. Hahn, the Hon. J. H. Hofmeyr, M.L.C., 
 and from Messrs. Gamble, Cripps, and D. Haupt, to all of 
 whom the thanks of the public are due. 
 
 During the past year the issue of Books and Periodicals 
 has been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 32 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 62 
 Sciences and the Arts ... ... 172
 
 Voyages and Travels 931 Vols. 
 
 History 545 
 
 Biography 592 
 
 Belles Lettres 656 
 
 Miscellaneous 5,593 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals ... ... 4,580 
 
 In comparing this statement with that of last year it will 
 !>e seen that there has been a slight increase in some depart- 
 ments and a corresponding decrease in others, particularly 
 in that of light literature. 
 
 The number of visitors to the Institution, although not so 
 large as last year, has nevertheless been considerable, 
 amounting to 27,279, making an average of 100 daily, the 
 largest number on one day being 147 and 57 the lowest. 
 
 Your Committee, with a view of extending the usefulness 
 of the Institution, appointed a Sub-Committee to consider 
 whether it would be desirable and practicable to procure 
 additional accommodation for the purpose of a Circulating 
 Library and Reading Room ; the Sub-Committee have 
 made preliminary enquiries and submitted certain plans 
 which have yet to be fully considered, as they involve a 
 large outlay far beyond the means of the Institution. 
 
 Your Committee as an experiment decided to open the 
 Library on Sunday afternoons from 2 to 6 o'clock p.m., and 
 they have to report that this concession has been thoroughly 
 appreciated by the general public ; during this period the 
 number of visitors has ranged from 66 to 122 each afternoon ; 
 but it will be impossible to continue this arrangement 
 without trenching upon the already limited amount available 
 for the introduction of new books. 
 
 Whilst anxious to give the public every possible 
 opportunity of using the valuable works of the Library, 
 Your Committee regret to find themselves confronted by an 
 inadequate and decreasing revenue. The Institution opens 
 its doors freely to all, from morning to evening : and if, as
 
 it appears, the list of Annual Subscribers is not likely to be 
 largely augmented, the incoming Committee must appeal 
 to the Government for a more liberal grant in support of 
 what is really the National Library of South Africa. 
 
 Your Committee have to report that the Chief Librarian, 
 Mr. Maskew, who is now above 60 years of age and has 
 served for a period of 41 years, has applied for a retiring 
 allowance. This application Your Committee forwarded to 
 Government with a recommendation of Mr. Maskew's claims 
 for a pension after so long and faithful a discharge of the 
 duties of the office. 
 
 The contributions to the Grey Collection during the last 
 year are as follows : 
 
 Triibner and Co. A Catalogue of leading Books on Egypt 
 
 and Egyptology, and on Assyria and Assyriology. 
 
 London 1881. 8vo. 
 Uhle, Dr. Max. Beitriige zur Grammatik des vorclassis- 
 
 chen Chinesisch. Leipzig, 1880. 8vo. Presented by 
 
 Ch. Fail-bridge, Esq. 
 Sircar (Shama Churn), Introduction to the Bengalee 
 
 Language. Calcutta, 1861. 8vo. Pres. by the Rev. J. 
 
 Lynch. 
 Tract in Bengalee. Teacher and Co., Bombay, Bicualla 
 
 and Poona. Pres. by Eev. J. Lynch. 
 Dictionary of the Bengalee Language. Vol. II. English and 
 
 Bengalee, 4th ed. Serampore, 1867. 8vo. Pres. by Rev. 
 
 J. Lynch. 
 Majundara's Series. Dictionary, Bengalee and English, for 
 
 the use of Schools. Calcutta, 1877. Pres. by Rev. 
 
 J. Lynch. 
 Bonar (Horatius). The Gospel in Santhalistan. By an old 
 
 Indian. London, 1875. 8vo. Pres. by F. Maskew, Esq. 
 St. 'Martin's Mission, Transkei, South Africa, for quarter 
 
 ending March 31st, 1881. 8vo. From the Bishop of 
 
 Natal
 
 Umzimba Ozwayo, etc. Davis and Sons, Maritzburg and 
 
 Durban, 1881. 8vo. Pres. by the Bishop of Natal. 
 Inncwadi yezindaba, etc. Davis and Sons, Maritzburg and 
 
 Durban, 1881. 8vo. Pres. by the Bishop of Natal. 
 Izinncwadi Zika' Samuele, etc. 2nd ed. Davis and Sons, 
 
 Maritzburg and Durban, 18S1. 8vo. Pres. by the 
 
 Bishop of Natal. 
 Petzholdt (Dr. Julius). Katechismus derBibliothekenlehre. 
 
 Anleitung zur Einrichtung und Verwaltung von 
 
 Bibliotheken. Leipzig, 1877. 8vo. By Dr. Th. Halm- 
 Tsuni-llgoam, the Supreme Being of the Khoikhoi. By 
 
 Th. Hahu. MS Foolscap by the author. 
 Dale (Langham, M.A., LL.D.) The Philosophy of 
 
 Method. Cape Town, 1877. 8vo. Pres. by the author. 
 Public Libraries in the United States of America. 
 
 I. Washington, 1876. 8vo. Pres. by Dr. Langham 
 
 Dale. 
 Special Report on Libraries in the United States. Part II. 
 
 Washington, 1876. 8vo. Pres. by Dr. T. Dale. 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, transl into Herero by H. Brincker. 
 
 Berlin, 1873. Pres. by Mr. L. Kleinschmidt. 
 Omahonge ookuleza Otyiherero II. Guetersloh, West- 
 phalia, 1879. Pres. by Mr. Ludw. Kleinschmidt. 
 (Nai jkeiti Ineisa tsi lasa testamens diti. The Calwer Bible 
 
 History. By G. Kronlein. Pres. by Mr. L. Klein- 
 schmidt. 
 Gill (Rev. W. Wyatt). Historical Sketches of Savage 
 
 Life in Polynesia. Wellington, 1880. 8vo. Presented 
 
 by Sir George Grey, K.C.B. 
 The University of the Cape of Good Hope. Degree Day, 
 
 7th Dec., 1887. The Vice-Chancellor's Address. Pres. 
 
 by the author. Cape Town, 1881. 
 
 Isigidimi Sama-Xosa. Vol. XII. Pres. by Dr. Stewart. 
 Trubner's American, etc., Literary Record. New Series. 
 
 Vol. II. 
 J ulius Jolly. Die juristischen Abschnitte a us dem Gesetzbuch 
 
 Manu. Pres. by the Anther.
 
 Rev. R. Hunt. The Universal Syllabic Gospel. 8vo. London 
 
 1873. Pres. by Capt. W. Sampson. 
 Autograph Letter of John Bright, dated Feb. 19, 1875 
 
 Reform Club. Pres. by Mrs. E.van Reenen nee Heugh- 
 Miss A. Buckland. Surgery and Superstition in Neolithic 
 
 Times. Pres. by Dr. Langham Dale. 
 Autographs of Luther, Melanchton, Goethe and Schiller 
 
 (fac-simile). Pres. by Mr. W. Kaupert. 
 Heinrich Lossow. Gotterdecameron. Pres. by Dr. Theoph- 
 
 Hahn. 
 The Gospel of St. Mark in the Murray Island Dialect. 
 
 Sydney, 1879. 8vo. Pres. by a friend. 
 Les delmts de 1'Humanite. By Abel Hovelacque. Pres. by 
 
 the author. 
 Abstracts of the Debates, etc., of the Council of Policy at 
 
 the Cape. By George M'Coll Theal. 
 Reineke Fuchs of Goethe, with Kaulbach's illustrations. 
 
 Pres. by Dr. Theoph. Hahn. 
 Tsuni-Hgoam, the Supreme Being of the Khoikhoi. By 
 
 Theoph. Hahn. Pres. by the author. 
 Several Essays : (1) What is articulation ? (2) On Prof. R. 
 
 Lepsin's Nubische Grammatik. (3) On the relation of 
 
 Surd and Sonant. (4) The Principle of Economy, as a 
 
 Phonetic Force. By W.D.Whitney. Pres. by the author. 
 Gerland (Georg) Die Hollander und Englander in 
 
 Siidafrika. Pres. by the author. 
 Also : Das Aussterben der Eingeborenen Australiens. Lor. 
 
 Diefenbach's Volkerkunde Osteuropas. Drei ethnol. 
 
 Publicationenaus und liber Australien. Bericht iiberdie 
 
 ethnol. Forschung. All written and presented by 
 
 Dr. Georg Gerland. 
 Some Suggestions for an Improved Kafir Orthography. By 
 
 the Right Rev. Bishop of St. John. 1879. From the 
 
 author. 
 Whitney, W. D. On Inconsistency in Views of Language. 
 
 From the author. 
 Sketches in Indian Ink, representing the Cape Hottentots
 
 in their Domestic, etc., Life, in the time of Governor 
 Simon van der Stell. Pres. by Chas. A. Fairbridge, 
 Esq. 
 
 Henry Kartell's Insularinm Illustratum (fac-simile). Pre- 
 sented by Chas. A. Fairbridge, Esq. 
 
 A Map of the World by Giacomo Cosmographo. Venetia, 
 1546. By Charles Aiken Fairbridge, Esq. 
 
 Two Photographs of a Kora Hottentot by the name of 
 Boezak. By York, Esq. 
 
 The number of visitors during the year (i. e. 11 months)* 
 according to record kept, has been 1,947. 
 
 The correspondence with scientific men in Europe and 
 America, and with Missionaries in various parts of the world, 
 manifests a great interest in, and appreciation of, the valuable 
 treasures in the Grey Collection. It is very satisfactory to 
 report a general increasing interest in this section of the 
 Public Library. 
 
 The Treasurer's statement will now be submitted, showing 
 the income and expenditure during the past year.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee of Management of the South African 
 Public Library has conferred upon me the honour of taking 
 the chair at its fifty-third annual meeting, and in accordance 
 with the traditions of this Institution, of addressing you on 
 some scientific or literary subject. 
 
 Although born under the English flag, my lot in early 
 life unfortunately did not put me in the position of enjoying 
 the literary treasures which during six centuries had been 
 accumulated by your poets, historians and philosophers. 
 When far away from my native land, I became acquainted 
 with the English language and literature, in that country 
 where your Beowulf, Shakespeare and Byron found their 
 greatest and most eloquent interpreters, their most com- 
 petent translators and their most enthusiastic admirers. 
 
 In Germany I had learnt to understand English and to 
 enjoy an English book ; but it is still a great step from 
 reading to writing a language. And when eleven years ago 
 I came back to my native shores, I at once proceeded to 
 the Translgaripian territories, where, during my seven years 
 of wanderings, I never had an opportunity of cultivating 
 English conversation and style. And it is only since my 
 return from there, four years ago, that I have been able to 
 devote myself to a more careful practice of the English 
 idiom. 
 
 But I had experience enough of the English character to 
 know that the difficulties arising from my imperfect know-
 
 12 
 
 ledge of the language would be balanced by your generous 
 forbearance, and at the same^ime I thought it most oppor- 
 tune to speak to you on a branch of Science which I have 
 been appointed to cultivate in South Africa, especially as 
 my first year's experience in the Grey Library had taught 
 me that the conceptions of " Language audits Study" prevail- 
 ing in this Colony were still very crude and embryonic. I felt 
 assured that this science deserved a greater share of our 
 sympathy than it had hitherto received. 
 
 These were the reasons which prompted me to accept the 
 call of your Committee. 
 
 The realm of the Science of Language, however, is so 
 extensive, that I shall hardly be able, in the narrow compass 
 of one hour, .to give more than a very superficial outline of 
 its history, principles and results, and a short comment on 
 the question of language with regard to our colonial 
 intellectual and literary life. 
 
 I shall therefore proceed to address you " On the Science 
 of Language and its Study, with special regard to South 
 Africa." 
 
 It is a curious fact that people have a very fair insight 
 into the structure and nature of things surrounding them, 
 but know little or nothing of themselves. 
 
 We can explain the changes of the moon and its eclipses, 
 we can classify animals or plants, AVC can analyse minerals 
 and can fortell the changes of the weather, but very rarely 
 do we meet a person who is able to give us a fair description 
 of the functions of his own body, or of those organs which 
 alone enable us to communicate with the world without, and 
 make us really worthy of the name men, i.e. thinkers, by 
 which our ancestors called themselves, when first they 
 awoke to self-consciousness I mean the organs of speech. 
 
 And still further the greatest and most unwarrantable 
 misconceptions prevail with regard to language itself and 
 its nature. 
 
 There seems to be a horror, an innate prejudice, against
 
 13 
 
 a deep study of language, and I believe I can account 
 for it. 
 
 Many a one thinks of the days whenfypfo, typteis,typtomcn, 
 and, especially, typtomai and typtometha, were practically 
 demonstrated to him by his schoolmaster, and when amo 
 and amabo or amor and amabor were empty and Utopian 
 sounds. 
 
 And yet everybody thinks he has a right to talk about 
 language, and considers it an easy thing to discuss the most 
 difficult problems of language and its origin. 
 
 The Science of Language is a child of the nineteenth 
 century ; it is a production of the cosmopolitan genius of 
 our times. In ancient Greece, whose masterpieces in Art 
 and Literature will serve for ever as standards of intellec- 
 tual culture and taste, this science was unknown ; the Hel- 
 lenic spirit lacked all sense and understanding of ethnology 
 and comparative psychology (Volkerkunde). They under- 
 stood nothing which was not essentially Greek. All other 
 nations were either barbaroi, barbarophonoi, or allothrooi. 
 The language of the Persians for instance was compared 
 to the twittering of birds. Herodotus and ^Eschylus 
 speak with contempt of the Persians, their own Indo-Ger- 
 manic kith and kin. The Romans, copying the Greeks, 
 spoke of all other nations as barbarians and brutes. They 
 very little dreamt that the descendants of those very gladia- 
 tors, who were butchered for the amusement and expired 
 under the deafening applause of a Roman mob, would be 
 the ablest and most ingenious commentators on the Lan- 
 guage of Latium. 
 
 The Jews were not a bit better. They divided all man- 
 kind into two sections : the first, formed by themselves, the 
 worshippers of Jahveh ; all the rest were Gojim. 
 
 The Indians called all nations of the world Mletshtshas, 
 i.e. Stammerers, and the ancestors of the present Parsis knew 
 only the worshippers of Ahuramazdao, and the worshippers 
 of the evil spirits.
 
 "What would' we not give, if Caesar or sonic other educated 
 Roman had taken down from the lips of German or British 
 or Gallic gladiators the stories of their gods and heroes, or 
 if Ovid, while living in banishment, had preserved us some 
 Gothic mythology ? And we, if we neglect to do such work, 
 with regard to the natives of South Africa, show the 
 same narrowmindedness of which we accuse the ancient 
 nations. 
 
 The Christian doctrine of equality broke the spell which 
 hitherto had made outcasts of other nations, and the spread 
 of the Gospel demanded a study of the languages of those 
 nations to which the Holy Scriptures were carried. 
 Hieronymusand Augustine knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew. 
 And no sooner had Christoforo Colombo and Vasco da 
 Gamathrown new w r orlds open to the commercial enterprise of 
 Europe than Roman Catholic missionaries, especially of the 
 order of the Jesuits, folloAved the steps of the traders, and 
 gave us learned works on the customs, manners, religions 
 and languages of Japan, China, Africa and America, works 
 which even now call forth our admiration, and from which we 
 humbly have to learn that, with regard to our own continent, 
 the course of the Zambesi, the position of lake Ukerewe 
 with its islands, of lake Mwutan, and of the mighty 
 Congo River, w T ere two and three hundred years ago esta- 
 blished geographical facts, and that Livingstone, Cameron, 
 Stanley and Elton have only rediscovered what the 18th 
 century had forgotten. 
 
 The names of Athanasius Kircher, Eduardo Lopez, 
 Father Paez, Cavazzi,and Hervas, will live in the History of 
 the Science of Language, Ethnology, and Geography, of our 
 Continent. Hervas claims the honour of having first 
 pointed out that Language relationship is based on gramma- 
 tical structure, and not on mere word similarity. He also 
 established the fact that the so-called Malayo-Polynesian 
 languages, extending from Madagascar to the Easter Island 
 in the Pacific, claim one parentage, and Wilhelm von Hum-
 
 boldt merely repeated it. And if we mention Hervas wo 
 should not forget the Empress Catherine of Russia, the 
 great German philosopher Leibniz, and his friend AVitsen, 
 the Burgomaster of Amsterdam, at whose instigation the 
 first specimens of the Hottentot language were written down 
 by "Wreede and Greevenbroek at the Cape, in the times of 
 Governor van der Stell. (1691). 
 
 But, however much we may admire the arduous labour, 
 the zeal and the energy of those persons who made language 
 the study of their life, we cannot speak of a Science of 
 Language yet, because the workers in that field had no 
 method. 
 
 It was not until the year 1808, in which Fred. Schlegel 
 published his work on The Language and Wisdom of the 
 Indians, that the veil hanging over the eyes of philologists 
 was torn to pieces, a work which, according to Max Miiller, 
 was like the wand of the magician : " It pointed out a place 
 where a mine should be opened." And the miner who 
 blasted the rock and produced the first ore was Francis 
 Bopp, a native of Mayence. 
 
 Here I must digress a little and lead you away to India. 
 In 1600 the so-called East India Company was established 
 by a body of London merchants. A second Company was 
 formed 98 years later, and after some vexatious rivalry, in 
 1708 both combined under the name of the United East 
 India Company. Their increasing wealth and power drew 
 the attention of the Home Government, who tried to 
 appropriate to themselves a part of the power and property 
 of this illustrious Company. These and other circumstances 
 brought about the publication of the so-called Code of 
 Gentoo Law, a collection of Native Laws, in 1776, by order 
 of Warren Hastings, the then Governor of India. 
 
 I may mention that we have commenced a similar work, 
 which will undoubtedly, if scientifically and methodically 
 executed, have the beneficial effect of making the natives of 
 British South Africa more reconciled to our rule.
 
 16 
 
 In the preface to this Code of Gcntou Lair, Halhed, a 
 Dane, gave the first full account of Sanscrit, the sacred 
 language of India, in which the Vedas and other books 
 were written. Sir William Jones, who was appointed Chief 
 Justice of Calcutta, laid the foundation of the Asiatic 
 Society in 1784. His attention was drawn to the article 
 on Sanscrit in the Code of Gentoo Law, and he at once 
 took earnestly and successfully to the study of the sacred 
 language and literature of the Brahmins. Another pupil 
 of the priests was the merchant James Wilkins, who 
 translated a part of the epic poem Mahabaratta, and, later 
 on, the Hitopadesa. Both Wilkins and Jones, especially 
 the latter, were struck with the wonderful identity of 
 grammatical structure in Sanscrit and the classical 
 languages. In 1789 the first Latin Translation of 
 Kalidasa's Sakuntala was published by Jones, and, shortly 
 before his death in 1794, the Law Book or Code of Manu. 
 His beautiful and rare collection of Sanscrit manuscripts 
 passed into the hands of Henry Thomas Colebrooke, then 
 British Resident at Berar, This scholar issued many 
 valuable editions of Sanscrit literature, texts as well as 
 grammars and dictionaries. 
 
 Thus to enlightened Englishmen is due the honour of 
 having introduced and facilitated to European scholars the 
 .study of the Sanscrit language. 
 
 Without these helps and preparations Fred. Schlegel 
 would never have been able to write his famous book on 
 The Language and Wisdom of the Indians, and though a 
 German scholar, he could not but attribute to Sir William 
 Jones the priority of the ideas expounded in his Avork, 
 August Wilhelm Schlegel and Lassen followed in revealing 
 the wonderful mysteries of Indian literature, until Francis 
 Bopp in 1816 gave us the first outline sketch of an Indo- 
 Gcrmanic Grammar, the precursor of his masterpiece, the 
 Comparative Grammar of Sanscrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, 
 Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonian and German.
 
 17 
 
 Next to him must be mentioned Wilhelm von Humboldt, 
 the brother of the great naturalist, Alexander von Hum- 
 boldt. He laid the foundation of the "Philosophy of 
 Language " in the introduction to his great work on the 
 Kawi Language. 
 
 And the ring of the founders of Comparative Philology 
 would be incomplete were we to omit August Frederick 
 Pott, whose Etymological Researches appeared first in 
 1833 and 1836, and have seen since a second and con- 
 siderably enlarged edition. As we turn over the leaves of 
 this truly gigantic work, we find difficulty in believing that 
 one mortal alone could have written it ; and I suppose, if we 
 were to live another two hundred years, some clever and 
 ingenious philologist will tell the world that these 
 Etymological Researches were the work of different authors, 
 and that Pott is but a collective name for the various con- 
 tributors. 
 
 Bopp and Pott's method was successfully applied to the 
 Teutonic tongues, in a truly grand and colossal work, the 
 Deutsche Grammatik, by Jacob Grimm. He is at the same 
 time the discoverer of the Law of Consonantal Change, 
 called after him Grimm's Law. 
 
 On the method and principles laid down by these men, 
 is based the Classification of the Languages of Mankind. 
 Let us pause for a moment to learn something about the 
 principles of this method. 
 
 What is language, we ask ? How easily the question is 
 put, but how difficult to answer it. 
 
 Language is a creation of society, or, better, of a com- 
 munity. It is the touchstone of the perceptive power of 
 the community by which it is spoken, and it contains the 
 intellectual characteristics and mental peculiarities of that 
 community. It is the mirror which reflects the picture and 
 impression made by the outer world on man's soul, and it 
 is the medium by which the mind communicates its inner 
 life to the outer world. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 Under the same conditions, the outer world will make on 
 any community the same impression, and the language of 
 that community will reflect this impression in a way which 
 corresponds to the general impression made on the mind of 
 the community. 
 
 Now 11 languages, even the unwritten idioms of savages, 
 consist of grammar and words. A community, to make 
 itself understood, that is, to communicate its impressions of 
 the outer world, uses these words not in an arbitrary and 
 capricious manner, but arranging them into sentences 
 according to certain la\vs and principles. This arrange- 
 ment constitutes what we call grammar. Words uttered 
 without being pressed into the mould of grammar are 
 empty sounds without reason. 
 
 The articulate sounds, of which words consist, are 
 changeable. Dialects belonging to the same parentage 
 have laws of phonetic change of their own, which do not 
 apply to dialects of another stock. 
 
 Grammar, however, that is, the mode in which the mind 
 expresses the impressions of the oiiter world, remains un- 
 changed. 
 
 In order, therefore, to compare two languages and to fix 
 the degree of their affinity, u~e can only be guided ly the 
 result of grammatical i.e. striictural comparison. Conse- 
 quently, nothing is more deceptive than superficial word 
 comparison. 
 
 The dialects of savages I only refer to the Bushman 
 dialects of our own continent, to the dialects of the Indians 
 of America and the Aborigines of Australia are submitted 
 to a continual change. If they hardly allow word com- 
 parisons among themselves, we cannot claim for them 
 relationship Avith the dialects of communities divided from 
 times immemorial by the vast ocean, on account of super- 
 ficial and accidental verbal similarities. According to such 
 a mode of comparison there* would be no difficulty of 
 proving a primeval relationship of all languages.
 
 19 
 
 But you will say, " Did you not tell us just now that 
 Professor Pott has become famous through his Etymological 
 Researches ?" Quite right, and I could add the names of 
 Kuhn, Curtius, Grimm, Delbriick, Fick and many more. 
 Therefore to prevent the conception that Etymology is to 
 be rejected, I must add a few remarks on this point. 
 
 There is a real Science of Etymology, but it finds its 
 application in Comparative Philology, after grammatical 
 relationship has been established, and then only. Etymology 
 cannot be regarded as a science unless it is based entirely 
 on sound phonological research. Both Phonology and 
 Etymology are instruments of the Science of Language and 
 Comparative Philology, but they are not themselves Com- 
 parative Philology. 
 
 The laws of Etymology can only be established by the 
 medium of Phonology, and unless every jot and tittle is 
 conscientiously observed the laws of Etymology are of no 
 avail. The laws of phonetic change are the only guide in 
 the comparison of words and forms, and without these laws 
 it is simply impossible to reason scientifically on the common 
 origin and history of words. It is on the strength of 
 phonetic laws once established that, in various dialects, words 
 which had not one single letter in common,, were with 
 mathematical exactness reconstructed and traced back to the 
 same root. Beyond roots we cannot go, any more than the 
 biologist can go beyond the protoplasma of organic life. 
 
 Grammatical structure, i.e. the conception which a 
 community has of the sentence formed by language and 
 the arrangement of the component parts of the sentence, is 
 the supreme criterion for the relationship of two idioms ; 
 without this criterion we cannot go a step further. But, at 
 the same time, if words and forms put under the phonetic 
 and etymological microscope do not show any substantial 
 relationship, the strongest evidence of structural similarity 
 will never entitle us to vindicate for two languages a common 
 parentage. 
 
 n 2
 
 20 
 
 The modern Science of Language, like all inductive 
 sciences, viz., Biology, Comparative Anatomy, etc., is based 
 on accurate knowledge. The comparative method requires 
 for its operations historically proved and scientifically tested 
 facts. And it cannot do otherwise. A fact, is something 
 accurate t something of which the quantity is clearly circum- 
 scribed and defined, and the quality and ingredient parts 
 minutely analyzed. Moreover, the cause and effect and the 
 relation of a fact to other facts, and the numerous agencies 
 based on eternal, unchangeable laws, which produce as the 
 end-result a new fact from the combination of already 
 established facts, must be clear and transparent. Only 
 by means of facts are we in the position to draw conclusions 
 which lead to scientific results. And if the comparative 
 and inductive method is worth anything, if it has led to 
 scientific results in one branch of human knowledge, AVC are 
 justified in expecting that it will lead to results in Com- 
 parative Philology. This science, however, deals with the 
 morphological or formal conditions of language ; everything 
 that is formal is the result of rational combination. 
 
 Scientific method and investigation are strictly against 
 spinning theories in accordance with our wishes or fancies. 
 It is not unusual for scientific investigation to tear to pieces 
 our pet theories, and tell us truths which are not very 
 palatable. The history of culture and civilization and the 
 annals recording the progress of science in the 19th century 
 prove this in a thousand instances. Thus it is in Com- 
 parative Philology. The principles and method of com- 
 parison for all languages are alike. There is and I must 
 repeat it again only one standard by which we can measure 
 all languages, and that standard is grammatical structure. 
 We cannot, without being justly accused of want of method, 
 apply this standard in one- case, and in the next, when we 
 find this mode of comparison not agreeing with what we 
 wish the result to be, apply superficial word comparisons, 
 based on doubtful phonetic resemblances. Phonetic com-
 
 24 
 
 parison can only then be admitted when relationship and 
 coincidence of grammatical structure have been proved. 
 
 I spoke of Phonology and Etymology, and I take this 
 opportunity of remarking that all those who work in the 
 field of South African Languages should apply a uniform 
 phonetic alphabet, say for instance the Standard Alphabet 
 of Professor Lepsius, in a modified form. Travellers and 
 missionaries especially, if they wish to serve the cause of 
 South African Philology, should be well acquainted with 
 the principles of Phonology before they venture to write 
 down texts in the languages of savages. No missionary 
 should be sent to the heathen without having acquired as 
 thorough a knowledge of phonetics as he has of the Gospel ; 
 and he should be taught to respect every accent, every 
 consonant, in fact every jot and tittle in any, even the most 
 barbarous, dialect he may hereafter have to analyse. Here I 
 sincerely regret to say that much of what has been published 
 in the native literature of South Africa, especially in the 
 Bantu languages,offers but small help to scientific Etymology, 
 on account of the orthography, I might rather say, 
 Kakography. The clicks and their relation to the con- 
 sonants and vowels are very unsatisfactorily expressed. 
 They seem to puzzle people, and yet their origin, nature 
 and physiology can be as easily and clearly described 
 as that of any consonant. In fact the clicks group with the 
 consonants, they are produced by the same organs, lips, 
 tongue, teeth, gum, etc., as the consonants. And surely if 
 the IlKhosa or Zulu language were really phonetically 
 written, there would be no difficulty in showing as regards 
 the greater number of words containing clicks, especially in 
 IlKhosa, that they are importations from the Hottentot, 
 especially the Khoikhoi. And being thus able to trace 
 the true etymology of Kafir words, we should be able to read 
 the past history of battles and friendly intercourse between 
 the Khoikhoi and IlKhosa, as well as if it were handed down 
 to us in written records.
 
 22 
 
 It is therefore an urgent want for us here in South 
 Africa that a Standard Orthography for the Native 
 Languages should be introduced in all official, educational 
 and public departments. The task is not as difficult as it 
 may appear at first sight. I hope that, for instance, our 
 land surveyors in their future examinations will have to 
 show a thorough efficiency in the application of a phonetic 
 alphabet, when mapping native territories. At present 
 much confusion is caused simply by employing different 
 modes of spelling the same name. 
 
 Taking up again the thread of our discourse on the 
 principles of comparative philology, we saw that grammatical 
 structure formed the standard of language affinity. 
 Languages accordingly are classified, into 
 
 1. Isolating languages, 
 
 2. Agglutinating languages, 
 
 3. Inflecting languages. 
 
 This mode of classification is called the morphological 
 classification. We shall afterwards have to say something 
 on the genealogical classification. 
 
 Of all groups of languages, the isolating class presents 
 the simplest form. There are no word classes, such as 
 substantive, adjective, numeral, preposition or postposition 
 and adverb ; nor are time, mood, person, gender or number 
 formally expressed by suffix, prefix or infix. Accordingly 
 there can be no declensions, no conjugations, no degrees of 
 comparison as we have them in the second, and still more 
 in the third class of languages. 
 
 The root in the isolating class remains unchanged. Ta 
 in Chinese may mean great, greatness, greatly ; Pi again 
 equal, equality, to be equal, equally. And it is solely by the 
 position of the root in the sentence that its class nature is 
 ascertained. And still this class of languages is not less 
 fit for literary purposes than our Indo-European languages, 
 which belong to the third stage. The rich Chinese literature
 
 23 
 
 proves that every shade of thought has been expressed by 
 their philosophers and great thinkers. 
 
 The Annamese, Siamese, Burmese and Tibetan languages 
 belong to this stage. 
 
 I may at once mention that all languages belonging to the 
 second and third stage once passed through this monosyllabic 
 or isolating stage. Our own Indo-Germanic languages with 
 their complicated inflections show unmistakable traces of a 
 monosyllabic origin. 
 
 And, again, the second class, of which we shall directly 
 give an illustration, has been the channel through which our 
 own language had to pass to its present development. Thus 
 in language, as in all other organic growths, we see the work- 
 ing of the principle of evolution. 
 
 If we mark the root Avith R, we may express the morpho- 
 logical composition of this first stage by the formula R + R 
 + R, etc. 
 
 Next, we have the agglutinative languages, which attach 
 or glue to the bare root particles at the beginning or at the 
 end or in the middle, or beginning and end, etc., etc., and are 
 called accordingly prefix, suffix, infix, etc., languages. The 
 root remains entirely unchangeable, and these particles, 
 generally, not always, of a pronominal nature, modify the 
 meaning of the root. Thus in Hottentot we have KHOI as 
 root of the word man ; Kkoi-b man, Khoi-s woman, Khoi-gn 
 men, K/wi-ti women, K/ioi-si (adj.) or Khoi-x& humane, 
 friendly, Khoi-xa-se (adv.) friendly, JT/toHsi-ga-gu to marry 
 each other, verbally to be towards each other friends. \A U 
 to flow, \au-b blood, i.e. that which flows, \au--^a, bloody. 
 From these specimens we infer that the Hottentot is a suffix 
 language. And from the specimens in Bantu we shall learn 
 that the latter is a prefix language. 
 
 Herero : Sing, omu-ndu man, plur. ova-ndu ; sing, c-yuru 
 heaven, plur. oma-yuru. 
 
 Tsuana : Sing, lo-m cloud, plur. ma-ru ; sing, se-fuba 
 breast, plur. li-fuba.
 
 24 
 
 Ilcrcro : zcpa to kill, ri-zepa Reflex. 
 
 Tsuana : bona to see, i-pona Reflex. 
 
 Kafir : tanda to love, zi-tanda Reflex. 
 
 These prefixes are all of a pronominal nature, while the 
 suffixes in Bantu are of a nominal origin. 
 
 Khosa : in-taka bird, in-tak-ana little bird, um-fo man^ 
 um-f-ana little man, youth. Or tcta, IlKhosa to speak, forms 
 the following derivatives : tet-ela Relat., tet-isa Causat., 
 tet-eka Rel. Caus. 
 
 In this agglutinative group we first meet with the 
 various categories of words, such as substantives, adjectives, 
 numerals, prepositions or postpositions, adverbs and conjunc- 
 tions. 
 
 Here we first have derivatives in the true sense of the 
 word, also the embryonic germs of declension and conjuga- 
 tion, though not in the full sense of the inflecting languages ; 
 and therefore these terms should be used with reserve- 
 Mood and tense are well developed, and generally, for 
 instance in Turkish and Hottentot, surpass in this respect 
 anything known in the next fullgrown Indo-Germanic 
 tongues, such as Sanscrit, Greek or Lithuanian. 
 
 Suppose we mark the root again with R, and the various 
 particles, which are prefixed, suffixed or infixed with p, s, i, 
 we get for the agglutinative or agglomerating stage the 
 following formulas : 1. pR ; 2. Rs ; 3. R ; 4. pR ; 5. Rs, 
 6. pRs. etc., Thus we see that two characteristic facts distin- 
 guish the agglutinating from the isolating class. 
 
 In the former the word is no longer composed from the 
 root alone, but is formed by the union of several roots. In 
 the second place, one only of these roots thus agglomerated 
 retains its real value ; in the others the individual meaning 
 becomes obscured and passes into the second rank. The 
 primary root being thus retained in its primitive form, the 
 others lose their independence, and fall into their place 
 side by side ot each other. These pi'efixes and suffixes are 
 loosely connected, so that they may be easily removed with-
 
 25 
 
 out impairing the original meaning of the root. The fissures 
 are still clearly to be seen where they are connected with 
 the root. And this exactly is called Agglutination. 
 
 The tongues belonging to this class are the most numerous 
 on the earth. All the languages of Africa, the Egyptian 
 and its kindred, the Hamitic excepted, the Malayo-Poly- 
 nesian, the languages of Australia and America, the Ural- 
 Altaic or Finnish-Tataric, and the Dravidian or Dekhan, not 
 to forget the Basque in Spain, are reckoned in this class. 
 
 But it must be distinctly understood that they are not 
 genealogically related, and that this classification is entirely 
 based on their formal or anatomical appearance. 
 
 It will therefore be necessary here to say something on 
 the so-called Turanian theory of Professor Max Miiller. 
 
 A certain venerable old patriarch in Central Asia is sup- 
 posed to have given birth to a race, whose idiom became 
 the common language of the so-called Turanian tribes. 
 Professor Max Mtiller is the godfather of this theory, which 
 is now represented by three different schools, each with some 
 amendment to it. 
 
 The first school holds that all languages, with the ex- 
 ception of Indo-Germanic, Semitic and Hamitic, form this 
 Turanian group. Thus they not only claim for this family 
 all the abovementioned agglutinative tongues of mankind, 
 but also the monosyllabic or isolating languages of the first 
 class. 
 
 The second school confines the name to the Ural o- Altaic, 
 Dravidian, Malayo-Polynesian, Tibetan and Siamese, leav- 
 ing out other very important agglutinative tongues, such 
 as the Nuba, Bantu, Central and West African Negro 
 languages, Hottentot, Japanese, etc., and dragging in the 
 Siamese and Thai, belonging to the isolating class. 
 
 The third school, for the same or other reasons, does not 
 like to do away with the name altogether, although they feel 
 the mischief it has in its train, and apply it now entirely 
 to the Uralo-Altaic family.
 
 26 
 
 The greater part of these pretended Turanian languages 
 have only this one point in common, that they are aggluti- 
 nating. But their mode of agglutinating and the phonetic 
 composition of their roots defy every effort to prove them 
 genealogically related. Professors Pott, Schleicher and 
 Whitney have very successfully refuted the Turanian 
 theory, and we may consider the question a settled one. 
 
 Let us now proceed to inspect the third stage of language 
 development, the Inflecting Stage. At the outset we have 
 to answer the question, " What is Inflection 3 " 
 
 First : The roots of inflected languages have this 
 peculiarity, that the various modifications of the root are not 
 only expressed by suffix and prefix, but by phonetic change ; 
 thus we have sing, sang, sung; think, thought ; man, men ; 
 goose, geese ; leipo, leloipa ; fangen, fing ; cano, cecini ; 
 pario, peperi, etc. 
 
 Secondly : The root so grows together with a second 
 root, or with a formal element (suffix or prefix), that no 
 fissure can be seen, and that neither root nor formal part, if 
 cut off from each other, has any meaning. In short Root 
 and Affix amalgamate into a new organism. Sometimes the 
 root, as we have seen in the agglutinative languages, re- 
 mains unchanged. 
 
 If we now represent this power of phonetic change in the 
 root, by the index x, we get for the inflecting stage the 
 following formulas : R*, R*s, R*ss, R*sss, etc., p R*> 
 etc., and pR*s. 
 
 The inflecting languages are represented by two large 
 families : 
 
 1 . The so-called Aryan or Indo-Germanic Languages, and 
 
 2. The Semitic Tongues, amongst which some count the 
 Hamitic or North-East African Languages. 
 
 Be it enough to state that the methods of inflecting in these 
 three families vary so much from each other, that all 
 attempts to bring them under one genealogical heading have 
 hitherto proved abortive.
 
 27 
 
 Schleicher and Whitney have most carefully analysed 
 these differences, but it would lead us too far, in our limited 
 time, to discuss their analysis. 
 
 I have repeatedly mentioned the term "genealogical 
 classification/' and shall have briefly to say something about 
 it. 
 
 Languages may group morphologically together with- 
 out belonging to the same genealogical class. But lan- 
 guages cannot be genealogically related, without belonging 
 to the same morphological group. The genealogical classifi- 
 cation has been hitherto applied only to the Lido-Germanic, 
 Semitic and Hamitic languages. In all other languages it 
 has not yet been undertaken, though here and there some 
 feeble attempts have been made, viz., with the Bantu and 
 Polynesian. 
 
 The genealogical classification is mainly based on the 
 real substance of a language, it has to do with its Grammar 
 and Dictionary, and besides grammatical structure compares 
 the roots of words. Its main instrument is Etymology : but 
 as I said before, Etymology is only a secondary element in 
 Comparative Philology, and can then only be applied when 
 Grammatical and Morphological relationship has been esta- 
 blished. 
 
 Thus morphologically Hottentot (Khoikhoi and Sa 
 [Bushman]) and Bantu (Tsuana, HKhosa, Zulu, Herero,. 
 Mbo) are agglutinative languages, but, comparing them 
 again grammatically, the one is exclusively suffixing, and all 
 the suffixes show the same root, being of a pronominal 
 nature, while the latter is prefix-suffixing, the prefix being- 
 the main characteristic. The prefixes in Bantu show 
 among themselves the same origin, and are also of a prono- 
 minal nature. Derivatives in Hottentot are formed by 
 pronominal suffixes, but in Bantu by nominal elements, now 
 for the most part worn down to particles, which are suffixed, 
 viz. : 
 
 Moreover, Sa and Khoihhoi have this peculiarity, that all
 
 28 
 
 roots are monosyllabic and end in a vowel ( Anslaut vocalisch;, 
 viz., khoi, a, \gu, yai, i, etc.), while in Bantu the roots as a 
 rule are not monosyllabic, and though ending in a vowel, this 
 vowel always is an a, thus we have rata, herara, tona, kora, 
 etc. 
 
 But I must reserve a detailed examination of the lan- 
 guages of South Africa for another occasion. I shall now 
 proceed to show what the study of Comparative Philology 
 has done to unveil to us the primeval history of our own 
 ancestors. I said that language is the telescope with which 
 we can look into the very daw r n of man's life. Let us turn 
 over the leaves of Pictet's Origines Indo-Europecnnes, of 
 Pott's Etymological Researches and Fick's Comparative Dic- 
 tionary of the Lido-Germanic Languages, and we shall be 
 able to draw a fair picture of the social condition and daily 
 life of our ancestors, before they left their primitive home, 
 and migrated to the South, North, East and West. 
 
 The primitive Aryans lived in a country well watered, 
 mountainous and very rugged. The mountains were in the 
 winter capped with snow, their slopes covered with 
 thick forests in which oaks formed a prominent feature. 
 The forests offered cool shade to the hunter and traveller, 
 for in summer, again, it could be very hot. For travelling 
 purposes, boats as well as other vehicles were used. But 
 travelling was extremely dangerous ; wolves, bears and 
 smaller carnivorous animals kept the traveller constantly on 
 the alert, and the poisonous bites of snakes were known, but 
 also the beneficial and healing effects of herbs and other 
 antidotes. 
 
 Family life was well developed. Our ancestors were 
 monogamists, and the father was the lord and head of the 
 family. He was called patis (Greek posis), the ruler. His 
 helpmate the wife was the mistress patni (Greek potnia). 
 The various degrees of relationship were well distinguished, 
 and there were such differences as wife's sister (syali) and 
 the wife of a brother (yataras). The father was supreme
 
 29 
 
 judge of controversies, and had the lives of those he pro- 
 tected in his hands. The brother was the helping one, the 
 bearing one, while the sister was the provider or the caring 
 one. The daughter (duhitar) had her name from her main 
 household duty, namely, the milking of the cows. The com- 
 munity was a family, but on a larger base, and governed on 
 the same principles. The eldest man of the ruling family 
 was the chief. He again stood under the head of the tribe, 
 the king or ragan. The king's council consisted of the various 
 heads of the clans and families. The communities lived 
 in villages, which were surrounded by fences, in order to 
 protect them against the attacks of the beasts of the forests. 
 The pasturage was the property of the community, while 
 the lands for agricultural purposes were allotted to the 
 fathers of the families, according to stipulated rules and regu- 
 lations. Houses, cattle and movables belonged to the indivi- 
 dual ; the houses were strongly built of wood and had thatched 
 roofs. The chief's or ragan's house was built on a larger 
 scale than those of others, it had large lofty halls for con- 
 vivial purposes, where the bowl was often sent round and 
 music was made on shells and reed pipes. 
 
 Among the domestic animals we find the bull, cows^ 
 oxen, horses, goats, sheep and pigs. Milk formed the 
 chief drink, but black broth, a sort of hodgepodge, was also 
 made. Dogs accompanied the herdsmen to the pasturage 
 and kept watch during the night. The mistress of the 
 house had to guard her stores against the aggressions of the 
 mice, which had the significant name s of thieves. 
 
 Among the feathery, tribe we find the cock announcing 
 the day. Pigeons, geese and ducks were kept in the fowl 
 yard. 
 
 The cuckoo was the messenger of the spring. Priests 
 watched the flight of birds, and the future was divined from 
 their movements, especially those of the falcon. 
 
 For the cultivation of the soil, ploughs were in use ; and 
 the main work on which men prided themselves most, next
 
 30 
 
 to being brave in battle, was the cultivation of the soil, 
 hence the name Aryans, i.e. Agriculturists. 
 
 Among the cereals, we find chiefly wheat and barley ; 
 and flour was prepared for their meals in the shape of 
 porridge or bread. 
 
 The metals, gold, silver and bronze were best known ; 
 and lovers in those days already presented each other with 
 jewellery. The dagger was originally made of stone, 
 afterwards of bronze ; battle axes, swords and other arms and 
 implements were manufactured by a certain class of men, 
 the smiths, who were held in high estimation on account of 
 their skill. 
 
 Pottery, not only dried in the sun, but baked in the fire, 
 was of great variety. We read of vases, jars, pots, cups 
 and dishes. And there is every reason to believe that the 
 richer classes had their vases ornamented by skilful 
 painters. 
 
 For their daily intercourse and commercial dealings they 
 had a decimal system developed up to one hundred. 
 Clothing was made of wool and hemp, and sandals of the 
 hides of large game and oxen. 
 
 Besides the smaller communities or villages, there were 
 townships, vastu or puris (Greek asty and polis), connected 
 by roads, on which caravans as well as single hawkers 
 carried merchandize ; and vehicles and animals served as 
 the means of conveyance. 
 
 These early Aryans were able horsemen, and made 
 inroads into the territory of other tribes, on horseback, and 
 carried away in hasty flight their spolia opima. In battle 
 the axe, sword, lance, bow, arrow, club and shield were used ; 
 .also stones, in the heat of the conflict, when other weapons 
 were broken or lost. 
 
 The chief led his people in battle, he had to be the 
 foremost ; in peace he ruled and protected them and was 
 their supreme judge. 
 
 The moon was called the measurer of time, for according
 
 31 
 
 to its changes they calculated their chronological dates. 
 Among the stars we find the Great Bear mentioned and 
 the Pleiades. The heavenly vault, Varuna, was worshipped 
 as All-Father. The religion of the primitive ancestors of 
 our race consisted of a purely natural worship of the various 
 heavenly bodies and phenomena, such as the Sun, Dawn, 
 Moon and other bright powers, which were all considered to 
 be the manifestations of the one Father of Heaven, Dyaus- 
 pitar, who with his immortal children, stars and moon, dwelt 
 on a glorious and magnificent Olympus. 
 
 Opposed to Dyauspitar there were the evil spirits of the 
 dark night. There was the gloomy god of the clouds, 
 Vritra, who was supposed to steal the golden herds of 
 heaven, the cows of the clouds, and kept back from the 
 earth the fertilising rain, until he was slain by the lightning 
 arrow of Indra. 
 
 It was in the midst of the dark night when the winds 
 were howling, and crashing thunder deafening the ear, that 
 the ancient Aryan believed the evil spirits were lurking 
 about. Then and there awoke in his breast the feeling of 
 guilt, and he sought forgiveness in prayer, offering and self- 
 penance. 
 
 There was an idea of a life after this ; the souls of the 
 deceased had to pass through a broad river, that is the 
 atmosphere, and they were led by a faithful dog to the 
 abodes of their friends and relations. 
 
 There were legends and myths of a common ancestor, 
 Maim, and of a great deluge which destroyed everything 
 except Manu. 
 
 I could have drawn this picture of the social and daily 
 life of our ancestors more elaborately and minutely, but 
 this little sketch will give us a sufficiently good idea of the 
 state of culture and civilisation among the old Aryans. My 
 object has been to show how, with the aid of language, we 
 may read the records of the past ; and in a similar manner 
 we shall be able to read the history of the Hottentot and
 
 32 
 
 Bantu races, as soon as we have succeeded in restoring the 
 
 records of their languages. 
 
 Having taken this short and very superficial survey 
 
 of the History, Principles and Results of Comparative 
 
 Philology, Are will proceed to the consideration of Language 
 
 in its bearings on Education. 
 
 There is indeed no branch of education which demands 
 
 our attention so much and is of such vital importance to the 
 
 intellectual and ethical development, both of the individual 
 
 and of the nation, as the study of language. 
 
 In fact nothing is done in the dark workshop of our mind 
 
 without the aid of language. As the shadow follows the 
 
 body, the articulate sound is attached and linked to the 
 thought, and, while the mind is in full action though in silent 
 
 meditation, the greatest thoughts which ever throned on the 
 brow of an Alexander, Crcsar, Homer or Shakespere, Avould 
 never have been realized without language : Whether we 
 speak, or whether we are silent, as soon as we think, we really 
 speak. All thinking is silent conversation, either icith ourselves 
 or with others ; for icords, whether they are pronounced, or 
 tohethcr they are thought, are the inseparable form, the natural 
 mould of the substance of thought and of reason itself. Lan- 
 guage is the embodiment of the mind! 
 
 Therefore, if we want to understand our own psychological 
 life, if we wish to study the minds of others or to watch the 
 progress of culture and intellect in whole nations, in order to 
 ascertain the mutual w r orking of the laws Avhich brought 
 about this development, we must study language itself. 
 
 Leibniz, accordingly, and very appropriately, called lan- 
 guage the mirror of the soul ; because only by the medium of 
 language can we grasp and digest the ingredient substances 
 of thought and reason. 
 
 Language, again, in itself has a retroverse action on our 
 thought ; it has the widest and most wonderful bearing on 
 the development of our mind, on account of its relation to 
 our inner life. The orator addresses a meeting from the
 
 
 33 
 
 platform. From his mouth issues a breath ; by a peculiar 
 action of the tongue and other organs of speech, this breath 
 in a continual flow and rotation offers like a kaleidoscope a 
 series of phonetic pictures, and these pictures impress them- 
 selves on the minds of his audience and produce there new 
 thoughts and emotions. The Promethean spark from his 
 mind flies on the wings of these articulate sounds to his 
 audience, and nestles itself in the secret recesses and abodes 
 of the souls of the hearers, creating there new feelings, new 
 emotions, new ideas, ever acting as an invigorating and 
 Propelling force. The boldest and highest speculations of 
 the philosopher ; the cravings and yearnings of our heart 
 after the Infinite ; the deepest devotional feelings with which 
 the grandeur of Nature impresses itself on our soul ; what w e 
 praise as the Divine primeval revelation ; the out-cry and 
 protest of Liberty against Despotism ; the despair and con- 
 vulsions of the wicked conscience ; the soothing and balmy 
 consolation which flows from the lips of a sympathising 
 friend ; the smarting of a cruelly wronged heart, and its 
 craving for justice and revenge ; the sweet whisperings of 
 the lover ; the first accents of endearment the infant stammers 
 at the mother's breast : in short, whatever has stirred, still 
 fills, and will for ever move the human heart, all these feelings 
 have but one willing messenger and eloquent interpreter : 
 Articulate Speech ! 
 
 Language, thus, is not only one of the various instruments 
 of thought for communicating with the outer world, but the 
 only legitimate and therefore natural mediator of social and 
 intellectual life. 
 
 To connect the succession of periods in the history and 
 development of mankind in an unbroken chain ; to describe 
 the natural influence and connection of the great geniuses 
 who imprinted their mark on the face of their times ; to trace 
 the intellectual growth and decay of nations, their action and 
 reaction on each other ; all these grand heirlooms of history 
 and civilisation are chiefly handed clown from generation to
 
 34 
 
 generation by this volatile and spiritual production of man. 
 And even monuments, tools, implements, and other archaeo- 
 logical relics of ages past, however valuable they may be 
 for the student who attempts to lift the veil from prehistoric 
 times, would remain sealed records were it not for the posi- 
 tion of language. 
 
 But why should we speak of ideas so high and treasures 
 so precious ? Even the most simple, absurd and common 
 events of daily life can be communicated by language only. 
 Artists may transform their ideal beauties into marble, the 
 painter may throw the combinations of his rich fancy on 
 canvas : but can the sculptor or painter also express by his 
 art such a simple sentence as the following : " In 1882 Par- 
 liament met on the seventeenth of March. The most impor- 
 tant part in the Governor's opening speech dealt with the 
 Basuto question "? Never ! This peculiarity of language, 
 that it offers to thought the only facility for combining time 
 and circumstance, necessarily makes it, as I said before, the 
 only natural and legitimate interpreter of thought. With- 
 out language we should stand on a level with the brute, and 
 mankind never would be called the crowning work and 
 masterpiece of Creation. 
 
 Thus, if language is the form, tie, embodiment and 
 mirror of the mind, the natural interpreter of man's inner 
 life, and the most important instrument for its development, 
 it is manifest that in education the study of language is the 
 most important and congenial occupation not only of the 
 scholar, but of every man who aspires to a higher educa- 
 tion, and being both of a psychological and ethical charac- 
 ter, claims our most earnest attention and most persevering 
 energy. 
 
 Studying language is studying psychology, i.e. the crea- 
 tion and origin of thought, in its very workshop. 
 
 The task of education is, first to show the process and 
 practice of transforming thought into speech, the life and 
 development of the former by the latter, and secondly, to
 
 
 35 
 
 explain the origin, life and development of language in the 
 mind. 
 
 All men who have made their mark in the history of 
 education have forcibly demanded the mastering of language 
 as the first step in the intellectual and moral training of 
 each individual, and claimed for a thorough acquisition of 
 the mother tongue a careful and deep study of foreign 
 languages and literatures. Our own mother tongue remains 
 a sealed book without the knowledge of some other language. 
 For we are so organized that we cannot understand our own 
 nature without having put it in the full light and reflex of 
 the nature of others. 
 
 In the sweat of our brow we are condemned to eat our 
 bread, and the lower wants of our own nature are clamorous 
 for satisfaction. But we do not live by bread alone ; 
 language, next to bread, serves the demands of our practical 
 life. And above the drudgery of daily life there remains a 
 yearning and craving after an ideal, and the interpreter of 
 these feelings is, and for ever will remain, language. And as 
 the possession of our native idiom gives us access to other 
 minds, so the acquisition of languages widens our sphere of 
 mental intercourse, lays open additional sources of enlighten- 
 ment and increases the number of our instructors. 
 
 The easiest and most successful way of cultivating our in- 
 tellectual faculties is philological study. This supplies us with 
 one needed ground of comparison, and brings character- 
 istic qualities to our conscious comprehension. Nothing 
 else develops the faculty of literary criticism, and leads to 
 that skilled and artistic handling of our mother tongue, 
 which is the highest adornment of a cultivated mind. 
 
 This seemingly roundabout course through other tongues, 
 in order to master effectively the resources of our own ver- 
 nacular, is after all the shortest and cheapest. Again, nothing 
 else so effectively trains the capacity of penetrating into 
 the minds and hearts of men, of reading aright the records 
 of the past, and leads us into so many new avenues of the 
 
 c 2
 
 36 
 
 social and intellectual life of ancient race?, and teaches us 
 so clearly that we are linked to the past in an unbroken 
 chain. The pulse of our present civilisation beats in the 
 heart of the past ; and not one atom of our modern culture 
 can boast of independence and originality. The history of 
 nations bygone may be read in the p'ages of language. 
 
 Those, especially, who aspire to the highest culture of in- 
 tellect, who make philosophical and historial studies their 
 lifelong occupation, require a sound study of a philology that 
 reaches far beyond that of modern languages, for not one 
 single part of our modern languages and their literatures 
 has an entirely independent growth. In everything, socially 
 and intellectually, we have to follow up its roots in the life 
 of nations belonging to the past. Much, it is true, has 
 been made accessible by translations of the ancient classics. 
 But, ho\v tame and lifeless the best translations are com- 
 pared with the classical original, those only understand who 
 have mastered Greek and Latin so as thoroughly to enjoy 
 an ancient author. 
 
 In Athens and Rome are the beginnings of nearly all 
 that we value most. Greek and Latin stand incontcstably 
 first as our mental drill masters. They are like the twin- 
 lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza in which the Nile has 
 its origin ; the mountain torrents which centre in these, to 
 issue in that majestic stream, are by comparison hardly 
 worth our attention. There is, as I said before, the very 
 heart of the great past, and it is through these classical 
 languages that the glorious days of Thermopylae and 
 Salami?, the golden age of Pericles and Augustus, speak 
 to us. 
 
 In no other literature of the world do we meet with such 
 pregnancy of expression, such radiant beauty of thought, 
 such vigour and fertility of fancy, such plastic and elegant 
 form of diction. Greek and Latin, therefore, will for ever 
 remain the models of our education, and the antiquity they 
 unveil before our astonished eyes will be studied in spite of
 
 37 
 
 the objections raised in modern times by men who are 
 considered to have the first word in educational matters. 
 
 And of the two classical languages I can recommend, 
 without fear of contradiction, the Greek as the most perfect 
 and best preserved example of the synthetic type, a type 
 through which our own English had to pass. But as you 
 know, besides this genealogical affiliation there is a direct 
 connection between Greek and Latin on the one side, and 
 the German, English and French on the other side. 
 Especially with regard to English, the rich stores of words, 
 technical terms and phrases came partly through the 
 channel of French, partly direct from the ancient languages. 
 And in our daily work we continually have to return to 
 them to satisfy our growing wants of expression. 
 
 The languages most nearly allied to ours by common 
 parentage are German and French. The former, belonging 
 to the same Teutonic stock as English, is genealogically our 
 next of kin. It is most nearly connected with our own 
 circumstances and character. And the mutual intellectual 
 influence of the two nations, and their love and admiration 
 for each other, have made the Germanic race politically 
 supreme. For culture breeds culture, and intellect is the 
 supreme power with which mankind will conquer even the 
 forces of nature. 
 
 As I said in the introduction, there is really no country 
 in the world where England's great poets are more admired 
 and better translated than in Germany. 'Your Shakespere 
 is ours. In Germany we have the best Shakespere Society. 
 Germans learn English for the sole purpose of reading 
 Shakespere in his mother tongue. Tieck and SchlegePs 
 translation of the works of the Swan of Avon is acknow- 
 ledged to be an improvement on the poet's own original. 
 German actors like Schroder, Devrient and Dawison have 
 successfully rivalled Garrick, Kean and Kemblo, and other 
 English celebrities of the stage, in reproducing the grand 
 characters of Shakespcre's plays. Delius, Bodenstedt,
 
 38 
 
 Gervinus, Genee, Ulrici, Elze, have for ever linked their 
 names with that of the great Briton by their classical 
 commentaries and essays on his works, and their excellent 
 biographies of the interpreter of the human heart. 
 Shakespere has become in Germany a household name. 
 If one wishes to know Shakespere, let him study modern 
 German classics from Gothe down to the present time. 
 Every word of Shakespere re-echoes in the heart of every 
 German who reads his works. We call him the Herzens- 
 kundiger. The Germans truly love, admire and worship 
 Shakespere, and quote him as they do the three heroes of 
 modern German literature, Lessing, Gothe and Schiller. 
 In fact the last classical period of German literature roots 
 partly in the study of Shakespere, and many a beautiful 
 blossom of Gothe's genius bears an indisputable family 
 likeness to those of Shakespere's Muse. The songs and 
 melodies of Heine, the poet of the Weltschmerz, are saturated 
 with the gloomy grandeur of Byronism. 
 
 At German gymnasiums, the boys have their English 
 societies or Krdnzchen, in which they read either, in transla- 
 tion or in the original, the plays of Shakespere, and enjoy 
 the poems of Moore and Byron, and even attempt to 
 translate the English authors in their original metre and 
 verse. 
 
 There is no other foreign poet with whom the Germans 
 are equally familiar, except Homer, the genius par excellence* 
 All other foreigners Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Dante, Tasso, 
 Racine, Corneille, Cervantes and Camoens are admired as 
 we admire a marble statue. 
 
 Your Beowulf is better studied and known in Germany 
 than in England. Macaulay's History has been translated 
 and reprinted in the original at Leipsic, and we learn that 
 it had a larger sale in Germany than the works of any 
 German historian. Scott, Bulwer, Dickens and Thackeray 
 are to be found in every German Public Library as well 
 as in every private collection, and the productions of the
 
 best English writers are expected with the same impatience 
 at Berlin and Leipsic as they are in London. 
 
 How extensively English is cultivated and studied is 
 clearly proved by the fact that we have in Germany four 
 different scientific periodicals ; two, the Anglia edited by 
 Wiilcker and Trautmann, and the Englische Studien edited 
 by Kolbing, exclusively for English language and literature; 
 and two, for modern languages, Herrig's Archivfur das 
 Studium der neueren Sprachen, and Ebert and Lemcke's 
 Jahrbuch fur Romanische und Englische Literatur. But 
 even in these latter publications English occupies the 
 greater space. And in every Realschule English is com- 
 pulsory as is French. More than 100,000 young Germans 
 are annually instructed in these schools in English, not to 
 speak of the number of those who learn the language by 
 private tuition. 
 
 The English language and literature has so many 
 admirers in Germany that they are to be numbered I may 
 safely say without fear of exaggeration by millions, and the 
 prophesy of the great Teutonic philologist, Jacob Grimm, 
 is being verified from day to day, that the Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue of Great Britain willbecome a cosmopolitan language, 
 the medium of commercial and intellectual communication 
 for the Races of Mankind. 
 
 And the same tribute has been paid to German poets and 
 philosophers by the enlightened public of England. Gothe 
 and Schiller are well known through Carlyle, Lewes and 
 others. The famous illustrations of Kaulbach's Frauen- 
 gestalten of Gothe's works have been republished with English 
 text, and are the delight of the best of the English 
 nation. And if we look at the weekly issues of English 
 periodicals, like the Academy and Athenaeum, we are sure 
 to see notices of some new translation of German works ; 
 and every book of importance published in Germany, no 
 matter to what science it belongs, is carefully reviewed in 
 English periodicals. The works of German genius find
 
 40 
 
 almost as many thoughtful readers iu the colleges of 
 England as they find in their Fatherland. The study and 
 thorough knowledge of German is now considered in 
 England one of the most important attainments of a higher 
 education. The most candid acknowledgment is given of 
 the invigorating and refreshing influence of the German 
 mind on the English. Now, in this Colony, where the 
 greater part of the white community speak a vernacular so 
 closely related to the literary Dutch of the Netherlands, 
 one would think it a matter of course that German should 
 be easily taught and learnt, especially as Dutch is only one 
 of the many Low German idioms. 
 
 French, again, which is unsurpassed for its elegance in form 
 and diction, and which has had such a deep influence on 
 English, Dutch and German language and literature, should 
 not be neglected. Although there is a strong national line 
 of demarcation drawn between France and Germany, French 
 is taught in every German Gymnasium, Realschule and 
 Rectoratschule. A German student reads with ease the 
 great French classics, and expresses himself without difficulty 
 in conversation and writing in the language of France. To 
 show the importance the French attach to good and_,elegant 
 expression, I may remind you of the French proverb " Le 
 style c'est 1'homme." In spite of his pressing duties, the 
 great French naturalist Cuvier regularly attended lectures 
 on style and rhetorics. In the elegant and classic style of 
 Alexander von Humboldt we easily discover the influence 
 of French diction. Everywhere in European Society the 
 social qualification of a man is measured by hid power of 
 expressing himself in French. 
 
 Not only can the Germans pride themselves in having 
 laid the foundation of the Comparative Grammar of the 
 Indo-Germanic .languages, but a German professor, Diez ? 
 wrote the best Comparative Grammar and Etymological 
 Dictionary of the Romance languages. These two facts bear 
 sufficient testimony to the great stress and value put on the
 
 41 
 
 study of French, and its cognate dialects in Germany. 
 Bracket's French grammar, based on Diez's work, should be 
 introduced in every Government school in this Colony. 
 
 Some of the most prominent branches of thought, in 
 English as well as in Dutch, have to be followed up to their 
 roots in the French and German literatures. They, by their 
 beauties and peculiarities, are admirably fitted to furnish the 
 ground of comparative literary study ; and the same advan- 
 tage is possessed by the structure and usages of the languages 
 themselves, an advantage heightened by the historical 
 relation they sustain in English. Had ice nothing else with 
 yet stronger recommendations to apply to, the German and 
 French) especially the former, would answer for us all the 
 essential disciplinary purposes of philological study ; as indeed 
 to many they are and must be made to answer those purposes. 
 (Whitney). As the case stands they are among the inde- 
 spensable parts of a disciplinary education. He who quits 
 scaool and enters on the arena of life without mastering cither 
 or both of them cannot claim to have enjoyed the benefit of a 
 thorough liberal and intellectual training. Whatever natural 
 attainments he may possess his ivork will always betray a 
 peculiar clumsiness, the ivork of an unskilled mind ! 
 
 Among the other cultivated languages of modern Europe, 
 Dutch stands in nearest relation to us here in South Africa, 
 from purely ethnical and historical reasons, Italian, 
 Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish lying more in the 
 special sphere of the student of literature and modern 
 philology. As to the cultivation of Dutch in this Colony, 
 however, it is more than questionable whether it will ever 
 command the position English takes as the medium of 
 intellectual and commercial intercourse. 
 
 Both literatures, Dutch and English, are of the same age ; 
 both nations had trials of the same nature, both had great 
 political catastrophes and events, the forerunners of literary 
 life ; the vessels of both nations crossed the seas, and 
 brought a store of new ideas and views from transatlantic
 
 42 
 
 countries : and still, how differently have they utilized the 
 times. The English shows such blossoms and ripe fruits of 
 a highly developed intellectual type, and stands foremost 
 with the German in the literatures of our age ; while ivith 
 all love of justice we cannot claim for Dutch even a secondary 
 position in modern Europe, lest ice should appear to be partial, 
 and unfair to other nations. Look at the large and select 
 number of English poets of world-wide fame and the few 
 men of real Olympian genius in the ranks of the Dutch. 
 JVe can count them on thejingers of one hand! 
 
 One must be Dutch to appreciate the home-made, or as 
 we say in German, home-baked (hausbacken) niceties of 
 Dutch writers and poets, with that stale, tame and philistine 
 flavour of the clay pipe with Avhich their literature is saturated. 
 One has to undertake a special voyage to Holland and 
 retire into those quiet country villages famous as pictures 
 of Dutch still life, and enveloped in a gaudy dressing gown 
 of rich but artless pattern smoke canaster, to enjoy a Dutch 
 author. There is with the exception of two or three poets 
 no originality, the characteristic of true genius ; no romance 
 and emphasis, the golden gloss of true poetry ; in fact no 
 passion, feeling or sentiment. Homer, Shakespere, Dante 
 and Gothe you can read on the wild ocean and in the arid 
 desert ; no matter where you are, you feel at home with 
 them. Byron, Lenau, Pushkin and Lennontow will have 
 an echo in the heart of every feeling and thinking man, to 
 whatever civilised nation he may belong. 
 
 In comparing Dutch with German, French and English, 
 it is a most remarkable fact, that the three latter have 
 produced the greatest comparative philologists, and that 
 the Dutch just here are very backward. With the exception 
 of the works in their own language, what they really have 
 produced in other languages comes, as far as general and 
 foreign philology is concerned, through an impulse from 
 without. 
 
 Dutch writers can be so prolix, that the reader's mind
 
 43 
 
 becomes thoroughly wearied with the amount to be gone 
 over, and at length loses its power of comprehending the 
 dilated thought. Their lavishness in writing is something 
 appalling, being exercised with no thought that the power 
 of attention and the eyesight of the world are limited. 
 There is no instinct of selection, " an instinct which seems 
 almost entirely confined to the French and English mind." 
 We find just the polar opposite of what is now sometimes 
 called, by a misunderstood application of the term, exhaus- 
 tiveness, and consisting in a certain manner of writing the 
 subject to dregs. 
 
 Gothe, whom our Dutch friends cannot accuse of par- 
 tiality, for he acknowledged readily the natural formal 
 richness of the Dutch language, says : " The English, as a 
 rule, all write welly as practical men, with eye diverted to 
 the real. The French do not deny their general character 
 in their style. They are of a social nature, and so never 
 forget the public they address; they try to be clear, to- 
 convince the reader, and charming to please him." On the 
 Dutch, which was not unknown to him, he says nothing, and 
 this speaks volumes. 
 
 The besetting defect of Dutch writers has been sufficiently 
 considered. It is an obscurity, proceeding from a certaim 
 unconscious slowness and philistine circuitousness, sometimes 
 from a wilful imitation of the conduct of the cuttlefish ; 
 sometimes from want of the sense of proportion. " There 
 is too much of the verbose, ponderous, roundabout and inane, 
 caused by the want of the pressure of a great national 
 life, with its practical discipline, and its ever active tradi- 
 tions." 
 
 I do not deny for one single moment that the Dutch have 
 done excellent work in oth^r sciences; but, first of all,, 
 scientific men are not always models in style and diction, 
 and secondly, the Dutch like Boerhavn, Agricola, Erasmug r 
 Lipsius, Scaliger, Spanheim, Hemsterhuis, Huyghens, 
 Grotius, Valkenaer and others wrote more or less in Latin..
 
 44 
 
 Spinoza, I must remark, is no Dutchman, however much 
 our Dutch cousins may wish to claim him as their own. 
 
 And why did the Dutch write in Latin ? They knew 
 very well that if they wrote in their own tongue, they would 
 not be read and understood ; and Latin was up to i 50 years 
 ago, and even later, the medium of scientific intercourse. 
 Now English, on account of its cosmopolitan nature, gains 
 daily more and more ground among the civilised nations, 
 and there is no reason whatsoever why we should try to retard 
 its glorious w 3 r Id-cultivating mission, or supplant it by a 
 language which has not shown vigour and original strength 
 enough to take its place in the foremost ranks of the literatures 
 of the world. In learning English, German, French and 
 the ancient classical langtiages, w r e open to our mind rich 
 storehouses, brimful with spiritual food. In enforcing a 
 language unwieldy, clumsy and poor in productions of in- 
 tellect, we cut ourselves off from the intercourse of the 
 civilised world at large, and leave the highroad of culture 
 and progress, and have to walk in the fashion of the craw- 
 fish ; nay, w r e are guilty of intellectual suicide, for which our 
 children and grandchildren will bless our memory. 
 
 One word about the Dutchpatois of this Colony. It can 
 be traced back to a fusion of the county dialects of the 
 Netherlands and North- Western Germany, and although 
 phonetically Teutonic, it is psychologically an essentially 
 Hottentot idiom. For we learn this patois first from our 
 nurses and ayahs. The young Africander on his solitary 
 farm has no other playmates than the children of the Bastard 
 Hottentot servants of his father, and even the grown-up 
 farmer cannot easily escape the deteriorating effect of his 
 servant's patois. It can hardly be expected that the descen- 
 dants of Malayo-Polynesian slaves and Hottentot servants, 
 who originally spoke an agglutinative tongue, will have any 
 improving influence on an inflecting language. Take, for 
 instance, the variety of words to express in English the 
 different shades of what we call beautiful. We have hand-
 
 45 
 
 some, pretty, fine, shapely, graceful, lovely, elegant, comely, 
 seemly, beauteous, splendid, glorious, fair, and various other 
 Synonyms, too numerous to mention. But if we speak in 
 the patois of a handsome young man, a pretty girl, a fine 
 pig, beautiful weather, a splendid sky, an elegant form, a 
 glorious sight, a noble looking animal, a graceful attitude, 
 a gaudy dress, a brilliant production, a lovely face, a delicate 
 colour, there stands the broad sounding adjective " MOO I " 
 Avhich has to fit into every possible shape. We have en 
 mooie jong Tierel, en mooie juffroutc , en mooie vark, en mooi 
 pampoen, mooie wcer, mooie Inch, en mooie leif, en mooie bees 
 en mooie houding, en mooie taicertje, en mooie voorstelling, en 
 mooie yezig, en mooie aap, en mooie kleur. Everything is 
 monotonously mooi! 
 
 There is no literature in it deserving the name, and it is 
 still awaiting its Chaucer, Shakespere and Byron. But true 
 poetry roots in a vigorous national and intellectual life. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, In concluding this discourse, I 
 feel how little justice I have done to the matter I brought 
 before you. I could say nothing on the Native Languages 
 of South Africa, I could not touch on the influence of Com- 
 parative Philology on the Science of Religion, and of its 
 bearings on Ethnology, and the special study this Science 
 claims from us here in South Africa. But I hope that on 
 some other occasion I shall have an opportunity of bringing 
 these subjects before you. Still I am thankful that you hare 
 done me the honour of listening to me, and I shall feel amply 
 rewarded if I have succeeded in securing some share of your 
 sympathy for a science which, as I believe, will have a great 
 future here in South Africa. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO.. PRINTEBS, ST. GEOKGE'S-STBKET.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 FIFTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING 
 
 OP THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 CAPE TOW, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE IOTH MAY, 1884. 
 
 Rev, Professor H. M. FOOT, BJL, LL.B,, in the Chair. 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON & Co., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S STREET. 
 1884.
 
 Committee : 
 
 WM. HIDDINGH, ESQ., LL.D. 
 REV. PROF. FOOT, B.A., LL.B. 
 LANGHAM DALE, ESQ., M.A., 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 C. A. FA1RBRIDGE, ESQ. 
 REV. JAMES CAMERON, B.A., 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 H. W. PIERS, ESQ. 
 
 F. G. GOODLIFFE, ESQ. (Trea- 
 
 surer). 
 
 HON. J. X. MERRIMAN, M.L.A. 
 ADVOCATE J. R. INNES, 
 
 M.L.A. 
 
 Auditors : 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 
 
 J. C. GIB, ESQ. 
 
 Librarian and Secretary : 
 
 F. MASKEW, ESQ.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee, on assuming office last year, found 
 it necessary to close the Library on Sunday afternoons, 
 because the very scanty attendance of readers showed 
 that the privilege was not appreciated by the public, 
 and the limited funds at the disposal of the Committee 
 did not justify the continuance of any special expen- 
 diture for a further trial of the arrangement. 
 
 The question, whether the Library can be opened 
 to the public during the week-day evenings, has again 
 occupied the attention of the Committee. A deputation 
 from certain Literary Societies represented to the 
 Committee that the increasing desire of the young men 
 in this city to extend their knowledge, particularly of 
 scientific subjects, could best be encouraged by making 
 the Library available for study during the evenings, 
 and desired to know what difficulties were to be met, 
 with a view of securing to the public this extension of 
 the hours of opening throughout the week. 
 
 From year to year successive Committees have dealt 
 with this question, and the main difficulty is still, the 
 cost of lighting and of additional superintendence. 
 
 From estimates laid before the Committee it appears 
 A 2
 
 that the total cost of carrying out the proposal would 
 be at least 400 per annum. 
 
 As the Library funds are inadequate to meet even a 
 portion of such additional expenditure, the Committee 
 suggested to the deputation to ascertain whether the 
 Literary Societies would undertake to raise the amount. 
 The matter meanwhile remains in abeyance. 
 
 The accession of books to the Library during the 
 past year has been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology ... ... 4 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 24 
 
 Sciences and the Arts 32 
 
 Voyages and Travels 48 
 
 History 36 
 
 Biography 47 
 
 Belles Lettres 41 
 
 Novels 65 
 
 Miscellaneous 9 
 
 Amongst them will be found a copy of that very rare 
 and valuable work entitled " Purchas' Pilgrimages," 
 in five folio volumes, the gift of William Hiddingh, 
 Esq. ; besides several other works presented by the 
 Royal Society, the Royal Zoological Society, the 
 Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Colonial 
 Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, America ; the 
 Colonial Government ; Miss G. D. Stewart, Dunblane, 
 Scotland; General De Peyster, U.S. America; Mr. 
 Thomas May, Boston; Professor Van Mansfelt, Messrs. 
 Vorsteman Van Oijen, Holland, John Coutts, W. 
 Marshall, H. Penning, and F. G. Furnival, of London; 
 to all of whom the cordial thanks of the subscribers 
 and the public are due. 
 
 The Library Hall, as on former occasions, was 
 placed at the disposal of the Council of the University 
 on Degree Day.
 
 The issue of Books and Periodicals during the past 
 year has been as follows : 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 78 Vols. 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. 139 
 
 Science and the Arts 234 
 
 Voyages and Travels 1,174 
 
 History 651 
 
 Biography 912 
 
 Belles Lettres 880 
 
 Novels 7,126 
 
 Reviews and Periodicals 6,338 
 
 Comparing this statement with that of last year it 
 will be seen that there has been a steady increase in 
 the issue of books in the different departments of 
 Science and Literature, and a still greater increase in 
 the circulation of Reviews and Periodicals. 
 
 During the past year the number of visitors to the 
 Institution was considerably in excess of that of the 
 previous year, amounting to 26,996, giving an average 
 of 96 daily, the largest number on one day being 137, 
 and the smallest 36. 
 
 The Committee have had under consideration an 
 application from the Chief Inspector of Public Works, 
 made on behalf of the Colonial Government, for a plot 
 of land in the grounds at the back of the Library 
 Building, for the purpose of erecting there the 
 machinery required for lighting, by electricity, the 
 new Houses of Parliament. It was thought desirable 
 to meet as far as possible the wishes of the Government, 
 and the Committee resolved to allow the use of the 
 ground in question, subject to the condition that no 
 nuisance be created, to affect the Library, either by 
 noise or smoke from the engine, and that any building 
 there erected shall be removed if the necessities of the 
 Library require it. 
 
 The Committee accepted with regret the resignation
 
 of Dr. Theophilus Halm, Custodian of the Grey Collec- 
 tion, after a period of nearly three years' service ; this 
 appointment was held jointly with that of Colonial Phi- 
 lologist, w r hich office Dr. Hahn relinquished on the 30th 
 November. The Government notified to the Committee 
 that it was not intended to re-appoint a Colonial 
 Philologist, and therefore the Committee have not 
 deemed it necessary to fill up the post of Custodian, but 
 temporary arrangements have been made, under the 
 supervision of the Librarian, for the safety and care 
 of the Collection. They have further to report the 
 completion of the Catalogue of the Books in the Grey 
 Collection, compiled by the late Custodian, which was 
 carried through the press under his supervision after 
 leaving office. 
 
 The Subscriptions during the past year, as will be 
 seen from the Treasurer's statement, are a little in 
 excess of those of the previous year. The number of 
 subscribers is 265, being 31 first-class (3), 29 second- 
 class (2), and 205 third-class (1). 
 
 The number of Contributions to the Grey Collection 
 during the year amounts to 20 Volumes and Pamphletsj 
 viz. : Basutoland Records, vols. 1 and 2, presented 
 by the Honourable the Secretary for Native Affairs ; 
 Incwadi Yendumiso, presented by the Rev. A. Kropf; 
 The Chronicle of James I., King of Aragon, in 2 
 vols., written by himself, translated by the late John 
 Forster, Esq., presented by Miss Forster ; Kolbe's 
 English-Herero Dictionary, presented by the Author ; 
 "Isigidimi Sama Xosa " (A Kafir Journal from May, 
 1883, up to date), presented by Dr. Theophilus Halm ; 
 Browne's (Dr. John) Pasaglott system of teaching 
 Languages, comprehending the Harmonics, Analysis, 
 Synthesis and Synopsis of the Latin, Spanish, Portu- 
 guese, Italian, French, German and English Verbs, 
 presented by Francis H. S. Orpen, Esquire.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In a country like this, where civilisation and barbarism 
 touch at so many points, the questions which perplex the 
 leading nations of the world are often presented in strange 
 lights. I shall never forget how, twelve years ago, when 
 travelling on the Frontier immediately after my arrival in 
 South Africa, I caught my first glimpse of the noble 
 savage. It was early morning as, through an opening in 
 the bush, I saw a Kafir rise from the veld. He threw his 
 kaross gracefully round his lithe form, and stood erect, tall, 
 proud, as though soil and sunshine were his own a model 
 for the sculptor. A soft light, from eyes full at once of 
 mystery and calm, stole gently over the sable countenance 
 and gave it still life ; this at last broke into animation 
 when, from between the parting lips, there gleamed a 
 radiance as of orient pearl. Here apparently was a philo- 
 sopher of nature who had reduced the problem of life to its 
 simplest elements ; a man of few wants and infinite leisure ; 
 a human being in perfect health and without a care. As I 
 called to mind the weary, anxious men I had left behind 
 me, struggling for dear life in the centres of civilisation ; 
 as I thought of the toilers in the mart, the mill and the 
 mine, and the dwellers in the slum, the workhouse and the 
 gaol, I could not help feeling that the apostles of civilisa- 
 tion might still learn something from the barbarians whom 
 they find it their duty to teach. 
 
 I did not, however, close my eyes to other aspects of 
 savage life. I was not in danger of adopting the natural-
 
 8 
 
 istic theory of Society, sketched by Montaigne and devel- 
 oped by Rousseau. If so inclined, I should have been soon 
 roused from my dream by the comments on the character 
 of the aborigines which I heard. " These natives will not 
 work ; we must teach them wants," said a Colonist. There 
 spoke the business man of the nineteenth century, according 
 to the formula of Political Economy : " An accumulation 
 of capital is the first step in civilisation, and this accumu- 
 lation depends mainly on the multiplication of wants. To 
 raise people from barbarism, the first essential is to make 
 them discontented with their position." But what if your 
 civilisation multiplies wants more easily than it satisfies 
 needs? What if, for the many, well-being is gradually 
 becoming impossible, and bare existence increasingly diffi- 
 cult ? In civilised countries the growing number of arti- 
 ficial wants, especially those arising from vanity, suggests 
 caution. The savage wants but little, no doubt : may it 
 not be equally true that you want too much, too much that 
 is of the wrong sort ; and that, in striving for ever after 
 the reputed means of happiness, you are losing a great deal, 
 if not all, that makes life worth living ? 
 
 This theory of want and work has been put to the test of 
 fact, under the modern industrial system, with results which 
 are filling many with dismay and some with despair. The 
 three chief motive forces of civilisation have been described 
 as the love of money, the love of knowledge, and the love 
 of beauty. The danger apprehended is that the first of 
 these, cupidity, will swallow up the others. Little more 
 than a quarter of a century ago Buckle wrote, " After the 
 love of knowledge there is no one passion which has done 
 so much good to mankind as the love of money." At the 
 present moment there are irany who feel that there is still 
 some truth in the older saying, " The love of money is the 
 root of all evil." The moralist repeats the poet's reproach 
 of the age 
 
 Plain living and high thinking arc no more. 
 The prophet warns us that we are forsaking philosophy
 
 for the quest of valuable information, amassing facts 
 and missing truth. Scholars complain that breadth 
 and depth of culture are becoming more and more 
 rare, because of the demand for special and technical 
 education. But the artists are the most inconsolable of all. 
 Manufactures, according to Mr. Ruskin, are not only impo- 
 tent to create art, but they destroy what seeds of it exist. 
 He seems to think that the only hope for art is a return 
 from the industrial to the military stage. "With less of 
 paradox and more of truth, Mr. Morris, no longer " the 
 idle singer of an empty day," but the earnest and active 
 social reformer, points out with trembling the growing 
 tendency of mere mechanical toil to supplant intelligent 
 and imaginative work ; and tells with fond regret of the 
 mediEeval craftsman who left upon each useful product of 
 his skill those traces of beauty which testify that he took 
 pleasure in the labour of his hands. If it be true that the 
 dust, and smoke, and fume, and refuse of factory and forge, 
 are obscuring the light by which men live, and withering 
 the bloom which makes life beautiful and glad, we are in a 
 bad way indeed. If, further, as we are told with painful 
 iteration, it be true that as wealth increases poverty becomes 
 more general and more intense, we are hastening from bad 
 to worse ; and what shall we do in the end thereof? 
 
 To discuss all the questions thus suggested is beyond the 
 limits of a brief address. I can lay before you only a few 
 hints as to the mutual relations of Knowledge and Labour 
 in the Age of Industry. 
 
 The history of labour is almost as important as the 
 history of knowledge. Such is the opinion of a living 
 writer who has studied both. In fact, the history of the 
 one involves the history of the other. We may note, at 
 the outset, that the antagonism between them has not 
 always been so marked as it is alleged to be now. It has 
 not always been the case that the members of Society might
 
 10 
 
 be divided into " those who toil not, neither do they spin, 4 ' 
 and "those who toil to live, and only live to toil." If we 
 go back to the fountain-head of modern history we find 
 free industry and learning hand in hand. Intellectual and 
 material progress both date from the Renascence, when the 
 classic literature and art, and the Arabian science, found a 
 refuge in commercial Italy, and renewed their youth. The 
 older civilisations had been based on slavery, even in 
 Athens and Rome. In modern civilisation, the free mind 
 and the free hand are conditions of full life. The fifteenth 
 century is by general consent regarded as the Golden Age 
 of labour in England. It was the first century of free 
 labour ; for the peasant revolts of the previous century 
 decided the fate of serfdom, at the very time when Chaucer 
 was fixing our language and forming our poetry ; when 
 Wyclif was moulding our prose and sowing the seeds of 
 religious reform ; and when William of "Wykeham was 
 laying anew the foundations of English learning. During 
 the same period we find the same principle illustrated, on 
 the Continent, by the power of the Hanseatic League and 
 the greatness of the Italian Republics. From the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century, no one could bear office in 
 Florence who was not a -"^mber of an artisan or a com- 
 mercial guild. Here, at length, " The Medici surrounded 
 industry with the aureole of genius and art." Their galleys 
 brought home both the wealth of India and the wisdom of 
 Greece ; and, while their agents carried trade to every haunt 
 of life in Europe, they took back, from every accessible 
 monastery, manuscripts, long-neglected a> useless, but now 
 more precious than gold. " Thus the Academy of Plato 
 was revived in the gardens of Florence." These were 
 merchant-princes, it may be said. True, but they were the 
 first men of business, in the modern sense ; they obtained 
 their influence as leaders in an industrial republic ; and 
 they formed a bond between free labour and culture such as 
 the world had never known before, and has never rivalled 
 since.
 
 11 
 
 If the name of the Medici links industry especially with 
 learning and art, the name Bacon welds it with science. The 
 Renascence intervened between Roger Bacon, the Wyclif, and 
 Francis Bacon, the Luther, of the Scientific Reformation. 
 Printing, the compass, and gunpowder had been invented 
 or discovered, and they were to be followed soon by the 
 telescope and the microscope. A new conception of man, 
 of the earth, of the universe, had arisen. The old system 
 of slavery had passed away ; and free intelligence and free 
 industry combined were giving a new meaning to the word 
 liberty. The Religious Reformation had shown that there 
 were limits to the exercise of ecclesiastical authority ; and 
 the rise of the Dutch Republic had proved that a people 
 who by their toil had made their country as well as its 
 prosperity, were, small as that country was, more than a 
 match for the gigantic military tyranny of Spain. Both 
 Roger and Francis Bacon were eminently practical ; and 
 if Roger Paeon failed, because he was before his age, and 
 Francis Bacon did not succeed as a discoverer, because he 
 clung to some of the forms of the past, and was entangled 
 in the intrigues of a corrupt court, and the meshes of an 
 ignoble policy, both were thoroughly modern in spirit ; 
 and Francis Bacon has given the text, of which all subse- 
 quent scientific and industrial progress has been the com- 
 mentary. The well-known text is, knowledge is power, 
 which, being interpreted, means that human power is limited 
 by human intelligence, but that human intelligence can 
 direct and utilise the operations of natural forces which it 
 cannot create. Here is a union of science and industry 
 which nothing can sever. Man may become the Master of 
 Nature by discovering and obeying her laws. 
 
 Francis Bacon laid the philosophical basis of industry ; 
 but it was reserved for another, in the following century, to 
 reduce its laws to system, and tc become the founder of a 
 new science, and of a new branch of literature. False 
 theories as to the power of legislation with regard to labour 
 and commerce still hampered industry, as they do, in some
 
 12 
 
 Cases, even at the present day. Adam Smith was the first 
 to advocate, methodically, the removal of restraints on 
 labour, and to formulate the principles of free-trade. I must 
 ask those who regard Political Economy as the dismal 
 science, to bear with me for a few moments, while I venture 
 to take the name of Adam Smith, not so much as a sign of 
 the dependence of labour on intelligence, as of the necessary 
 connection between labour and a still more important phase 
 of perfect culture, viz. : social duty, morality. I am afraid 
 that in the whirl of the race for riches most of the opponents 
 of Political Economy, like many of its apologists, have lost 
 sight of the fact that the author of The, Wealth of Nations 
 is also the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and 
 that these woiks are complimentary to each other. If the 
 one takes as its fundamental assumption the principle of 
 self-interest, the other is based exclusively on the princ'ple 
 of sympathy. Owing to the complexity of the subjects, and 
 the exigencies of the deductive method, each is worked out 
 independently of the other, with a view to their ultimate 
 synthesis. The analytical device by which they are necessarily 
 kept separate in discussion, has no exact counterpart in the 
 region of fact ; each explains but one-half of life, and that 
 imperfectly ; each is professedly only a hemisphere of truth, 
 and they must be combined if we would see the perfect orb. 
 Unless both are kept in view, we shall ignore essential facts, 
 and miss the true method of solving the social problem and 
 realising the golden rule. I do not assert that Adam Smith 
 developed all this, but that it is involved in the very mode 
 of his investigations. Nor do I contend that there have not 
 been Philistines among the political economists ; but I do 
 maintain that the indiscriminate abuse of them is unjust and 
 absurd. Grant even that they have only traced scientifically 
 the course of the great disease of modern Society, that they 
 are the pathologists of industry, even so, they have pre- 
 pared the way for remedies which they have not found. 
 And among them have been men filled with sympathy for 
 the sufferings they have disclosed, and fired with the desire
 
 13 
 
 to remove or alleviate them. I need only mention, as 
 worthy successors of Adam Smith, such men as vSenior, 
 Cobden, Bastiat, John Mill, Jevons, Fawcett, and Thorold 
 Kogers. It is to men like these we must look for help, 
 'amid the evils which all deplore ; or, moral diatribes against 
 them, and benevolent lamentations over their so-called 
 victims, will prove to be, what we have been taught by one 
 of the protesters to call, windbag. We hail the prophet 
 with his fervid intuition ; we honour, too, the calm and 
 patient investigator of fact and law. And is it not a fact 
 that the moralist as well as the merchant looks for some 
 advantage from his transactions, when he goes into the 
 market? Is it not a law that traffic, fairly and wisely 
 conducted, benefits both contracting parties, and that each 
 is right in expecting profit from the exchange of his com- 
 modities ? Is it not true that, with all its drawbacks, 
 open competition is better than monopoly ? All business 
 should be just ; but even Mr. Ruskin has not been able to 
 show that it is practicable to conduct it on purely benevo- 
 lent principles in a world like ours. It must not be supposed, 
 therefore, that selfishness is the whole of human nature, 
 and that trade is the whole of life. The industrial struggle 
 for existence, in market or manufactory, is not the effort to 
 destroy, as on the field of battle. Because "business is 
 business," it does not follow that the merchant may cheat 
 his neighbour, as the soldier shoots the enemy of his coun- 
 try. The intelligent and just pursuit of self-interest is 
 compatible with sympathy and benevolence, though we 
 may not always rise to the height of loving our neighbour 
 better than ourselves. That iniquity and cruelty are per- 
 petrated in the name of business, is not the fault of the 
 Political Economists, but of the men who listen to them when 
 they discourse on The Wealth of Nations, out turn a deaf or 
 dubious ear to their Theory of Moral Sentiments, charm they 
 never so wisely. 
 
 Nineteen eventful years passed between the publication 
 of Adam Smith's two great works. Ths Theory of Moral
 
 14 
 
 Sentiments was issued in 1757, during the Seven Years 
 War ; The Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776, the year of 
 the Declaration of American Independence. In the inter- 
 val, the supremacy of the English race was practically 
 established in India and North America ; and the founda- 
 tions were laid of the most extensive commerce that has 
 ever existed. If the vices of a mercantile oligarchy, in the 
 East, left an indelible stain on commerce, the power of an 
 industrial democracy, in the West, determined for English- 
 men, once and for ever, the relations between labour and 
 its fruits on the one hand, and law and liberty on the other. 
 In the memorable words of Chatham, three millions of 
 people would not submit to be slaves. When Adam Smith 
 died in 1790, the tragedy of the French Revolution was 
 just opening a tragedy which, with all its horrors and 
 excesses, gave this moral to the world : that one section of 
 Society cannot live on indefinitely, and with impunity, at 
 the expense of another ; that privilege, earned or unearned, 
 involves duties which it is criminal to neglect ; and that, 
 without charity, which is the bond of social perfection, 
 civilisation falls back into chaos. At the same time, a 
 quieter process of change was going on, which perhaps has 
 been equally far-reaching and fruitful in results. The 
 union of Science and Industry was no longer theory merely, 
 it was fact. The human hand, the most effective instru- 
 ment ever constructed, and .the human mind, its conscious 
 guide, had made man, not only the minister and interpreter 
 of Nature, as Bacon saw him, but to a great extent the 
 master of Nature, as Bacon foresaw him. The steam- 
 engine became the drudge of civilisation ; mechanical 
 inventions in quick succession multiplied the powers of 
 production ; natural forces, which had been unknown, or 
 known only to be feared, were subdued ; and the constant 
 application of science to the industrial arts created a new 
 world in the midst of the old. These changes were so 
 rapid that workmen often suffered ; yet the long war which 
 ushered in this century, and the vicissitudes which ensued,
 
 15 
 
 ruffled but could not stay the stieara of tendency. The 
 dawn of new life brought new imaginative power ; and 
 England's most ideal poet glorified the time-spirit, as he 
 sang a new song to the old refrain, 
 
 Many the things that mighty be, 
 But nought is mightier than man. 
 
 All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass 
 
 Of marble and of colour his dreams pass, 
 Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear; 
 
 Language is a perpetual Orphic song 
 
 Which rules with Daedal harmony a throng 
 Of thoughts and forms which else senseless and shapeless were. 
 
 The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 
 
 Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
 They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on. 
 
 The tempest is his steed ; he strides the air, 
 
 And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare, 
 Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none. 
 
 Social melioration followed. One wrong after another was 
 swept away. The amendment of the Combination Acts 
 relieved labour from oppression ; and the passing of the 
 Factory Acts secured it against cruelty. Religious dis- 
 abilities were removed ; the Reform Bill was carried ; 
 negro-slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire ; 
 the Corn-laws and the Navigation-laws were repealed. With 
 a few years of Free Trade, the workhouse would be empty, 
 and the arts of peace would bring prosperity for all. The 
 age of gold was to be the Golden Age. The apotheosis of 
 Industry, and the millenium of Peace and Plenty, were to 
 date from the Great Exhibition of 1851. 
 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very Heaven I 
 
 I was then a little child, just old enough to hear some- 
 thing of the fairy tales of science ; and I could weep when 
 I look round and see the world as it is to-day. 
 
 Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
 
 Where is it now the glory and the dream f 
 
 The child could not know what the man gradually learns,
 
 16 
 
 that every blessing in this world has its price ; that all pro. 
 gress brings new problems ; that even " pleasure's sunshine 
 oasts its shadow pain." There were men who felt this at 
 the time, but the majority were carried away by hopes 
 doomed to swift disappointment, and they became sadder 
 and wiser in the school of experience. The day-dream of 
 our age has been wealth, and its nightmare poverty ; if the 
 curse of ancient civilisation was slavery, the canker of 
 modern civilisation is pauperism. Since 1851 the growth 
 and accumulation of wealth in England have been unpre- 
 cedented. The sum of annual assessed income has more 
 than doubled, while population has advanced little more 
 than twenty per cent. ; and yet we hear that it is harder 
 than ever to make a living. Labour-saving machinery has 
 brought an increase of work, and facilities of intercourse an 
 increase of worry. "We have invented the telephone, the 
 spectroscope, and the breech-loader; we have nearly perfected 
 the sewing machine, the logical machine, and the infernal 
 machine ; we have gone so far in the study of the knowable 
 that we are now taking lessons in the unknowable ; and 
 yet " there's something rotten in the State." People still 
 die for want of food, and perish for lack of knowledge. 
 What means this " Horrible Cry " which startles the air, 
 amid the luxury and opulence of our great cities ? What 
 means this rumbling as of earthquake beneath the thin 
 social crust, already burst by one terrific eruption from that 
 volcano of civilisation Paris ? What means this Inter- 
 national, with its various branches, under different names 
 in different countries, which is sounding the tocsin of the 
 war of classes before the war of races is past ? Surely (1) 
 there must be some defect in our social organisation, or (2) 
 men are trusting to external conditions of welfare for results 
 which depend mainly on conduct, and for results which 
 cannot be effected without a change in human nature and 
 in the laws of human existence. Possibly both. 
 
 And now having reached this Sphinx-riddle of Socialism, 
 which confronts civilisation with the fearful alternative,
 
 17 
 
 Solve or Dissolve, I may premise that, bad as the times 
 are, I do not believe in the prophets who prophesy back- 
 wards, and say that the former days were better than 
 these. Since the .idea of humanity has been added to the 
 idea of nationality, no century haa passed in which Society 
 has not appeared to thoughtful men to be on the brink of 
 ruin. The sixteenth century, according to Erasmus, 
 was Faex Umporum, the dregs of time, the refuse of the 
 ages ; the seventeenth century, according to Bossuet, was 
 " a bad and paltry age ; " and the eighteenth century, 
 according to Rousseau, was, " This great rottenness amidst 
 which we live." Evils, now detected and denounced, were 
 once unnoticed and unchecked ; sorrows, now treated with 
 tenderness, were once regarded with indifference ; nay, 
 sufferings, which we alleviate, were once wilfully aggravated 
 and multiplied. The frenzied and brutal delight formerly 
 taken in the infliction of pain, and in the butchery of men, 
 apart from war, would be incredible were not the page of 
 history red with blood ; and this, under the sanction of 
 amusement, custom, policy, law, and so-called religion. 
 The progress of Christian civilisation has not recognised, in 
 vain, the sacredness of life, the right of personal freedom, 
 equality before the law, freedom of labour and of trade, liberty 
 of conscience, of thought, of speech, of the press, religious 
 equality, equality of political rights. And if it has not 
 secured equality of social condition, it is because it cannot 
 do the impossible, for no civilisation can transcend the 
 laws without which it would cease to be. 
 
 I say civilisation has not secured social equality, and it 
 never can. So long as the conditions of life on the earth vary, 
 and so long as human beings vary, in health, and strength, 
 and ability, and thrift, and temperament, and training, 
 and taste, and character, so long u some must be greater 
 than the rest, more rich, more wise." This, however, 
 does not justify the perpetuation of proved social wrong. 
 As the structure of Society changes, its institutions must 
 be re-adjusted, and if prudence and sympathy fail now to
 
 18 
 
 counteract the evils of reckless competition, retribution will 
 inevitably come. For Society is itself an Institution as well 
 as an organism ; and it is subject, within wide limits, 
 to the intelligent control of its members. The units of a 
 physical organism exist only for the good of the whole ; a 
 social organism exists only for the good of its members. This 
 is the lesson of the Industrial stage as distinct from the 
 Military stage, in which the individual was supposed to 
 exist only for the benefit of the State. The Sociologists 
 hint that a new type of Society may be ultimately developed, 
 in which " the belief that life is for work " will give place 
 to " the bel : ef that work is for life." Be that as it may, 
 we are now face to face with this practical difficulty : if 
 any given Society ceases to justify its existence by bene- 
 fiting all its members, those who suffer will sooner or later 
 assert themselves, and revolution in some form will ensue. 
 
 Is such a revolution imminent ? We are assured by many 
 that it is. Social agitators are teaching the toilers of the 
 world that they have been unjustly deprived of the good 
 things of nature and civilisation. One of the cardinal 
 dogmas of Socialism is, "All wealth is due to labour, 
 therefore to labour all wealth is due." "Without dwelling 
 on the functions of capital, I may point out that the sketch 
 I have already given indicates that wealth is not due to labour 
 only, but to labour directed by intelligence, and controlled by 
 morality. The want of these last elements is one explana- 
 tion of the fact that there is so much labour in vain. 
 Another cardinal position of Socialism is this, " Under 
 the existing system, the tendency of progress is to make the 
 rich constantly richer, and the poor poorer." A conclusive 
 refutation of this statement, as far as England is concerned, 
 during the years of her greatest commercial activity, is 
 furnished by a series of powerful articles in late numbers of 
 the Quarterly Review. I regret that it is too long for my 
 limits, even in summary ; but, as the articles, which have 
 been attributed to Mr. Mallock, are about to be published 
 separately, they will soon be easily accessible. The most
 
 19 
 
 complete examination of the reward of labour will be found in 
 Professor Rogers' carefully-prepared treatise, entitled Six 
 Centuries of Work and Wages, just published. I am glad 
 to say that the book is already in the Library, though it 
 arrived too late for me to avail myself of its store of facts 
 and principles as much as I should have been glad to do in 
 preparing this address. He considers that artisans, but not 
 agricultural labourers, are recovering, and in many cases 
 have regained, the relative rate of wages of the fifteenth 
 century the highest during the period of which he writes. 
 There remains, however, the question whether labour has 
 had its due share in the social distribution ; and this seems 
 to me to call for the most grave and patient consideration, 
 for it is a question which cannot be shelved, and ought not 
 to be, if it could. 
 
 Passing over the anarchic Socialism of Bakunin, in Russia, 
 and the organic Socialism of Karl Marx and Lassalle, in 
 Germany, we are bound to note the character and prospects 
 of the modified State Socialism, which has recently been 
 advocated in England by the American apostle, Mr. Henry 
 George. To the scandal of Mr. Hyndman, who is the 
 English interpreter of the International, Mr. George is con- 
 tent to leave capital alone for the present ; all he asks for is 
 the universal confiscation of rent to the State. Not the 
 capitalists and the middle-men, not the speculators and 
 promoters, not even the idle and the profligate, but the 
 landowners, are, according to him, sinners above ajl men. 
 " Private ownership of land," he says, " is the nether mill- 
 stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between 
 them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are 
 being ground. . . . We must make land common pro- 
 perty." It is perhaps hardly surprising, notwithstanding 
 the accent of conviction, the appearance of logic, the 
 fervour of rhetoric, and the assumption of high moral tone, 
 with which this polity of theft is put forward, that some 
 Englishmen, who with all their faults have not quite lost 
 a sense of national honour and personal honesty, should 
 B2
 
 call Mr. George a charlatan. How any man in his right 
 mind can imagine that this mere shifting of accounts, this 
 simple change of landlords, this " new way of paying old 
 rents," is ultimately to benefit anybody, this enquiry 
 has the air of the conundrum, of which a humorous com- 
 patriot of Mr. George used to say, " I give it up." The 
 most complex problem ever presented to the human mind is 
 not to be solved by dealing in this summary fashion with 
 one of its numerous factors. Mr. George would do well to 
 consult another fellow countryman, Mr. Lester F. Ward, 
 who wishes to " concentrate energies for the present on the 
 better distribution of knowledge, because inequalities of 
 capital and labour depend, in the last analysis, on inequali- 
 ties of intelligence." He might then weigh some of the 
 other conditions on which perhaps it is still more dependent. 
 Society is not to be regenerated by the wave of an enchanter's 
 wand, though it come from San Francisco, any more 
 than all the ills that flesh is heir to are to be cured by the 
 apple of Samarcaud. And Englishmen have the common 
 sense as well as the moral sense to see this. Against the 
 sneer that they are not a logical people may be set the fact 
 that they are a practical people. They are not impervious 
 to an idea ; but they know when to drop it : and after the 
 experience of a thousand years, during which they have 
 developed a Constitution, just, and free, and great enough, 
 to be the envy of the world, they may be credited with at 
 least some discernment as to what is possible and right in 
 public actions. 
 
 It is a coincidence worthy of remark, and not without 
 quaint suggestiveness, that on the very day in January last 
 when Mr. George began his lecturing tour, at St. James's 
 Hall, Mr. Gladstone addressed the farmers of Cheshire, at 
 Hawarden. Mr. George dilated on the transformation- 
 sceue that would follow the application of his remedy. His 
 great difficulty was to get rid of the surplus revenue. 
 Amongst other rodomontade he declared that every widow 
 in the land, beginning with the Queen, might receive a
 
 21 
 
 pension of 100 ; every marriageable girl a dowry ; and 
 every man of a certain age an annuity ; and still there would 
 be enough and to spare. Mr. Gladstone on the same day, 
 spoke to his farming friends about jam, and eggs, and the 
 Agricultural Holdings Act. I confess that, as I read the 
 reports in the same paper, I thought Mr. Gladstone was 
 the more statesmanlike and practical social reformer of the 
 two. Did he treat of trivial matters? One might be 
 forgiven for commemorating it in the sonorous words of 
 Johnson, " An elevated genius, employed in little things, 
 appea: s like the sun, in his evening declination ; he remits 
 his splendour, but retains his magnitude ; and pleases more, 
 though he dazzles less ?" Here was one mind, at least, 
 free from the idols of the cave, and answering to Bacon's terse 
 description penetrans d capax, keen enough for every 
 detail, broad enough for every principle. It is the com- 
 bination of these qualities which has made Mr. Gladstone 
 what he is ! Burke has told how so paltry a sum as three- 
 pence, and so insignificant an article as tea, once shook the 
 pillars of a commercial empire that circled the globe. 
 There are other time-honoured pillars of empire besides 
 wealth, viz. : Religion, Justice, and Counsel : and yet Mr. 
 George seems to think that these great pillars may be over- 
 thrown for the sake of turning the pillar of Treasure upside- 
 down. If we lost the United States through injustice and 
 stupidity, we shall not, at the instance of an American, 
 rush into irretrievable rain, by committing a far iLore 
 stupendous crime and eggregious blunder, under the delu- 
 sion that good may come. 
 
 And yet, though I consider Mr. George's remedy to be 
 worse than the disease, I would not call him a charlatan. 
 A charlatan is a conscious impostor, but Mr. George believes 
 in himself, and in his message ; and he has a message, too, 
 of a sort, but it is a message to the heart rather than to the 
 head. Moreover he has made his message heard. 
 A scheme almost identical with Mr. George's was 
 sketched by Mr. Spencer in his Social Statics more than
 
 22 
 
 thirty years ago. Social Statics is still in its third thousand ; 
 Poverty and Progress is said to be far beyond its three 
 hundredth thousand, a fact with a meaning, read it how 
 you will. Mr. George's passionate feeling has run away 
 *ith his judgment, and warped his conscience ; but he has 
 told anew how 
 
 Man's inhumanity to man 
 Makes countless thousands mourn. 
 
 Put down the full proportion of misery, due to inevitable 
 causes, and to the vice, and improvidence, and ignorance, 
 of the sufferers there still remains an appalling residuum, 
 due to the greed for gold which destroys the sense of social 
 duty. He has brought this truth home. According to his 
 light he has tried to give glad tidings to the poor. Let 
 those who regard it as mocking light, and who have truer 
 light, share his spirit of enthusiasm and sincerity, and do 
 better. I believe they will. Nay, many are doing so now, 
 as some have been doing long. You would not thank me 
 if I' were to enumerate the thousand and one new claims on 
 sympathy which are the outcome of our industrial system ; 
 or the nine hundred and ninety-nine new methods in which 
 efforts are made to meet them. Are not these things 
 recorded in every paper, and magazine, and in books innu- 
 merable ? But all schemes of social reform will fail, so 
 long and so far as each man falls short in his duty to him- 
 self and his neighbour. For the fulfilment of these duties 
 he will have to reduce to practice some Theory of Moral 
 Sentiments, as well as the principles of The Wealth of Nations. 
 If this is too high for any one, let him look for a simple 
 guide to duty, and he will not have far to go. In fact he 
 may stand still, look in his own heart, and like genius, find 
 what he seeks. It is not for me to speak with authority 
 from this chair ; but I may be allowed to recommend the 
 following counsels of perfection, from a source to which no 
 one will take exception. They are older than Adam Smith 
 and the Industrial Age ; but they are words as fitly spoken 
 now as ever: " Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure,
 
 the love of gain, anl insolence ; nothing nobler than great- 
 ness of soul, and gentleness, and ttw love of man, and doing 
 good." So taught one, the story of whose life is given in 
 his epitaph, " I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in 
 body, and a beggar for poverty, and dear to the immortals." 
 He lived at Rome in the reign of Xero a name not dear 
 either to gods or men. There is, however, one Emperor, in 
 the dark roll of those who follow, whose light blends for 
 ever with that of Epictetus Marcus Aurelius. The slave 
 and the master of the world : this double-star shines as 
 one, and dwells apart, as the shadows of night are gathering 
 around the splendour that was Rome. It is not the Art of 
 Rising in Life but the Virtue of Raising Life that we need 
 to cultivate most. There are worse evils than work lazi- 
 ness, for example ; there are worse evils than poverty, for 
 instance, covetousuess ; there are worse evils than the 
 sorrows which come upon us, namely those which we 
 bring upon ourselves and others. There is no greater de- 
 lusion than the notion that if we were all rich less work 
 would be necessary. Speaking broadly, men, somewhere 
 and somehow, must get out of the earth by labour enough 
 food every year to support the population of the globe for a 
 year ; and those who do not directly produce food must 
 furnish an equivalent in some form. I think this will give 
 most of us a fair day's work, six days a week. If we could 
 annex a golden star, and coin it, and distribute 10,000 a 
 head all round, a la Mr. George, we bhould not be any 
 better off. If we all had one purse it would soon be empty, 
 and there would be just as many mouths to fill. The law 
 of life is work ; and, if the sane and strong object to this 
 condition, they should look out for another, and, let us hope, 
 a better world. In case of failure they might resolve to 
 assist in making the best of this ; their quest of a better 
 might then, in due season, be crowned with success. Toil 
 ' is not confined to those who labour with their hands ; nor 
 is the monotony of toil. Most honest men find some of 
 their work difficult, and much of it wearisome. The man
 
 24 
 
 to be pitied is the man who, for want of guiding mind or 
 principle, attempts or pretends to do that for which he is 
 unfit. In the development of modern Society, rich sine- 
 cures for the idle and incapable are gradually disappearing. 
 Soon there will be only a few " survival," and some day it 
 will be thought better to be a skilled workman than a gilded 
 youth, good for nothing more honourable to earn one's 
 own living than to live on the earnings of other people. 
 "Whatever we are fitted to do, we shall do well ; what we do 
 well, we are bound to take pleasure in ; and " the labour we 
 delight in physics pain." And are there not times in the 
 history of us all, when the shadows of mystery and death 
 are round about us, when to all the consolations of religion, 
 friendship, literature, philosophy, science, art and nature, 
 we find it necessary to add the final blessing of sheer 
 hard work ? " Two men I honour," says Carlyle, " and no 
 third. First the toil-worn craftsman, that with earth- 
 made implement, laboriously conquers the earth and makes 
 her man's . . . Toil on : thou art in thy duty, be out of 
 it who may ; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, 
 for daily bread. A second man I honour, and still more 
 highly : him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indis- 
 pensable ; not daily bread, but the bread of life. . . . 
 It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor : we 
 must all toil or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which 
 is worse." But " that there should one man die ignorant, 
 who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy." In 
 truth this is the tragedy of real life, which ought to purify 
 the heart by pity and terror. There is no niche for " the 
 third man " in Carlyle's House of Fame. His presence in 
 the world is the chief cause of Socialism. 
 
 I have given my first impression of the Kafir, on my 
 arrival in this country. May I be allowed to add my first 
 impression of the Englishman, when, after nine years of 
 absence, I returned to the well-loved scenes of earlier life. 
 What amazed me, everywhere, was the patience of the 
 multitude, and their willingness to work. I thought, surely
 
 25 
 
 these are the people to solve the social problem, if it is to be 
 solved. Splendour and squalor, wealth and want, were to 
 be seen, it is true, side by side : but there was no revolu- 
 tion in the air. The Englishman does not rebel from love 
 of attack. He may, as Professor Rogers says, like Jona- 
 than in the day of battle, taste the wild honey and find his 
 eyes enlightened ; but he will not fly upon the spoil. He 
 does not believe in dynamite as the force by which Society 
 is to be created anew. The workman, knowing himself, at 
 last, to be free and able to devise and adopt modes of labour- 
 partnership, co-operation and mutual help, believes that 
 time and the national will are on his side ; and that the 
 course of things is tending, by peaceful and practical means, 
 towards the goal which Mr. George vainly thinks (an be 
 reached at a bound, viz. : not equality in wealth, not 
 equality in position, but equality in opportunity : and, 
 strengthened by this conviction, he is content to labour and 
 to wait. One of the best of Plato's suggestions for his ideal 
 Republic is the exclusion of poverty and wealth. Unfor- 
 tunately he does not tell us how to effect this in existing 
 Societies, so that we are the better, only in idea. Happily, 
 in England, there is a large intermediate class, where all 
 social extremes meet and are conciliated if not reconciled. 
 With all its faults, the middle class is not, as Mr. George 
 contends, the wedge which is riving Society asunder, but 
 the pkxus, by which the unity of national life and the 
 solidarity of Society are secured. The calm words of one 
 who understands both the people and the laws of England 
 express, I believe, the sense of the nation : " We may 
 be permitted to trust that the progress of English laws and 
 society will be, as it has been, in a steady course of national 
 reform ; that men of power and wisdom may be with us in 
 time of need, in the future as they have been in the past ; 
 and that the terrible fascination of revolution may remain, 
 as it yet is, alien and impotent among the people. With 
 this confidence, 
 
 What though the radiance which was once so bright 
 Be now for ever taken from my sight . . .
 
 We will grieve not, rather find 
 
 Strength in what remains behind ; 
 
 In the primal sympathy, 
 
 Which having been must ever be, 
 
 In the soothing thoughts that spring 
 
 Out of human suffering . . . 
 
 . . . Truths that wake 
 
 To perish never ; 
 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 
 
 Nor Man nor Boy, 
 Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
 Can utterly abolish or destroy. 
 
 If I am now asked why I should vex a South African 
 audience with the discussion of a subject which some may 
 regard as inappropriate, I reply that it is the question of 
 the time ; and that, notwithstanding the difference of our 
 social condition, it is as pertinent and practical here as any- 
 where. Our present commercial depression may be eited as 
 a proof. We are part of the greater organisation, humanity, 
 and nothing human should be deemed foreign Nor can 
 we sever ourselves from the troubles, any more than from the 
 triumphs of the civilised world : neither duty nor policy will 
 allow it. It is the duty of every man, who can, to ueigh 
 these questions ; for only as they are taken to heart, and kept 
 in mind, shall we approach their solution. Policy forbids 
 that we should neglect the experience of older commu- 
 nities, if we are to build up a noble nation here. 
 Our chief difficulty, at present, is not difference of class but 
 distinction of race. The bulk of our white population 
 consists of two branches of one stock. We need not be 
 ashamed of the separate history of our fathers, or of their 
 common origin. There is much that is essential and best, 
 in which we resemble each other ; there is much that is 
 important and good, in which we differ, but the divergent 
 qualities are complementary not antagonistic. The English- 
 man here represents that restless and resistless energy, 
 without which we shall never become great ; the Dutchman 
 represents, I will not say that " masterly inactivity," but 
 what Wordsworth calls that "wise passiveness," without
 
 27 
 
 which we shall never become stable. The Englishman, in 
 South Africa, betrays too much the tendency to wear out or 
 " clear out ; " the Dutchman is too prone to stagnate, and 
 to allow the cake of custom to become thick and hard. 
 The conclusion is obvious ; we cannot do without each other. 
 The principle of sympathy here reaches its climax, and the 
 result is inevitable : we must marry each other. (Interpret 
 it how you will.) We must feel, and as Browning says, 
 " know ourselves into one." This perhaps is not exactly 
 the Afrikander Bond ; but it is the only Bond of South 
 Africa. Let the banns be called forthwith ; and J, for one, 
 have no fear as to the issue. What therefore God hath 
 joined together, let not man put asunder. 
 
 Further. We have seen that the immediate fruit of 
 labour depends on the intelligence by which it is directed, 
 and its ultimate worth on the moral principles by which it is 
 controlled. Hence arises the vital importance of education. 
 There are other considerations also which enhance that 
 importance. The results of modern investigation, and the 
 hypotheses of modern speculation, are immediately and 
 widely diffused. They seem to have a special fascination for 
 the ignorant, who often adopt them in their crudest form, 
 and apply them with the worst effects, like children playing 
 with edgo-tools and fire-arms. You cannot prevent the 
 diffusion of theory, however wild, any more than you can 
 stay the proclamation of fact, however stern. You must 
 train men to distinguish between the two, and to bring their 
 own intelligence to bear on both. The three R's are 
 necessary ; but they are not education : they are but 
 means of education, and not the only ones. What you 
 want is that training of common sense, and of moral 
 sense, which will fit a man to be a wise, good and useful 
 citizen* in any position, from the highest to the lowest, for 
 which his abilities fit him. View our Colonial lite from 
 what point you may, the inference is the same. Nature 
 has been niggard to us in some respects, but she lias been 
 bountiful in others. We have grand forms of natural
 
 beauty, and marvellous sources of fruitfulness, yet the 
 shadow of barbarism lingers still : we lack the charm, the 
 flower of civilisation. If this country is to be the fit home 
 of a great people, we must develop not only our material 
 but our mental resources ;' we must look not only to the 
 cultivation of the fields but to the culture of men. Let us 
 then deal wisely and generously with education, in all its 
 b:anches and stages, from the Kraal-school at the 
 bottom to the University at the top to use a phrase 
 now proverbial. While we are striving to make our 
 training more thorough, let us also endeavour to make 
 our System of Education more flexible, so that our 
 wide and numerous diversities of want and claim may be 
 met according to principle, and not evaded or smothered 
 by routine. Let us deal in the same spirit with our schools 
 of art and music, which need the tender care that is the 
 right of infant years ; and with our Libraries and Museums, 
 here and throughout the Colony. Shakspere and the Bible, 
 Stanley tells us, were almost his only links with civilisation 
 and the growing thought of men, when he was buried in 
 the central gloom of this Dark Continent. The greatest 
 achievement of the Age of Industry is that union of mind 
 and hand, of knowledge and labour, of soul and body, the 
 printed page. A good book is a great work. If it is true 
 anywhere, it is true in South Africa, that Literature is 
 University, Parliament and Church. 
 
 Our local atmosphere has long been heavy with rumours 
 of retrenchment, and our treasury is low. May I presume 
 to ask our legislators to bear in mind what our forefathers 
 and otners have done in analogous circumstances ? We 
 have had epidemic disease, followed by stagnation of trade. 
 In the middle oi' the fourteenth century, when the popu- 
 lation of Florence had been thinned, and her trade scat- 
 tered by the ravages of the Black Death, the permanent 
 basis of her illustrious University was laid. And Villani 
 expressly records that the Seignory endowed it, from the 
 public funds, in consequence of the commercial depression,
 
 and with a view to the revival of prosperity. It was 
 towards the end of the same century, after England had 
 been more than decimated by repeated visitations of the 
 Plague ; when she was exhausted by the great war with 
 France, in which she had lost all she had won ; when her 
 merchant vessels were swept from the narrow seas by Spain ; 
 and her trade was crippled if not destroyed it was then 
 that William of Wykeham founded his famous Colleges at 
 Oxford and Winchester. In the sixteenth century, after 
 the long and heroic defence of Leyden, the people of 
 Holland and Zeeland determined to commemorate by a 
 monument, more lasting than metal or marble, the patriot- 
 ism of its citizens ; and thus the University of Leyden 
 was established and endowed, in what Motley calls " the 
 very darkest period" of the struggle for Independence. 
 Need I add that history is philosophy teaching by examples ? 
 Knowledge is power. 
 
 Knowledge is power; but it is not physical force. The 
 subject which we have been considering has bearings on our 
 local life ; but it has close relations, also, to questions wider 
 than itself, questions affecting the nature and the destiny 
 of man. The history of knowledge and labour shows that 
 intelligence may direct and utilise the forces of Nature, but 
 that it cannot create or destroy them. Even the force of 
 the body, that responds directly to will, has limits which 
 the strongest intellect cannot extend. Thus, finally, Socialism 
 is merged in the deepest question of current philosophy. 
 The human mind cannot produce or become physical force ; 
 can physical force produce or become mind ? Man cannot 
 create matter : can matter evolve man ? When the jubilee 
 meeting of German Naturalists was held at Munich, in 1877, 
 Virchow, the veteran savant of Berlin, caused some surprise 
 by hinting that there was danger of an alliance between 
 evolution and Socialism. In my judgment, he indicated a 
 profound truth. The use of the word evolution is perplexingly 
 vao-ue and variable. As it is supposed to explain everything,
 
 30 
 
 so in turn it is made to mean anything. The ablest English 
 exponents of the theory exercise the utmost caution in treating 
 of its ultimate assumptions. They are careful not to dogmatise* 
 being content for the present to accept, as a " scientific belief " 
 awaiting verification, what others, more logical or less wise, 
 do not hesitate to teach as an established truth, viz.: that life 
 and mind are developed from inorganic matte rand its forces 
 only. This doctrine appears to me to find its natural analogue 
 in the Socialist dogma that all wealth is produced by labour, 
 and belongs to labour only. Each of them has a fatal 
 resemblance to an old maxim which is in fact the simplest 
 expression of both a maxim which, as commonly received, 
 has been a fertile cause of moral paralysis and social anarchy 
 the maxim that Might is Right. May we not trace a parallel 
 in the rash attempt which is sometimes made to forecast, on 
 evolution principles, the future of the various races of 
 South Africa, and in the conception of our right which seems 
 Lo go with it, naturally, frequently, but I am glad to say, 
 not invariably ? Is this conception likely to make us 
 more keenly sensitive as to the rights of others, or to raise 
 and purify our own moral nature? Let facts speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 I am not afraid of the elegant taunt, that if I decline to 
 adopt the evolution hypothesis, I am shut up to " the 
 carpenter-theory." Logically, this statement of alternatives 
 is false, for it is not exhaustive. Moreover I am not obliged 
 to accept any hypothesis. Like the English workman, I 
 may prefer to labour and to wait ; or, like the man of 
 science, I, too, may reserve to myself the liberty of philosophic 
 faith. One thing, at all events, I shall not do. I shall not 
 adopt the theory, whatever be its name, which assigns no place 
 to mind in the chain of cause and effect. According to this 
 theory, mind is only an accident of certain forms of matter, 
 in certain conditions. Consciousness does not determine 
 even the action which we call voluntary ; it is simply a 
 collateral result of the working of physical forces, which 
 would continue their operations, in exactly the same way,
 
 31 
 
 if feeling were absent ; it is the mere puffing of the engine 
 which has no effect whatever upon its motion noise and 
 nothing mroe. Man, therefore, is a conscious automaton 
 who will not work on the silent system. In this century of 
 machines, having discovered the mechanism of the cosmos, 
 the mechanism of society, the mechanism of life, our final dis- 
 covery or shall I call it invention ? is that man himself 
 is a machine ! No wonder that pessimism and the doctrine 
 of Nirvana have been revived. I like to know the mechanism 
 of things as well as anyone. I like even more to know the 
 heart of a matter, and, above all, of a person. It is possible 
 to have too much machinery, or, at any rate, to over-estimate 
 its intrinsic worth. If, in this Age of Industry, men are 
 prone to confound wealth with happiness, they are also liable 
 to mistake a knowledge of the physical conditions under 
 which mind is manifested, for a knowledge of mind itself. 
 This is to be acquired only by " the greeting of the spirit." 
 The physiologist, who lays bare the delicate and complex 
 structure of a living organism, may learn something of the 
 outside of life ; but, meanwhile, the life itself eludes his scal- 
 pel ; its mystery is unexplained ; and there i emains on the 
 dissecting-slab only carrion for the grave. The anarchist, 
 who reduces Society to chaos, may grasp at riches ; but the 
 blessedness of being will rise beyond his reach, and the very 
 gold will turn to dross, at the touch of hands that are stained 
 with blood. The theorist, who reduces all things to matter 
 and force, may discover something of the body of Nature, 
 and yet lose the Spirit, without whom all that remains is 
 dust and ashes. 
 
 All the labour and all the machinery in the world, and all 
 the force and all the matter in the universe, are nothing, 
 without Mind. The standing proof of God is mrm.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FIFTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING 
 
 OP THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 r ^frirro f itWic f iharg, 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 9TH MAY, 1885. 
 
 Eev, P. C. KOLB?, D.D., in the Chair. 
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON Sc CO., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S STREET 
 1885.
 
 
 
 Committee : 
 
 LANGHAM DALE, ESQ. M.A., 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 HON. ALFRED EBDEN. 
 WM. HIDDINGH, ESQ. LL.D., 
 
 (Treasurer). 
 REV. JAMES CAMERON, B.A., 
 
 LL.D. 
 
 REV. H. M. FOOT. B.A. 
 
 LL.B. 
 
 C. A. FAIRBRIDGE, ESQ. 
 HON. J. X. MEliRIMAN. 
 H. W. PIERS, ESQ. 
 J. G. GAMBLE, ESQ. M.A. 
 
 Auditors : 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. | J. C. GIE, ESQ. 
 
 Librarian and Secretary: 
 
 F. MASKEW, ESQ.
 
 REPORT. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 In submitting their statement of last year's pro- 
 ceedings of this institution the Committee have to 
 report that there has been a slight decrease in the 
 amount of subscriptions received during the year. 
 This is attributable mainly, it is presumed, to the low 
 state of trade generally, and to the commercial crisis 
 through which the Colony has been passing. 
 
 The accession of books to the Library during the 
 year has been as follows : 
 
 Vols. 
 Miscellaneous Theology... ... -; l .i <)i V.. 5 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. ... ... 24 
 
 Science and the Arts ; B .^J'I f: "?. J ; -' rl '.'.'.." "vJ 47 
 Voyages and Travels ... ... Vi. 9 ... 50 
 
 History ' { ^V- :/il{: i^ [ ; ;; V.. 21 
 
 Biography... ... ... ... ... ' ' ... 45 
 
 Belles Lettres '.-i;' 1 l '' ^'"'-'^il-i '" '' */i : ... 81 
 Novels .,i' } " *!." JIJ ' I .T. jf> timyHif) oJ; ... 142 
 Miscellaneous 10 
 
 Amongst them will be found several valuable works 
 presented by the Royal Society, the Royal Zoological 
 Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal 
 Colonial Institute, the Smithsonian Institution 
 (America), the New Zealand Institute, the Birmingham 
 Philosophical Society, the Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, the Comptroller of the Stationers' Office,
 
 London, Sir Rawson W. Rawson, Miss Julia Lloyd, 
 Messrs. O'Neill, C. J. Cooper, and J. G. Gamble, to all 
 of whom the thanks of the subscribers and public are due. 
 
 The Committee have also to report that Her Majesty 
 the Queen, through His Excellency the Governor, 
 has graciously presented to the Library a copy of her 
 work entitled " More Leaves from the Journal of my 
 Life in the Highlands, from 1 862 to 1 882," and bearing 
 Her Majesty's signature. 
 
 With a view of introducing only those works of 
 fiction which are of high repute and approved by 
 public opinion, the Committee had decided to keep 
 the selection in their own hands ; but this matter was, 
 after a fair trial, found to involve too long a delay, the 
 books arriving here several months after publication, 
 when the public interest in them had waned, and 
 therefore, to meet the wish and convenience of the 
 subscribers the Committee lately reverted to the old 
 arrangement by which the selection of novels is, as a 
 rule, left to the London agents, Messrs. Henry S. 
 King & Co. This plan has now been acted upon for 
 the last few months, ard appears to give satisfaction. 
 
 In the issue of books and periodicals there has been 
 a considerable falling-off during the year as compared 
 with that of the previous one. 
 
 The following is a statement of the number of books 
 circulated in the different departments of Science and 
 Literature : 
 
 Vols. 
 
 Miscellaneous Theology 54 
 
 Political Economy, Government, &c. ... 140 
 
 Science and the Arts .. ... ... ... 171 
 
 Voyages and Travels 1,003 
 
 History 523 
 
 Biography 909
 
 Vols. 
 
 Belles Lettres 749 
 
 Works of Fiction 8,138 
 
 Periodicals and Reviews ... li wl? ... 5,008 
 
 Upon application from the Council of the University, 
 the Library Hall, as on former occasions, was placed 
 at their disposal on Degree Day. 
 
 The Committee have to state that the Government, 
 on completion of the Houses of Parliament, made 
 application for the removal thither of the magnificent 
 portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, which had been 
 entrusted to the care of the authorities of this institu- 
 tion for the last twenty-four years, and that the picture 
 was accordingly handed over to the Government. 
 
 The number of visitors to the institution during the 
 year, as far as could be registered, amounts to 21,976, 
 being an average of 74 daily, the largest number on 
 one day being 148 and the smallest 25. 
 
 It ie gratifying to find the Library well attended 
 throughout the day, and highly appreciated by strangers 
 and other numerous visitors, but the Committee 
 regret that they have not ampler means for augmenting 
 the monthly supply of standard works. From time to 
 time considerable additions have been made, chiefly 
 through the generous contributions of the gentleman 
 who is now the Treasurer of the institution. But it is 
 desirable to adopt a plan of filling up year by year the 
 gaps in one or other of the more important departments 
 of literature and science, and to the public of Cape 
 Town, and indeed of the whole Colony, the Committee 
 think they have a right to look for increased support. 
 
 There have been no accessions to the Grey Collection 
 during the year, with the exception of a copy of the 
 New Testament in Welsh and English, and the 14th 
 volume of the American Philological Association,
 
 but the Collection has been frequented by numerous 
 visitors and students. 
 
 The Treasurer's statement will now be submitted 
 which will show the Income and Expenditure during 
 the past year. 
 
 Processor Gill moved and Mr. Mudie seconded the 
 adoption of the report. 
 
 Hon. J. X. Merriman : I just wish to say, in regard 
 to one passage in that report, that I protest against 
 the statement that the alteration with regard to the 
 selection of novels has worked at all well. On the 
 contrary I think, by trusting to Henry S. King and 
 Company the selection of the novels, that this library 
 has been deluged with an intolerable amount of rubbish. 
 The worst possible novels that could be selected are 
 sent out here ; and instead of this institution raising 
 the tone of literature in Cape Town, I am afraid if 
 many people do read these novels, and they appear 
 to have a wide circulation that the tone is lowered 
 by an institution which is presumed to elevate. I 
 think we had better revert to the old plan, and as to 
 the delay of a month or two, people can easily wait 
 that time rather than that we should have a large 
 amount of intolerable rubbish sent out here. 
 
 On a motion by Canon Lightfoot, seconded by Mr. 
 Rutherfoord, a vote of thanks was passed to the 
 retiring Committee, to the Treasurer, and to the 
 auditors of the past year. In moving it Canon 
 Lightfoot remarked that the Committee had done 
 much with very limited means, and he could only 
 express the earnest hope that further funds would be 
 placed at their disposal for securing works which the 
 institution really required. 
 
 ;
 
 ADDEESS. 
 
 OF all the Arts which go to make up the "sore 
 travail which God hath given to the sons of man to 
 be exercised therewith," none has had so much lahour 
 spent on it, and none has been so worthy of labour, 
 as the Art of Thinking. Many evidences of this 
 honourable toil are on the shelves around us, in this 
 which we may call our Art Gallery of mind ; and it 
 is this aspect of our mind's work that has inspired 
 me with the subject of my address. I shall speak of 
 Thinking as a Fine Art. The notion is common 
 enough, but I think we have reason to complain of the 
 way in which the notion is grasped and carried into 
 practice. Thinking is always called an Art, but it is 
 not always consistently regarded as such, nor indeed 
 is it often now-a-days cultivated as such, a very 
 general idea prevailing that it is a kind of instinct, 
 and that to know about other people's thoughts is 
 the same thing as to think, as if men painted by 
 instinct, or became architects by looking at buildings. 
 How few schools are there like that of St. Augustine, 
 where the lads were daily taught to lay aside their 
 books awhile and think ! It is therefore my intention 
 to do what I can towards setting this often ill-grasped 
 notion in a clearer light, and to urge, in so far as I 
 may, its being more commonly acted upon. 
 
 It seems to me strange that at the beginning of our 
 books on Logic, books concerned with the laws ot
 
 Thinking, we have discussions ns to whether Logic is 
 an art or a science. Following the ordinary use of 
 words, this question is perhaps somewhat misleading. 
 Painters painted, and architects built, and then critics 
 came and analysed and made a theory, but this 
 analysis, this theory, was not itself art. So thinkers 
 thought, and critics analysing made Logic, but this 
 analysis, this Logic, is not art. I am also surprised 
 when people speak of the promulgation of a new logical 
 method as being the birlhspring of new progress in 
 Thought, as witness the common superstition about 
 Bacon, that he invented Induclion, and immediately 
 Science was born. This is against the nature of things. 
 Theory cannot give the initial impulse to Art. Let a 
 new school of painters or architects arise (I say a 
 school, for no individual is ever equal to the task) 
 adding native genius to their assimilated inheritance 
 of skill, and at once the theory of painting or of archi- 
 tecture will enlarge its bounds ; but there never was, 
 and ne ?er will be, an instance of an art theory creating 
 art, critic- leading the way, and geniuses bringing up 
 the rear. So let a new school of thinkers arise (again 
 no individual will do), and, gathering up the rich store 
 of past generations, add to it the priceless treasure of 
 original thought, and immediately the theory of logical 
 method will expand, the logician follow ing the thinker, 
 as a geographer in the train of an Alexander, not to 
 tell him where to go and conquer, but to describe to the 
 world what he has conquered. It is Thinking, then, 
 that is the Art ; Logic is only the paper record of it. 
 And Thinking shows its kinship to the other Arts. 
 They are all bound together by subtle and intimate 
 relations, and Thinking is no exception. It could 
 hardly be otherwise, for both it and they are, in 
 mathematical phrase, functions of the same unknown
 
 9 
 
 quantity, called civilization, and may therefore be 
 expressed in terms of one another. Take, for the sake 
 of comparison, any special Art, say Architecture. 
 Such as a nation's Architecture is, such also is its 
 Thought ; and vice versa. This we may establish by 
 a very simple induction. The Architecture of India is 
 an exact reflex of the thought of India, grotesque in 
 form,, overlaboured in detail, exquisite in workman- 
 ship, and yet most of that workmanship wasted over 
 irrelevant ornamentation. So also with Greek Archi- 
 tecture and Thought, severe and exact, delighting 
 in simplicity and proportion, appealing to the under- 
 standing rather than to the feelings ; yet, with all its 
 beauty, of the earth earthy ; its lines parallel to the 
 earth's surface, and in aspirations heavenward utterly 
 wanting. Take again the Gothic Architecture, and 
 the Scholastic Philosophy, of the middle ages : if 
 thoughts were stones, one might compare the Summa 
 of Thomas Aquinas with any of those glorious cathe- 
 drals which were building in his time, the same unity 
 of organized plan, the same rigorous subjection of 
 every detail to that plan, the same infinite array of 
 heaven-pointing arch and pinnacle and spire, the same 
 subdivision of tracery, the same elaborate display of 
 pillared support for every separate moulding, and yet 
 withal the same frequent concealment of the real mode 
 of support for the whole superincumbent structure. 
 And to carry the parallel still further, we may point 
 out how the Gothic style and Scholasticism were liable 
 to the same causes of corruption, and became debased, 
 both of them, ; s soon as they ceased aiming at the 
 expression of truth and aimed only at ingenuity. 
 Again, Avhat was the Renaissance in both thinking and 
 building? With a few well-restrained exceptions, it 
 was nothing but a bold endeavour to introduce the
 
 10 
 
 genius of a departed paganism into the life of Chris- 
 tianity, and, unfortunately, it too often largely 
 succeeded. Once more come to modern times. AVhat 
 Architecture have we now? When we are at our 
 best, we are servile copiers of past ages ; and the more 
 servile, the better are our buildings. Ordinarily 
 speaking, putting aside the revival still in its infancy, 
 we pick a bit from one style and a bit from another, 
 and add nothing but monstrosities of our own, and 
 part does not harmonize with part, and good workman- 
 ship is not held in honour, so that we may characterize 
 the common run of our buildings as being in style a 
 conglomeration of incongruities, and in material, 
 mostly stucco and sham. And our thinking world 
 corresponds pretty closely. There are signs of 
 better things ; but, as a rule, our books, journals and 
 papers teem with the same sort of work, inter- 
 mingled, incoherent and illogical, pretentious and void. 
 1 am aware that I am running somewhat counter to 
 ordinary notions in coupling together Gothic and the 
 Schools; I can only say that the comparison would have 
 been acknowledged, not only in the fourteenth century, 
 but also in the seventeenth. The conceited and shallow 
 think ers of the Renaissance had the same sneer for 
 both ; it .was they, Vandals as they were themselves, 
 who gave the name Gothic, meaning it for an insult ; 
 it was they, too, who called the schoolmen barbarians. 
 Both sneers were caused by ignorance and incapacity, 
 as sneers generally are. In spite of them, Pointed 
 Architecture has re-asserted its sway, and has trans- 
 formed its nickname into a title of honour. Signs are 
 already indicating that Scholasticism will do the same, 
 and that hereafter even the " darkness of the Schools " 
 will be preferred to the " enlightenment '' of the Renais- 
 sance. This, however, is by the way.
 
 11 
 
 Another point in which Thinking shows its kinship 
 to the family of the Fine Arts is in its impulses being 
 incalculable ; it culminates capriciously. You cannot 
 tell when or where the great artist, poet or thinker 
 shall arise. He may burst forth suddenly, like the 
 Buddha, or like Dante, and hold a lonely throne, 
 unheralded and unsucceeded. Or he may come as 
 the greatest of a brilliant band, primus inter pares, 
 like Raphael among painters, Shakespeare among 
 dramatists, Aristotle among thinkers. The coy Muse 
 has often to be wooed long and laboriously before 
 she will be won, and may refuse to be won after all. 
 At other times she seems kindly to excess, and is 
 prodigal of her favours. But note, that while the 
 Art is thus capricious, the Theory steadily advances. 
 The theory of sculpture, or of painting, with all 
 technical appliances, was never so complete as at the 
 present day, but where is the man now who could 
 carve us the Apollo Belvidere or the Antinous, or 
 paint us the Madonna di San Sisto or the Last 
 Judg.nent ? So the theory of Thinking, Logic, was 
 never so thoroughly sifted and so ably expounded as 
 at the present day ; but the Art itself is at a fearfully 
 low ebb, and we look around in vain for a Plato, an 
 Augustine, a Bacon or a Kant. 
 
 But quorsum hcec ? Nobody denies that Thinking 
 is an Art. Why state it with such parade ? What 
 follows from it that we do not already know ? What 
 follows ! why, just this : that if these tilings are so, we 
 should accommodate ourselves to them and voluntarily 
 accept their consequences, which we do not do. It 
 follows, for instance, that, thinking beiug an Art, not 
 everybody can think, -any more than everybody can 
 draw or build. We can all do that rapid drawing of 
 characters generally called writing, and I suppose we
 
 12 
 
 could all with our umbrellas sketch a small map upon 
 the pavement for an erring wayfarer, but that does not 
 entitle us to say that we can draw. We could all, if 
 pushed to it, devise and construct some kind of hut to 
 dwell in, but that does not make us architects. So we 
 can all go through the ordinary routine of life as 
 rational beings, without therefore having the right to 
 call ourselves thinkers. Now this is just what we cannot 
 reconcile ourselves to. We keep on imagining that 
 we are thinkers, that we have an inherent right to 
 settle all questions in heaven and earth. The most 
 intricate disputes in morals and politics are decided 
 everywhere with a facility and self-sufficiency that 
 wf mid make even Socrates stare. The world has never 
 learnt, seems li 1 ely never to learn, Socrates' lesson : 
 it still supposes that, while the common Arts and the 
 Fine Arts are of difficult attainment, the diviner Arts of 
 Thinking correctly and of Living nobly are to come by 
 haphazard or by heaven-born inspiration. And thus 
 it comes to pass that we do not exactly know what it is 
 that Education has to do for us. In this respect we are 
 behind the Greeks, behind even the despised Middle 
 Ages. In their education they had a definite end, and 
 definite means to that end. Their means may not have 
 been the best possible ; in fact, the means at our dis- 
 posal are indefinitely superior ; but their education was 
 never aimless, as ours too often is, so that they 
 frequently did more with their little than we with our 
 much. Professor Mahaffy tells us in his interesting 
 book on Old Greek Education that the Greek public 
 was far better educated th-m we are. " For Greek life 
 afforded proper leisure for thorough intellectual training, 
 and this includes first of all such political training 
 ns is strange to almost the whole of Europe; secondly, 
 moral training of so high a kind as to rival at times the
 
 13 
 
 light of revelation ; thirdly, social training to some- 
 thing higher than music and feasting by way of recrea- 
 tion ; and fourthly, artistic training, which, while it did 
 not condescend to bad imitations of great artists, taught 
 the public to understand and to love true and noble 
 ideals." 
 
 I am convinced that the true view of education is 
 the artistic view, and not the theoristic : it should be 
 a definite development of faculties, not a mere aimless 
 filling of a capacity ; a training of the whole man to 
 action, and not to dreams. And I am therefore con- 
 vinced that much of our teaching power is being thrown 
 away. Our examinations show it, and our results 
 show it. 
 
 What do our examinations test ? Little more, I 
 fear, than the power of cram. Of course the best man 
 can generally cram best, and thus generally gets to 
 the top ; but have his energies in so getting to the 
 top been profitably spent ? And does not this intel- 
 lectual cram often go one step further and become 
 intellectual cramp ? A friend, on whose judgment I 
 greatly rely, wrote lo me recently, " If the book- 
 gorging, knowledge-cramming habit of the day does 
 not finally kill all original thinking power, it will be 
 due to some kindly intervention of Providence. Is 
 not our habit of feeding on other men's minds a kind of 
 intellectual cannibalism?" To quote Professor 
 MahafFy again, " Among the Greeks there were no 
 competitive examiuatioLS, except in athletics and 
 music. They never thought of promoting a man for 
 ' dead knowledge,' but for his living grasp of science 
 or of life." 
 
 Our results also show it, for we turn out as ready for 
 life a set of youths, not each knowing what he can do 
 best and how best to do it, but all cast in the same
 
 H 
 
 mould, and determined by fashion rather than by 
 fitness. We are somewhat better now than in the 
 days not so long ago, when every boy had to make 
 Latin verses, and every girl play the piano, nsthe main 
 result of years of education. But even still, many 
 a lad now painfully extracting mathematical roots, or 
 grubbing for Greek ones, would be much more intelli- 
 gently employed upon real agricultural ones. And it 
 Js a thousand pities that some of the arts, for which 
 sometimes gentlemen are fitted as for nothing else, 
 should be regarded as ungentlemanly. I do not see 
 why it is more respectable to pretend to brains which 
 God has not given than to use the manual skill which 
 He has given, and which He alone could give. Much 
 of our teaching power is therefore being thrown away, 
 because we will not recognize the fact that no single 
 art is possible to all ; and even those who might learn 
 to think, we are not training to think, because all are 
 supposed to become thinkers without training. 
 
 I have already become somewhat discursive ; but 
 as all I have said bears more or less convergcntly 
 upon the main subject, you will not, I hope, confine 
 me within strict logical fetters ; nay, I hope you will let 
 me wander a little longer in this by-path ; we shall get 
 into the main-road again by-and-bye. I was saying 
 that education should be a development of faculties, 
 a bringing out of the possibilities of our nature, 
 such a process as George Eiiot indicates the need of 
 in Romola: " Romola had had contact with no mind 
 that could stir the larger possibilities of her nature : 
 they lay folded and crushed like embryonic wings, 
 making no element in her consciousness beyond an 
 occasional vague uneasiness." A true teacher will, 
 in the tentative process of primary education, discover 
 these embryonic wings, and so develop them as to
 
 15 
 
 enable his pupil thereafter to soar. For this reason 
 primary education is wide, because the question has" to 
 be decided, for what art or arts has the scholar a 
 taste. Nor is it only for this reason, but also because 
 we should learn at least a little of every art, if only 
 to appreciate its productions, and thus sweeten our 
 lives with the sense of beauty on every side, and to 
 be able to measure our distance below the masters of 
 it, and thus procure for ourselves a little wholesome 
 humility. While doing this the student will be sure 
 to find that faculty which it would serve him best to 
 cultivate with exclusive care : if his bent be towards 
 the art of music, let him become a musician ; so will he 
 best put forth the powers of his soul : but if it really 
 be towards the art of thinking, then, in God's name, 
 let him go on and learn to think accurately, and dili- 
 gently, and fearlessly. Nay more, often our other 
 powers slumber until they are aroused by sympathy 
 after we have stirred up that in which we excel most ; 
 whereas, had we neglected it, our intellectual growth 
 would have been stunted for ever. A striking instance 
 of this is the astronomer, Father Perry, whom some of 
 you have seen. When a youth, he entered the Seminary 
 at Douay, and was advised to give up studying for 
 the Church, because they said he had no head. 
 He afterwards entered the Jesuit Order, and they set 
 him to work on his own line, and the result was not 
 only his brilliant success in astronomy, but a fair com- 
 petence in other studies also, at one period of his life 
 he taught philosophy with credit. In fact, in this very 
 discovering and developing special faculties lies much 
 of the secret of the wonderful success of the Jesuits 
 as an educational body. 
 
 However, I suppose there is very little use in 
 theorizing on education. Education also is an Art,
 
 16 
 
 and, as we saw before, Theory cauiiot lead the way 
 wh'ere Art is concerned. We can but study the great 
 educators and their method, and then go and try to do 
 likewise. I will but say that if the old saying is to 
 hold good, Cuiquc in arte sua credendum, that everyone 
 is an authority in his own art, another saying must 
 also first hold good, Quisque in arte sua excolendus ; 
 everyone must get a special training in his own art, 
 be that art shoemaking or sculpture, architecture 
 or thinking. 
 
 This brings me back to consider what else follows 
 from the fact that Thinking is an Art. We have 
 seen the negative consequence that it is not given to 
 everyone to be a thinker, and we had already begun 
 to consider the positive consequence that, therefore, 
 thinking must be taught. But how ? Well, how 
 do we teach the other arts ? If I want to learn music, 
 I go to one who knows music ; I learn the elements ; 
 I practise diligently ; I do not venture to strike 
 out a style of my own, I simply do as I am told} 
 afterwards I begin to have more power ; I take hints 
 from other masters ; I develop a character for myself, 
 and can thenceforward teach others. And I do this 
 even if I am a great genius. Raphael learnt from 
 Perugmo. His early pictures are painted in 
 simple obedience to his master's style. Later on 
 he gave full play to originality ; but do you think 
 Raphael would ever have ended in perfection if he 
 had not begun in obedience ? So with all the other arts. 
 Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps, tells us that the Lamp 
 of Obedience is the " crowning grace " of Architec- 
 ture. So also should it be with thinking. It should 
 be, but it is not. Students now do not so much learn 
 as criticize ; they are taught to criticize from the com- 
 mencement. When I went to University College,
 
 17 
 
 London, my professor began by criticizing the text-book: 
 then he pulled all the big philosophers to pieces for 
 us, and called himself an eclectic. Of course we lads 
 soon picked up the trick, and then pulled him to pieces. 
 But just think of this from the point of view of Art. 
 Jack Robinson, an undergraduate, laughs at Kant as 
 a transcendental old fool ! What should we say if a 
 youth, who does not know what colour sunlight is, and 
 who could not draw a straight line, were to jeer at 
 Titian as a daubing old stupid ? Or if a young lady, 
 who contentedly sings B flat while her neighbours are 
 singing B naturjl, were to dismiss Mendelssohn, or 
 even Wagner, as a discordant old jackass? The 
 things are parallel. Even for thinkers who are not 
 beginners there must be some more fruitful way of 
 studying philosophy than to consider all philosophers as 
 so many ninepins to be bowled over. But for the tyro 
 to begin criticizing is surely mere impertinence. What 
 Ruskin says of another art is true here also: " Respect 
 for the ancients increases the power of the painter, 
 though it diminishes his liberty ; and if it be some- 
 times an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is 
 oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. 
 The whole system and discipline of art, the collected 
 results of the experience of ages, might, but for the 
 fixed authority of antiquity, be swept away by the 
 rage of fashion, or lost in the glare of novelty ; and 
 the knowledge which it had taken centuries to 
 accumulate, the principles Avhich mighty minds had 
 arrived at only in dying, might be over thrown by the 
 frenzy of a faction, and al andoned in the indolence 
 of an hour." A flagrant instance of disregard of tl: H 
 truth is found in the philosopher Descartes. Casting 
 oft' all ties of authority, he philosophized on his own 
 basis alone, and the re -ult is that, in spite of all his
 
 18 
 
 undeniable genius, there is not a single one of his 
 main positions that has not been pitilessly rejected 
 even by his own disciples. 
 
 I put it down, therefore, as the first condition of 
 learning to think, this Reverence towards the great 
 Masters, and towards the individual teacher, which 
 every art demands. This quality it is which supplies 
 the pr nciple of cohesion, by which all the arts have 
 grown to greatness. Art-work is not the work of 
 individuals, but the outcome of the united efforts of a 
 school. You see it in the sculptors of Greece, in the 
 stone-cutters of the Middle Ages, in the painters of 
 Italy, in the musicians of Germany, in the athletes of 
 England, in the dramatists of our Elizabethan era, 
 and in the thinkers of Greece. The principle of 
 irreverence at once makes all such combination 
 impossible. Even in ordinary life it is a fruitful breeder 
 of all kinds of misunderstanding ; how much more in 
 philosophy? Why, for example, have English thinkers 
 learned so little from Thomas Aquinas ? Simply 
 because they learnt from Descartes to scorn him ; and 
 therefore now, when they read him, they cannot under- 
 stand the simplest thing he says. They think he is 
 such a fool that, if his folly is not on the surface, it 
 must be in the background. Here is a specimen. 
 G. H. Lewes says : " Aquinas asserted that 
 there could be only one inhabited world ; 
 and his grounds were these : if a second were 
 admitted, there would be no reason for denying a 
 third, and so on to infinity, * which would be con- 
 trary to truth and revelation.' " Now I looked 
 it up. and would you believe it, Aquinas never asserted 
 anything of the kind, and the reasons for what he did 
 assert were totally different, and the words in inverted 
 commas were not there at all. Then is G. H. Lewes
 
 19 
 
 a liar ? No, he only had his folly-spectacles on. The 
 question that St. Thomas was discussing was Utrum 
 sit units mundus tantum f " Whether there he but 
 one universe ?" Under ordinary circumstances, G. H. 
 Lewes would have known that the Latin mundus 
 meant what the Greeks meant by kosmos, the whole 
 complex of created things, and that therefore Aquinas' 
 question meant, " Is there unity in God's universe ?" 
 And he would have learnt that the answer to the 
 question was as wide in philosophical extent as the 
 Evolution Theory. But all this was far too sensible 
 for a schoolman, so mundus must be translated 
 " inhabited world," and the whole thing is reduced to 
 nonsense. Who after that can trust one word of what 
 Lewes has to say on Scholasticism ? His irreverence 
 has put him out of court. 
 
 The next essential requisite towards learning the Art 
 of Thinking is persevering toil at the drudgery of it. 
 Every Art has its own drudgery. That of Thinking 
 consists in the elementary practice of Formal Logic. 
 We must learn to divide, and to define, and to dis- 
 tinguish, and to use words with full consciousness of their 
 exact meaning, and to frame arguments, and to unravel 
 sophistries to split hairs, if you like. Accurate 
 thought is impossible without it. You might as well 
 try to excel in painting without first learning to draw. 
 What is more, these logical exercises must be done 
 under supervision, must be subject to instant correction. 
 Nay, I believe that unless a man in his college days 
 is used to every perpetration of a fallacy being greeted 
 with shouts of laughter from his fellow-students, he 
 will be likely to go on perpetrating fallacies all his 
 life. I know there is a prejudice abroad against 
 Formal Logic. It is irksome; it is stiff; it fetters 
 the mind ; it keeps our thought in a narrow groove ;
 
 20 
 
 there are many objections to it. But I never said that 
 the whole of Thinking was to be done in Formal 
 Logic, any more than that all music consists in* prac- 
 tising scales. I am convinced that Formal Logic is to 
 the Art of Thinking what anatomy is to the Art of 
 healing; or, to change the metiphor by an obvious 
 association, it is what the skeleton is to the body. If 
 we want our thought to have a backbone in it, we 
 must practise dialectics. Bentham is the most logical 
 thinker England has seen for centuries, and in his 
 own line one of the most successful ; study his works, 
 and you will find that nearly all his strength is owing 
 to his marvellous facility in logical division, a power 
 which is as distinctively a mark of his genius, as 
 the argument from the absurd was of Zeno, or the 
 ironic dialogue of Socrates. But if in any writer 
 we find incomplete divisions, inadequate definitions, 
 inconsequent syllogisms, or flagrant fallacies, we 
 may conclude that he is no thinker. Christians 
 are sometimes exercised in mind because several of 
 the great geniuses of the day have discarded Chris- 
 tianity, and that on the ground of advanced thought. 
 This does not trouble me in the slightest. Take Huxley, 
 for instance. He is a great investigator into the 
 facts of biological science none greater; but he is 
 no thyiker. His treatment of Hume's famous argu- 
 ment bristles with logical blunders. He gives in one 
 breath three definitions of Nature which are intended 
 to be equivalent, but in fact are (even on his own 
 principles) mutually exclusive. Then he gives us 
 this argument, and calls it reasoning : Nature is 
 everything which exists ; if therefore a miracle exists 
 it is part of Nature ; but the very definition of a 
 miracle is that it is against Nature ; therefore no 
 miracle exists. This is puerile. Take again his
 
 21 
 
 answer to Dr. Ward's argument on Intuition derived 
 from Memory, an argument to which Mill gave in 
 like a man, granting that our trust in Memory is 
 intuitive, though he maintained it was the one excep- 
 tion. What did Huxley say? He said that there 
 was no Intuition in it at all : we trust our memory 
 because we find it pays. But how do we know we 
 find it pays, except by memory itself? A more 
 delightful vicious circle I never met, unless it be that 
 of a student in my time in Rome, who answered his 
 professor that space must have existed before the 
 world, because when God created the world He must 
 have had a place to put it in. It is true that dialectics 
 can be carried too far, can become the end instead 
 of a means, and then, of course, we have what is 
 sometimes found in Scholasticism. Bacon has wittily 
 described it: "As many solid substances putrefy, 
 and turn into worms, so does sound knowledge often 
 putrefy into a number of subtle, idle and vermicular 
 questions, that have a certain quickness of life and 
 spirit, but no strength of matter or excellence of 
 
 quality For the human mind, if it acts 
 
 upon matter, and contemplates the nature of things 
 and the works of God, operates according to the stuff, 
 and is limited thereby ; but if it works upon itself, as 
 the spider does, then it has no end, but produces 
 cobwebs of learning, admirable indeed for the fineness 
 of the thread, but of no substance or profit." There 
 may be a certain amount of caricature in this and other 
 passages of Bacon ; but while outsiders say, " A hit, a 
 very palpable hit," scholastics themselves are obliged 
 at least to say, " A touch, a touch, I do confess." There 
 was then, and there often is now, when one is deeply 
 imbued with Scholasticism, a tendency to dogmatizing 
 and a priori reasoning on Nature, an air of finality
 
 22 
 
 about one's statements, a readiness to dispute and decide 
 de omni scibili, and to debate as eagerly on trivial 
 questions, or questions that have no issue, as on really 
 useful and important points. And these tendencies, 
 with others, produced what Bacon censures, and what 
 Leo XIII. in his Encyclical on Philosophy calls nimia 
 subtilitate quoesitum and parum considerate traditum. 
 But the best scholastics are not of this sort; and 
 even in the others, many of these " vermicular 
 questions " were hardly regarded as more than dialec- 
 tical exercises, and were often followed up for the 
 mere fun of the thing. Moreover, not all questions 
 now-a-days called frivolous were necessarily so in 
 reality. Thus schoolmen are often held up to ridicule 
 for having gravely discussed the question, " How many 
 angels could stand on the point of a needle ? " It is 
 funny ; and was meant to be funny, in form. But 
 what they Avere really discussing under this quaint 
 disguise, was that deep question which all philosophers 
 necessarily discuss, the Nature of Space, with the 
 further question, " What conceivable relation have 
 pure spirits to space ? " But why did they put it so 
 oddly ? Why ! I cannot tell. Look at one of the 
 old Gothic Cathedrals ; why do grinning gargoyles 
 make faces at you from under the roof? Why are 
 grotesque and comic creatures entwined in the lovely 
 leafage of the sculptured gates ? Why ! I know not ; 
 it was the humour of the men. But even this degree 
 of quaintness is absent from the pages of Thomas 
 Aquinas. He, too, is accused of frivolous questions : 
 well, so was Sir Isaac Newton. When he was study- 
 ing the laws of light on iridescent surfaces, an old 
 woman who lived next door to him remarked of him 
 one day, " Poor daft old gentleman : why, he sits at 
 the window for hours blowing soap-bubbles ! " St.
 
 23 
 
 Thomas Aquinas' frivolous questions always remind 
 me of Sir Isaac Newton's soap-bubbles, and those 
 who object to them remind me of the old woman. At 
 any rate, if there be danger in dialectics, it is sufficient 
 to keep our eyes open and avoid it : there are few 
 things that give us power which do not also bring 
 danger with them : and dialectical skill will give us 
 power : and without power there is no Art. 
 
 And indeed the next great requisite towards learning 
 the Art of Thinking contains the preventive of any 
 ill effects that might arise from dialectics. It is indi- 
 cated in Bacon's words above : that the human mind 
 must act upon matter, and contemplate the nature of 
 things and the works of God, and thus operate accord- 
 ing to the stuff and be limited thereby. If, then, we 
 would learn to think, AVC must accustom ourselves to 
 deal with realities, and not to toy over words or be 
 entangled in notions. Art is concerned with things, 
 not with notions ; and there are things of the mind 
 every whit as real as tables and chairs. If you want 
 to understand what is meant by the reality of an idea, 
 read the first part of Cardinal Newman's Essay on 
 Development : in this part, which is purely philosophi- 
 cal, he treats of the developments and of the corruption 
 of ideas. The following p .ssage will give a hint of 
 his meaning : " When one and the same idea is held 
 by persons who are independent of each other, and are 
 variously circumstanced, and have possessed themselves 
 of it by different ways, and when it presents itself to 
 them under very different aspects without losing its 
 substantial unity and its identity, and when it is thus 
 variously presented, yet recommended, to persons 
 similarly circumstanced, and when it is presented 
 to persons variously circumstanced under aspects, 
 discordant indeed at first sight, but reconcileable
 
 24 
 
 after such explanations is their respective states of 
 mind require : then it seems to have a claim to be 
 considered the representative of an objective truth." 
 Now, it is these objective truths which we must keep 
 before our mind, if we would really think ; and this 
 necessitates the process known as Meditation or 
 philosophic Contemplation. Otherwise we shall never 
 think, we shall only be letting a stream of abstractions 
 pass through our mind ; we shall be dealing with 
 mere symbols, and might as well be talking about 
 X, Y, Z. Many a student is taught to discuss the 
 theories, e.g., of the union of soul and body : he can 
 tell you all that philosophers have said on the subject ; 
 can classify them ; can criticize them all ; but he has 
 never thought about it himself : the whole question is 
 to him a mere dream, and if he adheres to any solution 
 himself, it is simply for form's sake ; it does not 
 influence his life, it brings no beauty before his mental 
 vision ; he has never contemplated it. In Newman's 
 language, our apprehension of the philosophic truths 
 we talk about must be not only notional, but also real. 
 Read the Grammar of Assent, and you will see what 
 this means : I despair of conveying the full value of 
 the distinction between notional and real apprehension 
 and assent in a sentence or two : I must content 
 myself with referring to it. Obvious though it seems, 
 the distinction is (I believe) original with Newman. 
 To my mind, it goes to the root of most of the bad 
 thinking in the world. And since I have mentioned 
 i he Grammar of Assent, I cannot refrain from 
 expressing my surprise that it is not yet on the shelves 
 of this Library ; it seems to me the most remarkable 
 book on the Theory of Thinking written this century, 
 certainly it is the most original. It is the Novum 
 Oryanum of Implicit Thought : and in logical science
 
 25 
 
 the theory of Implicit Thought is, I thiuk, as distinct 
 and as necessary an advance upon Induction as 
 Induction was upon Deduction. 
 
 But I must proceed. I must make a fourth postu- 
 late. Our pursuit of the Art of Thinking must begin 
 in reverence, must go on in willing drudgery, must 
 rise to contemplation of the realities of the mind, and 
 must lastly be motived by undying enthusiasm. We 
 must love our art, for its own sake, not for anything 
 it can bring us. We must be ready to sacrifice every- 
 thing for it : because its object is not only Beauty, 
 but Truth, and Truth is divine. We must be real 
 philosophers, lovers of wisdom : otherwise we can 
 never become artists in the domain of Thought. 
 The dry light of the intellectual world within us 
 must not be dispersed in the humours of feeling, 
 nor refracted in the unequal media of prejudice. 
 Onward, whithersoever Thought may lead us, must 
 be our cry ; and we must be animated with such 
 a spirit that neither terrors of hell, nor visions of 
 Heaven, nor allurements of earth, nor unsteadiness of 
 passions, nor intoxication of pride shall make us swerve 
 from the straight path of intellectual light. For the 
 natural home of true intellectual light is the Bosom 
 of God. 
 
 On a motion by the Hon. J. Tudhope, a vote of 
 thanks was accorded to the Chairman for his able- 
 address. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PBINTaBS, ST. GEOBGE'8-STaKET.

 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 FIFTY -EIGHTH T ANNIVERSARY r MEETING 
 
 OF THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 
 
 >0t|j Jinan Ijttblic 
 
 CAPE TOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 
 
 HELD ON SATURDAY, THE 7TH MAY, 1887 
 
 The Era. J. X, MEREIMAN, M.L.A., is the Chair. 
 
 PRINTED BY TCTWNSHEND & SON, 74, LOOP STREET. 
 1887.
 
 OJI'I. 
 
 
 
 ttommittte : 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, Esq. (Treas.) E. M. Boss, Esq. 
 
 L. DALE, Esq., LL.D. [ Eev. Dr. CAMEBON. 
 
 Hon. Justice SMITH. j The Hon. ALFBED EBDEK, Esq. 
 
 Hon. J. X. MEBBIMAN, Esq. j CHARLES A. FAIKBBIDGE, Esq. 
 
 Eev. Professor FOOT. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq. | J. C. GIE, Esq. 
 
 lU&ranan antr Jorcretarg : 
 
 W. H. SEAKLE, Esq. (Acting).
 
 ANNUAL REPORT. 
 
 THE Committee of the South African Public Library wish to 
 express their satisfaction that notwithstanding the loss of a few 
 old subscribers the aggregate amount of annual subscriptions has 
 been increased, and the daily attendance of readers and visitors has 
 been well sustained throughout the year. 
 
 Owing to the reduced Government grant the Committee have 
 been unable to take any steps for the appointment of a permanent 
 librarian, but by the continuance of the services of the acting 
 librarian the expenditure on the fixed salaries of the officer s of 
 the institution has been kept within the limits of the reduced 
 grant, namely 400 per annum. And it is only by the strictest 
 economy in the management of the Library that a fair sum can 
 be set apart year by year for the purchase of additions to the 
 current literature and to the reference department. From the 
 Treasurer's account it will be seen that 250 has been expended 
 on these additions during the year. 
 
 The works added to the Library by purchase and by presenta- 
 tion are classed as follows : Miscellaneous theology, 31 vols. ; 
 political economy, government, &c., 13 vols. ; science and the arts, 
 66 vols.; voyages and travels, 43 vols. ; history, 116 vols. ; bio- 
 graphy, 47 vols.; Belles Lettres, 56 vols.; novels, 98 vols.; and 
 miscellaneous, 42 vols. 
 
 Amongst these will be found several valuable works presented 
 by the Imperial Government, the Colonial Government, the Cor- 
 poration of the City of London, the Koyal Geographical Society, 
 the Koyal Zoological Society, the Eoyal Colonial Institute, the 
 Royal Society, the Royal Dublin Society, the Royal Astronomical
 
 Society, the Norwegian Government, the Smithsonian Institution, 
 America, the New Zealand Institute, the National Association for 
 the Promotion of Social Science, the Birmingham Philosophical 
 Society, the Meteorological Society, the Eoyal Bavarian Academy of 
 Science, Munich, the Swedenborgian Society, London, Miss Julia 
 Lloyd, J. Noble, Esq., J. Spyker, Esq., Martin J. Boon, Esq., A. 
 Eead, Esq., and the Eev. G. E. Drew, to all of whom the thanks 
 of the subscribers and public are due. 
 
 The most valuable portions of the Eeference Library, which 
 are not permitted to be removed, are seldom brought to the notice 
 of the ordinary reader or visitor. These mines of real wealth are 
 kept un worked, and it would be doing good service to the Library 
 as well as to the whole community if a few lecturers (each in his 
 own department, history, biograph)*, travels, natural science, lan- 
 guages, literature, ancient and modern, &c.) would act as guides to 
 the several collections, as was done at the Birmingham Free Library 
 in 1884, when lectures were delivered with the view of making the 
 inhabitants acquainted to some extent with the many and great 
 treasures in the Eeference Section of that Free Library. 
 
 The number of volumes in the different departments of literature 
 and science which were put into circuculation during the year is as- 
 follows : Miscellaneous Theology, 84 ; Political Economy and 
 Government, 93 ; Science and Arts, 351 ; Voyages and Travels, 
 1,292 ; History, 941 ; Biography, 979 ; Belles Lettres, 564 ; Works- 
 of Fiction, 8,945 ; and Periodicals and Eeviews, 5,625. 
 
 From a record kept, the number of readers and visitors to 
 the institution during the past year amounts to 24,874, showing a 
 daily average of 90, the largest number in one day being 137, and 
 the lowest, 32. 
 
 The following works have been added to the Grey Col- 
 lection: "Polynesian Mythology and Maori Legends," one 
 volume, presented by Sir George Grey ; " Pamphlet on the Bantu 
 Language," presented by the Eev. F. W. Kolbe ; "Manuscript of the 
 Eevised Edition of the Kafir Bible," presented by the Eev. A. Krapf ; 
 " Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1885 " 
 " Proceedings of the 7th Annual Session of the American Philolo-
 
 .gical Association, 1885 " ; " Katekisma La Hare " (by Miss Eainy) ; 
 " Testamenta Watsopano, &c." ; and " Table of Concords and Para- 
 digm of Verb of the Chinyanja Language," being the first printed 
 books in the Chinyanja (Lake Nyassa) Language, presented by Miss 
 Waterston. 
 
 The financial statement showed a balance to the credit of the 
 institution of 213 15s. lid. 
 
 The adoption of the Eeport and Treasurer's Statement having 
 been moved, discussion ensued upon it, when Professor EITCHIE 
 moved an amendment to adjourn to a future day, the meeting to be 
 held in the evening, and to be convened by circular sent to each sub- 
 scriber. 
 
 After discussion, the amendment was withdrawn, and the 
 original motion put and carried. 
 
 On the motion of Mr. CRAIG, seconded by Mr. EABINOWITZ, a 
 vote of thanks was accorded to the retiring Committee, Treasurer 
 and Auditors for their valuable services during the past year. 
 
 A ballot for a new Committee having been taken, the scrutineers, 
 Messrs GOLDSCHMIDT and TOOKE, declared the following gentlemen 
 to be duly elected to serve as a Committee of Management for the 
 ensuing year : 
 
 W. HIDDINGH, Esq., LL.D., Treasurer. 
 
 Dr. DALE, 
 
 Hon. Justice SMITH, 
 
 Hon. J. X. MERRIMAN, M.L.A., 
 
 Eev. Professor FOOT, 
 
 E. M. Eoss, Esq., 
 
 Eev. Dr. CAMERON, 
 
 The Hon. ALFRED EBDEN, 
 
 CHABLES A. FAIRBRIDGE, Esq., 
 
 JOHN NOBLE, Esq., 
 
 J. C. GIE, Esq.
 
 CHAIEMAN'S ADDEESS. 
 
 The Hon. J. X. MEBBIMAN then delivered the following 
 address : 
 
 It has been the custom for many years that the Chairman of 
 the annual meeting of the subscribers to the South African Public 
 Library at the conclusion of the formal business of the meeting 
 should deliver an address to those who may happen to attend on 
 the occasion. Last year the observance of this custom was 
 honoured by a breach of the rule, partly owing to a failure on the 
 part of the committee to find a suitable victim to sacrifice, but 
 chiefly because it was hoped that a mere business meeting of the 
 subscribers might elicit some discussion on the affairs of the Library, 
 and by so doing infuse a little life into an institution which ought to 
 be more worthy of the position that it holds. It would be fruitless 
 to tell you how the committee were disappointed, or to lament over 
 again the apathy which, in all matters of public concern, seems to 
 be the besetting sin of our community. In their despair at ever 
 being able to galvanise the subscribers into a more lively interest in 
 their own affairs, the committee have on this occasion reverted to 
 the old method of marking the annual recurrence of the meeting, 
 and have done me the honour to ask me to occupy the chair, which 
 has been filled by so many worthy predecessors. Not being a. 
 specialist, I feel somewhat embarrassed in the choice of a subject 
 upon which I can presume to claim your attention as the "idle 
 speaker of an idle day," fearing lest in my attempts to avoid the 
 Scylla of boredom I may fall into the Charybdis of those of whom 
 it is written "they try to be brief and they become obscure." I 
 will attempt in the few minutes at my disposal to say a few words 
 upon certain phases in the intellectual life of the Colonial Empire 
 of Great Britain, in the hope that some one more qualified mav 
 pursue further an inquiry that is, I venture to say, of the greatest 
 importance. In using the term " intellectual life," I mean every- 
 thing that has to do with the growth or the manufacture of ideas, 
 or of thought, as distinguished from the instruments of material 
 welfare. It is infinitely more difficult to measure the one than the 
 other. Our material progress is recorded in columns of statistics, 
 and in lists of exports and imports, and he who runs may read ; but 
 the signs which record the intellectual life of the nation, the drift of 
 the collective mind of multitudes of men, are far more obscure, and 
 those who stand on the brink of the tide of circumstance and see 
 the stream sweep past them can only dimly guess the direction in 
 which the whole movement is tending. " Ordinary men," as a 
 great historian remarks, " see the fruits of their action ; the seed 
 sown by men of genius germinates slowly. Centuries elapsed before 
 men understood that Alexander had not merely erected an 
 ephemeral kingdom in the East, but had carried Hellenism to Asia ; 
 centuries again elapsed before men understood that Caesar had not
 
 merely conquered a new province for the Eomans, but had laid the 
 foundation for the Romanising of the regions of the West." Yet,, 
 momentous as were the deeds of these two great men, and far- 
 reaching as their effects have been, they pale before the incalculable 
 importance of the national life, commonplace and ordinary no doubt 
 as it seemed at the time, which, by the birth of ideas, and by the 
 cultivation of the intellect, created those forces of civilization which 
 we include under the names of Hellenism, or Roman civilization, of 
 which Alexander and Caesar were only the agents. 
 
 One of the most valuable lessons that history teaches us is the 
 permanence of ideas in comparison with the material works of man, 
 and how the creations of the intellect form the most imperishable 
 part of the national history of a race. The world is strewn with the 
 wrecks of ancient and mighty nations, once highly civilised and 
 powerful, of which the ruined fragments, buried perchance in tropical 
 forests, covered with desert sands, or haply even more effectually 
 concealed under the flimsy constructions of a world that knows not 
 even their name, seem like the fossil bones of dragons of the prime. 
 Yet the ideas generated in rocky Attica and in sun-dried Palestine 
 ages ago, each in their own way move the hearts of men at this day 
 with a living force which will never die. Of the power and glory of 
 Babylon only a few sculptured blocks and dented tiles remain, and 
 the place of the great king truly know r s him no more ; while the 
 glorious heritage of freedom and a free man's right, nurtured in its 
 infancy, amid swamps and forests, by our German and Batavian 
 forefathers, has, in the hands of their Anglo-Saxon descendants, 
 transformed the world. Of the material evidences of the culture 
 and the luxury of the mighty Roman Empire how little remains. 
 Ruined theatres, broken aqueducts, here and there an inscription 
 and a statue, serve to tell us of the past, and to enable us to piece 
 together the pattern of that mighty fabric which covered the shores 
 of the Mediterranean with a life fuller and more vigorous in many 
 respects than that which has succeeded it ; which filled North Africa, 
 and Asia Minor, now so desolate, with populous cities and stately 
 temples, and which secured for its citizens possibly a happier, 
 and certainly a cleaner, life than their modern representatives. All 
 has passed away, but the spirit and even the letter of Roman law is 
 a living force, and enters into the daily life of every civilised man. 
 The sense of public duty and of devotion of the individual to the 
 State is still an ideal 'after which modern democracies toil in 
 vain. 
 
 I am aware that the foregoing remarks are well worn truisms ; 
 so obvious, indeed, that everyone will readily take them for granted, 
 and, like many other lessons of experience, we are all the more 
 ready to give them our assent because we have no intention of 
 making the smallest practical application of their doctrine. We 
 recognise, and we give our languid approval to the better, but we 
 pursue the worse with all our heart and soul. It is almost
 
 8 
 
 saddening to see the tendency of the age to the exaltation of pure 
 materialism, and to have to recognise that our beloved country is 
 one of the worst sinners in that respect. English people are never 
 tired of their rows of figures, and of proclaiming to the world how 
 rich and how comfortable they are, while they only too often justify 
 the accusation of the poet, that England 
 
 "Lets 
 
 Slow die out of her life, 
 Glory and genius and joy." 
 
 More than ever in this year of Jubilee do the songs of the Philistines 
 go up before the great British public, and more particularly the 
 colonial section thereof. In a thousand articles we are reminded 
 how big we are, and how energetic, what money we have borrowed, 
 and how the fulness of earth is ours ; and, in fact, as before the 
 satrap of Media in Zadig, so before us is always sung with perpetual 
 variations 
 
 " Que son merite est extreme ! 
 Que des graces ! que de bonheur ! 
 Ah ! Combien, Mouseigueur, 
 Doit etre content de lui-meme ! " 
 
 And it is only to be hoped that in our case too the very grossness and 
 the constant iteration of the flattery may work its own cure, and 
 that in our moments of sober reflection we may find time for an 
 examination that will convince us that we have still much to do, 
 and perchance much to suffer also, before we can, as the inheritors 
 of the glorious traditions of England, fairly lay claim to the proud 
 title of Greater Britain. While a true estimate of the condition of 
 the intellectual life and tendencies, whether their future national 
 existence is carried on as parts of one great whole or as separate 
 communities, is of as much real importance as an estimate of their 
 material wealth, it is from the nature of things far more difficult to 
 arrive at, and however skilfully carried out, it must remain a matter 
 of opinion, and at best can influence but few. As in meteorology, 
 so in the life of nations the cycles are large and of unknown 
 duration, and he who would frame a chart of the seasons must col- 
 lect and compare a thousand observations. The most that the 
 casual observer can do is to record the general aspect of the case as 
 it appears to him, and if he does so truthfullv, his labour will not 
 be in vain. It is important to remember that the creation and 
 development of ideas which are the truest sign of intellectual life, 
 do not always accompany a high state of culture or of education, 
 though, on the other hand, the creative faculty leads to a political 
 and intellectual activity that brings the others in its train. In no 
 country in the world is education held in higher honour than in 
 China, where for centuries the whole administration has been in the 
 hands of a class of literati, yet no one will venture to contend that
 
 China is a country in which intellectual life is active ; if indeed that 
 -can be called life at all which is a mere reproduction from an 
 .antique mould. The phenomenon is the more striking because 
 neither in statecraft nor in commerce do individuals of the race 
 show themselves destitute of originality and talent. Seldom have 
 philosophers, schoolmasters, and rhetoricians obtained greater 
 honour than in the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire, and 
 never was there a wider diffusion of an elegant culture. But we 
 know now that the intellectual life, seemingly so active, was really 
 dead at its roots. As a branch of a tree set in the ground may 
 continue to bring forth flowers and even imperfect fruit, but the 
 reproductive energy is gone and decay follows all too soon ; so too 
 the last ages of the Helleno-Roman culture were surpassingly fair to 
 the outward eye, but the springs of life were choked at their source, 
 the chill blast from the north came, and they crumbled away as if 
 by magic, leaving, so for centuries it seemed, hardly a wreck 
 behind. Yet if any of us could by some fairy power, like that with 
 which imagination loves to play, have seen at the same time the 
 civilization and the culture- of the Rome of Trajan, and that of the 
 England of Elizabeth, it would have been difficult for us to believe 
 that the one carried within its bosom the seeds of absolute and 
 ruinous decay, and that the other was in a vigorous youth, which in 
 the plenitude of its manhood would open to man's intellect fields of 
 thought far more fruitful if not outwardly so fair as those over which 
 shone the radiance of a dying civilization. It is surely a question 
 of some interest for us to try and frame for ourselves an answer to 
 the question as to whether the outward and visible signs of civiliza- 
 tion and of intellectual life as exhibited in politics, in art, and in 
 literature throughout the British dependencies, are those which 
 betoken an inward vigour and a power of originality which promises 
 a healthy expansion of national life, or whether they rather betoken 
 & weariness, and an absence of originality characteristic of a period 
 of inactivity, of arrested development and in consequence of a 
 shrunk and petty future. It seems almost treason, indeed, to 
 suggest that any community under the flag of Great Britain could 
 have a future of stagnation, so bright, so full of the promise of life 
 and so glorious do the prospects of her dependencies seem. So, too, 
 do grown-up sons, who hang about their rich fathers' house, often 
 seem pleasant, brilliant fellows, with plenty of money to spend, and all 
 the outward sign of prosperity, yet when turned out into the world 
 to seek their fortunes away from the paternal wing they cut but a 
 sorry figure. In looking 'at all the vast possessions of the British 
 Empire, there are some signs which may make us question whether 
 a provincial existence does not tend to the development of the 
 material somewhat at the expense of the intellectual side of our 
 national life, and we may sometimes wonder whether our sur- 
 passingly comfortable condition is in every way the best outfit 
 for the future. On the other hand we must be struck by the
 
 10 
 
 enormous gifts and advantages which have been showered upon 
 us, and \ve shall be ungrateful indeed if we refuse to acknow- 
 ledge the debt that we owe to the great mother who has 
 given us at once protection and independence. I will endeavour 
 very briefly to trace some of the characteristics arising out of our 
 condition as they manifest themselves in the intellectual life of 
 politics, of art, and of literature. I place politics first, for in no 
 direction has the human intellect gained more victories, perhaps in 
 none too has it experienced more disheartening reverses than in that 
 special sphere of its development which includes within it the 
 government and ordering of society under the reign of freedom and 
 of law, which constitutes the highest and the best side of politics. 
 There is none in which the supreme Caucasian mind has more 
 surely vindicated its claim to be at the head of the human race, and 
 it is for this reason that amid so much that is sordid and ignoble, 
 and amid a vast crowd of selfish imitators, the study and the pursuit 
 of politics may fairly claim to have attracted and absorbed in all 
 ages some of the highest and best thinkers and workers. That you 
 may not think that I am demanding too high a place for what is, I 
 must confess, not often thought of as an intellectual pursuit, I 
 would venture to remind you how closely the practical as well as 
 the theoretical side of politics is interlaced with those other forms 
 of genius which in the shape of art and literature constitute the 
 crown and roof of true civilization. While a period of great culture 
 may co-exist in a decaying state where all freedom and all desire for 
 freedom has vanished, a period of true intellectual activity and 
 originality generally precedes and accompanies a new birth of 
 political life, and by a similar reflex action a great outburst of 
 political activity or a revolution often gives birth to a vast desire for 
 and paves the way for a ready adaptation of ne\v ideas both in 
 science, in law, and in the more purely ideal forms of genius. It is 
 scarcely necessary to give . examples of the foregoing law. The 
 intellectual activity which had its origin in what is known as the 
 Renaissance, or the contact of long buried Hellenism with a debased 
 and degenerated Hebraism, gave birth to the Reformation in Hol- 
 land, made free government once more a living force in the world, 
 and prepared the way in England for the rule of Parliament and all 
 that has followed upon it. On the other hand, Shakespeare, 
 Milton, Bacon, and their intellectual descendants, were the children 
 of the political ferment, and of the sense of a striving after freedom 
 which was created by, and in its turn added to, the new world of 
 thought, and the new dominion of man's mind. Nearer to our own 
 times we can trace how the brilliant period of intellectual life in the 
 XVIII century, whose evangelists and prophets were Voltaire, 
 Rousseau, and their fellows, led up to the French revolution, and to 
 that great breaking up of the very deeps of society, the force of 
 which is scarcely spent, while in its turn the revolution gave birth 
 to a period of mental activity of every kind, which has profoundly
 
 11 
 
 influenced every branch of science and literature. There seems 
 indeed to be a correlation of intellectual as well as of material 
 forces, and just as heat, light and motion are interchangeable values 
 of the same great natural law, so, too, those functions of the mind 
 which find expression in poetry, in science, or in politics, are only 
 manifestations of the same intellectual forces liberated and set in 
 motion in their own particular shape by an all-wise Providence. 
 
 Here, in the colonies, we have no such long chain of antecedent 
 circumstances to confuse and intersect the record of our mental 
 development. We derive our culture of every sort second hand, 
 and the various outward manifestations are merely the indications 
 of the direction in which future growth may be expected rather than 
 expressions of the result of underlying causes which have been for 
 any length of time at work, beneath the surface of society. The 
 conditions, indeed, under which the political life of the dependencies 
 of Great Britain is carried on is absolutely without precedent in the 
 world's history, and it may well form the despair of all writers on 
 constitutional law. Theoretically entirely subject to the Imperial 
 Parliament, which is supreme, they are practically within undefined 
 limits free to legislate and administer as if they were separate and 
 independent communities, and while they have nearly all the 
 privileges of independence they are protected from external foes, 
 and are not called upon to contribute to the cost of that protection. 
 Never surely did so many millions of men possess such material 
 advantages in conjunction with a form of government which, within 
 limits, gives so much opportunity for the healthy development of 
 their powers of self-government as do the self-governing colonies of 
 Great Britain. It is democracy under a bell glass, protected from 
 the rude blasts that have elsewhere uprooted the feeble plant or 
 forced it into abnormal and distorted growths. The provinces of 
 the Koman Empire at first partially, and latterly entirely, enjoyed 
 the citizenship of the empire city, and at the same time they 
 exercised very large municipal rights and powers of self- government, 
 but over all the Koman Governor was supreme, and the taxation 
 collected for the support of the Imperial exchequer, gradually 
 increasing as it did until it crushed the life out of the provinces, 
 does away with any resemblance to the free and untaxed 
 communities of the world empire of to-day. Spain, Holland, and 
 France have each tried to establish a colonial empire, and their 
 success has been perhaps greater than we are ready at a superficial 
 glance to allow. But in every case the dependency has been sub- 
 servient to the profit and advantage of the Mother Country, and 
 whatever material results may have been derived, in no case did the 
 establishment of communities of freemen form any part of the 
 scheme. 
 
 In the first colonial empire of Great Britain, that which now 
 forms the mightiest and most prosperous nation on the face of the 
 earth, we may perhaps find the closest parallel to our own con-
 
 12 
 
 dition, and in the New England colonies of America at the time 
 when they elected their own governors, and were practically re- 
 publics, we may possibly recognise a future development of our own 
 colonial polity. But to the times of freedom succeeded the times of 
 interference, the ties were drawn closer, and throughout almost the 
 whole period the navigation laws and the regulation of trade were 
 entirely in the interests of the mother-country, until the crash came, 
 and the old Colonial Empire of Great Britain almost vanished from 
 the earth. With us under the new Colonial Empire how different 
 are the conditions ; everything tends not to a closer contraction, but 
 to a loosening of even the legitimate hold of the central power ; so 
 far from sending tribute to Great Britain, we receive annually, both 
 indirectly and directly, vast sums from the long-suffering taxpayer, 
 who is content to pay for his Imperial privilege. So far from being 
 controlled by navigation laws, we are free to tax the manufactures 
 of the mother-country, and to show our independence in every way. 
 Truly, paraphrasing the lines respecting one of England's most 
 famous men, the Fates may be said to have spun the thread of these 
 thrice fortunate communities out of "their softest and their whitest 
 wool," and, as I before remarked, never probably in the world's 
 history has there been so free a scope for the absolutely unchecked 
 development of the influence of the intellect on everything that per- 
 tains to the ordering and formation of society. Nor do I think, 
 looking to the short time that the experiment has had time to work, 
 that the result is discouraging. There is no evidence of the lack of 
 originality, nor of that disinclination for change and for new experi- 
 ments, that marks a stagnant or a declining intellectual condition. 
 On the contrary, there are distinctly some very interesting develop- 
 ments of free government in the colonies that are deserving of much 
 attention. In the first place it must be remarked that we have 
 all been furnished forth with written constitutions based more 
 or less closely on the unwritten constitution of the Mother 
 Country, irrespective of the altered circumstances under which 
 such constitution will have to operate. In every colony it must 
 be understood that my remarks and those which follow are 
 intended only to apply to those dependencies which are self- 
 governing where, for instance, what is called a bicameral 
 legislature has been set up, the second chamber being more or 
 less an imitation of the House of Lords, with similar, but more 
 feeble, powers to those of the popular branch of the legislature, 
 .and with no pretension to the functions discharged by the Senate of 
 the United States. As might have been expected, the arrangement 
 has already led to disagreements and to dead-locks, and can 
 scarcely be expected to continue. It is so extremely artificial that 
 it probably militates against the healthy growth of true political life, 
 which must be based ultimately upon a rational distribution of the 
 forces of government. The executive powers are also entrusted to a 
 committee chosen by the Parliament, known as the Cabinet, in
 
 13 
 
 imitation of the practice in England. This form of government is 
 essentially aristocratic in its origin, requiring as it does for successful 
 working the formation of parties, which in a democracy are apt to 
 degenerate into personal cliques, and it is at variance with the twa 
 most prominent tendencies of the democratic spirit. One, the desire 
 of those who constitute the governing body, that is the people, to 
 nominate directly their servants who are to do their business ; the 
 others, a disinclination to concern themselves with the details of 
 supervision when once the power is entrusted to its nominees. In 
 the system adopted by the dependencies of Great Britain, in 
 imitation of that which is the growth of ages of Parliamentary 
 strife in the Mother Country, the Executive power is the prize of a 
 contest between a limited class of citizens, and from the nature of 
 its tenure is subject to perpetual criticism, and weakened by the 
 constant dread of a forcible close being put to its existence. The 
 natural consequence is a tendency to trim and to purchase support 
 by concession to prejudices, and also by a lavish disposal of material 
 benefits. In the Dominion of Canada the anomaly is still further 
 heightened by the fact that there are two complete sets of com- 
 plicated machinery, which cannot fail to add to the difficulty of 
 working the elaborate mechanism under which their society is 
 organised. In Victoria there is an attempt to escape from results- 
 which became intolerable by the formation of independent boards r 
 to which some of the chief functions of the Executive are entrusted, 
 as, for instance, the management of the State railways, and the 
 disposal of the patronage of the public service ; and elsewhere there 
 seems a disposition to resort to the same remedy. Whether this 
 practice will cure the evil is uncertain ; but I doubt not that, unless 
 the genius of our race has lost its inventive faculty, some alteration 
 will be made, both in the colonies, and perhaps in the Mother 
 Country too, in a system that has outgrown its power of adaptation 
 to the altered circumstances of education and the universal distribu- 
 tion of popular suffrage. 
 
 A still more noticeable feature in colonial democracies is the 
 extent to which the State mixes up with, and enters into competi- 
 tion with, ordinary commercial pursuits. In this respect the 
 dependencies of Great Britain have far outstripped the old country. 
 With the exception of Canada, partially, and odd lengths of lines in 
 one or two places in Tasmania and the Cape, the whole of the 
 colonial railways are in the hands of the respective Governments. 
 When we consider not only the magnitude of the undertakings, but 
 also how intimately and how increasingly the facility of communi- 
 cation is interlaced with every part of the fabric of modern society, 
 it is difficult to overrate the importance of the power thus given to 
 the State over the individual, or the effect which that has in 
 destroying a certain amount of original enterprise. We have so 
 long been accustomed to see the telegraphs treated in the same way 
 that we have ceased even to notice the additional power given to
 
 14 
 
 the State by making it the channel of all communication. In many 
 colonies, as in our own, the State administers estates and acts as 
 the guardian of orphans and minors. In New Zealand it goes still 
 further, and discharges the duty of a life assurance office. In other 
 places it collects small debts, carries parcels and runs street-tram- 
 ways. Everywhere it makes roads, water-courses and other works of 
 improvement which commend themselves to the citizen. It would 
 be hard indeed to know where the colonial notion of the true 
 function of a Government is likely to stop short, and it is equally 
 impossible to deny that much useful work is done which might else 
 remain unperformed. At the same time one may recollect the far- 
 seeing observation of De Tocqueville on the democratic tendency to 
 cast all duties on the State, and what that tendency leads to, and 
 when we remember that that great thinker was describing a com- 
 munity which had not dreamed of the lengths to which the colonies 
 have gone in this direction, we may sometimes wonder whether the 
 modern practice does not rather make for comfort and convenience 
 at the expense of that strength of the moral fibre which is the result 
 of individual exertion, perhaps of individual suffering. 
 
 A far more legitimate function is discharged by the State in the 
 colonies as the great owner and disposer of land, and it is one which 
 there, as elsewhere in the whole history of mankind, has a 
 tremendous effect on the constitution of society and the individuals 
 which make up society. The class which own the land and settle 
 on the land shape the destinies of a country just as much now, in 
 the days of the Homestead law in America, as in the times when 
 Gracchus tried to re-establish the Eoman farmer, or Stein and 
 Hardenburg created the new Germany by reforming the land laws. 
 Some of the most remarkable and some of the most encouraging 
 signs of the -true life of the political intellect of the offshoots of 
 Great Britain are to be found in their treatment of this great series 
 of questions connected with the settlement of land. Their efforts 
 in this respect are truly original, and all they have to thank the 
 Mother Country for is their mistakes, while it is not improbable 
 that some of the remedies adopted may react on England. Every- 
 where we can trace an attempt to get the population on to the land, 
 and in the progressive land tax of Victoria and in the scant justice 
 with which contracts inimical to the general interest are treated in 
 New South Wales, we see a sort of foreshadowing of the agrarian 
 revolution which awaits older countries under the new order of 
 things. In New Zealand there are even bolder advances towards u 
 sort of State socialism in this matter, at least if I rightly interpret 
 the last form of their protean land law. And though we who live 
 here under a happier and more evenly balanced distribution of the 
 soil may scarcely appreciate the questions which press for settle- 
 ment in differently situated communities, it is difficult not to 
 sympathise with the boldness that tries to cope with a problem that 
 has puzzled generations of statesmen. I can only allude to the
 
 15 
 
 vast system of public credit and the way it has been used, and the 
 development of the advanced socialistic' doctrine of the duty of the 
 State to provide employment as being signs of the times, which all 
 have their effect in forming a type of national character distinct 
 from that which has produced it. Of course many of the 
 characteristics which I have mentioned are peculiar only to some 
 among the many dependencies of Great Britain, while others are 
 common to all of them. Some, also, are apparent to older civiliza- 
 tions, but all these are far more luxuriant in their growth from not 
 being tempered by the restraining force of inherited prejudice. 
 
 Two general mental tendencies may, I think, be discerned 
 which contend for a share of the influence in forming the colonial 
 mind on its political side. The one truly democratic, which looks 
 on the State as omnipotent, and seeks to thrust upon it universal 
 functions of the most diverse nature, and which at the same time 
 manifest a boldness and a contempt for tradition in dealing with 
 the problems that arise that may lead to strange conclusions. The 
 other is a feeling of reverence for the authority and the opinion 
 of the protecting State which lends a sort of unreality to public 
 life, as if it were after all only playing at government, and by 
 doing so in its turn adds to the apathy and the disinclination to 
 mix in public life which is in itself a characteristic of democracy. It 
 is possible that from these causes the colonial defects if I may 
 venture to hint at the existence of such things of great boastfulness, 
 coupled with a lack of earnestness, may arise, though it seems un- 
 gracious, in the face of the great benefits that I have enumerated, to 
 draw attention to the less admirable characteristics of a provincial 
 and dependent condition. 
 
 In travelling from the region in which the growth of the political 
 intellect is displayed into that occupied by Art, we pass, as far as 
 the colonies are concerned, from a scene of activity and originality into 
 one of absolute and dreary barrenness. In regard to Art in the 
 colonies one might repeat the well-worn joke about the snakes of 
 Iceland, and indeed I should scarcely have alluded to it at all if it 
 was not that in the present day there is a tendency to exalt the 
 intellectual influence of Art, and to make the Anglo-Saxon, who, to 
 do him justice, has never been much given that way, endue all the 
 graces and refinements of softer nations. Of course, where there is 
 great wealth there will always be a certain amount of Art, which 
 ministers to the sensuous enjoyment of the few, but a general 
 diffusion of the artistic sense by no -means accompanies a state of 
 high intellectual activity, or one of political freedom. When free- 
 dom died in Borne, Art flourished and expanded and beautified the 
 very ends of the earth, as the handmaid of tyranny. In the very 
 darkest days of corruption in Italy, the age of those despots whose 
 history makes one shudder at the depths of depravity to which 
 human nature can descend, never was the artistic sense more 1 uglily 
 cultivated ; it was the age of Bafaelle, of Michael Angelo, of
 
 16 
 
 Benvenuto Cellini, and of the Medici. Art, indeed, seems to be 
 a gift, or a sense, dissociated from the exercise of. the intellect, and 
 to act as an anodyne which often deadens the pain that the loss of 
 liberty entails. 
 
 It is with such reflections that we poor Philistines must comfort 
 ourselves, for surely never among the sons of man were there so 
 many millions utterly destitute of the artistic sense or of the gift of 
 the appreciation of the beautiful as those who inhabit the colonies- 
 of Great Britain. In one or two of the Australian colonies there are 
 picture galleries which contain some choice gems of British domestic 
 Art, and we have imported the music-hall and the British drama to 
 keep them company in forming the culture of the rising nations. 
 We go to the fairest places of the world, we cut and hack, and how 
 seldom do we plant. We cover the face of nature with our hideous 
 stucco buildings, and when we do find a picturesqe town, as we 
 did here in Capetown, we improve it into the likeness of a squalid 
 fifth-rate English suburb. This toleration of the mean and ugly is 
 a peculiar gift and heritage of the race, or at any rate certain 
 portions of it, and is not peculiar to our provincial condition. We 
 may compare it with the remarkable and prodigious diffusion of Art 
 through the whole of the provinces of the Eoman Empire, which, 
 as Friedlander says, "was without example in the prodigious, 
 development of its life and in the activity it showed in applying 
 itself to satisfy a multitude of desires, of requirements, and 
 of fancies from the most elevated down to the most common, and 
 from the most extravagant to the most modest. Art in the time of 
 the Koman Empire was productive for all degrees of culture and for 
 all classes of society, over such vast circles did it spread culture 
 and increase the taste necessary to enjoy the diversity of its. 
 creations." 
 
 When we remember the thousands of statues of all kinds and 
 of a singular level of artistic merit that were spread over the whole 
 Empire down to the smallest towns, when we read of emperors 
 sending presents of their statues to obscure towns on the Black Sea,, 
 and municipal councillors and private persons vieing with each 
 other for the honour of being allowed to beautify their native places,, 
 we may with sorrow, and perhaps with shame, compare the doings 
 of those days with these, in this respect, more degenerate times. 
 It is true, indeed, that the Eomans themselves had little artistic 
 faculty except in architecture, that they despised artists, who were 
 for the mcst part slaves, or at best freed men, and that in the times 
 of the republic they were probably at least as inartistic as ourselves, 
 but at a later period they accepted so universally the spirit of 
 Hellenic culture, and became so imbued with it, that it becomes 
 impossible to separate the elements of Romanism and Hellenism in 
 this respect, and in the times of the empire we cannot dissociate 
 the spirit which spread beauty and culture over the world from the 
 stemer and more robust elements of the character which even in its
 
 17 
 
 decay held together the Eoman sway. There is in the modern 
 world nothing like the blending of two such entirely different 
 currents of thought into one national type. The spirit and the 
 teachings of Hellenic Art and of the culture of refined forms of 
 external beauty is still a potent force among many others which 
 make up modern civilization, but it is external and artificial rather 
 than an integral part of the national life which in the colonies, at 
 any rate, shows little trace of departure from the prosaic and 
 unadorned ways of our forefathers. We must find such consolation 
 as we may in applying to ourselves the lines which, all hackneyed 
 as they are, describe what are the true arts that belong to an 
 Imperial race : 
 
 " Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos " 
 
 without fancying that we are ever likely bo achieve much distinction 
 as an aesthetic or artistic race. 
 
 In literature and the non-material creations of the intellect we 
 labour under no such racial disabilities as those which forbid us 
 ever to hope for much general artistic development in the colonies. 
 Colonists are the descendants of the countrymen of Shakespeare, 
 of Voltaire, of Goethe, and of all the glorious company who 
 have by the creations of their genius beautified and enriched 
 literature. In science and in letters we are the heirs of no system 
 which is outworn, and which has spent its force, and lost its 
 originality. From England, from Germany, and from France the 
 great stream of modern thought flows down to us ample and rich 
 beyond all description, and from one or other of its great sources 
 fresh accessions are always being made to its volume. In this 
 matter certainly to us has been entrusted a tale of talents far in 
 excess of the beggarly outfit with which other infant communities 
 began their career. Considering all this, it is with a certain amount 
 both of surprise and of disappointment that we are bound to confess 
 that so very little original work has been done by way of adding to 
 the common store, and that as far as the outward and visible signs 
 go there seems to be no indication of any activity, scarcely indeed 
 of any life, in the colonial intellect in this respect. I dp not go too 
 far I think in saying that no original work of any value in literature 
 has been produced in the British colonies, nothing for instance that 
 could in any way compare with the "Federalist," which we may 
 fairly claim as the production of the former colonial period. A few 
 respectable compilations, chief among which Todd's and Bourinot s 
 works on Parliamentary Government, some extraordinarily big and 
 bad Australian histories, and some more modest efforts in the same 
 line from our own colony, which deserve a better fate than to be 
 classed with their more pretentious brethren. 
 
 In the higher and more imaginative walks of literature, the 
 blank is still more depressing. Poetry, at once the most perfect 
 and the most spontaneous child of man's genius, has not emigrated,
 
 18 
 
 and I do not know whether it is encouraging or not that there is 
 even a scarcity of that terrible creature the aspiring minor poet, 
 whose lines in countries more favoured by the nause are wont to 
 find an uncongenial home in the corner of newspapers. I should 
 except of course those delicious lyrics, which shed such a grace over 
 the columns of our own "Patriot," and perhaps also some local 
 melodramas that seem to be manufactured to suit the Australian 
 palate. In works of imagination we are scarcely better ; but there 
 is an improvement. We may claim, as a child of colonial soil, 
 " Sam Slick," and the other works of the witty clockmaker. There 
 is one good novel produced in Australia, if not by an Australian 
 born, " His Natural Life," by M. Clarke, and we, in South Africa, 
 should certainly not forget " The Story of an African Farm," a work 
 of true and remarkable genius, which holds out a promise that its 
 gifted authoress may some day stand among the great writers of 
 her sex. Apart from these too scanty exceptions, I fear that even 
 the most partial among us must allow that our intellectual has not 
 kept pace with our material production, and that if by some 
 cataclvsm the dependencies of Great Britain were to be wiped out 
 of existence to-morrow, the great world of thought, and the capital 
 stock of ideas that forms the true wealth of mankind, would not 
 thereby suffer any tremendous loss. 
 
 It is not easy to find a reason for this state of affairs. There 
 is nothing in our race that compels us to intellectual stagnation, for 
 we may claim in this respect a share in the heritage of most 
 advanced races in the world, while the enterprise and energy shown 
 in other matters forbids us to think that those who have done so 
 much labour under any special mental disabilities. Nor can we 
 seek a cause in the exterior conditions under which our life is passed, 
 for instances might be multiplied to show how little genius is 
 trammelled by externals, and how, from amid the most sordid 
 surroundings, and from the poorest and most barren soil, writers 
 and thinkers have arisen whose names and whose works are 
 immortal. Chill penury, at all events, will never freeze the genial 
 current of the soul of any of our mute inglorious Mil tons. With 
 the memory of Burns, of Keats, and of Carlyle before us it is 
 difficult to subscribe to the opinion of De Tocqueville when, in 
 attempting to account for the lack of original poetry in America, he 
 says : " Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded 
 with paltry interests, in a word, so anti-poetic, as the life of a man 
 in the United States," for to those I have named and to many other 
 original thinkers the same description of their surroundings would 
 have applied. The same writer and I quote him because his great 
 work on democracy seems to me to afford many lessons for our own 
 guidance after saying that " It must be acknowledged that among 
 few of the civilised nations of our time (he wrote in 1840) have the 
 higher sciences made less progress than in the United States, and 
 in few have great artists, fine poets, and celebrated writers been
 
 19 
 
 more rare," goes on to say that " Europeans have attributed this to 
 democracy, and they have supposed that if a democratic state of 
 society, and democratic institutions, were to prevail over the whole 
 earth, the human mind would gradually find its beacon lights grow 
 dim, and men would relapse into a period of darkness." Considering 
 that democracy, or the assertion of individuality, is the very essence 
 of Hellenism, and that Athens was at once the mother of art and 
 literature and of democracy as well, it seems difficult to see how 
 this opinion could have arisen, and De Tocqueville rightly adds that 
 he thinks that those who express it confound what is democratic 
 with what is American. He accounts for the lack of literary effort 
 partly by the form of religion, " which is unfavourable to art, and 
 yields a reluctant sufferance to literature," and partly because "at 
 a time when the American people were devoting themselves to 
 useful arts and means of rendering life comfortable, learned and 
 literary Europe was engaged in arts and literature. Hence they 
 took these things second-hand." 
 
 It is, of course, needless to point out how immensely the 
 conditions of intellectual life in the United States have changed 
 since the above was written, or how there is in that great country 
 at the present day growing up amid new conditions of life and of 
 society, and with amazing fertility, a literature at once cultivated 
 and original. The material conditions under which intellectual life 
 is carried on in the colonies is not dissimilar from those of the 
 United States in the years referred to, when De Tocqueville wrote, 
 and colonists like the Americans are prepared to let their literary 
 energies lie dormant, and to take their ideas second-hand. Perhaps, 
 too, for them a spring-time may come which may result in a 
 distinct type of literary culture ; some colonial Lowell or Bret 
 Harte may arise, who will give to colonial humour and to colonial 
 pathos a separate and distinct place of its own, or perhaps even in 
 the fulness of time a colonial James may evolve studies of character 
 in the garb of fiction as clever, as fine spun and as dreary as their 
 American prototypes. All we can say is that at present there is no 
 sign of any such development, and in our case the special 
 circumstances of our provincial existence militate against the 
 creation of a literary school of our own. 
 
 The improvement of communications, and the regularity with 
 which cheap literature is spread to the ends of the earth, at once 
 does away with the demand for local productions, and increases the 
 facility with which anything at all likely to attract attention finds 
 its way to the great centre of civilization. The products of genius, 
 like those of the soil, seek the best market, where the increasing 
 crowd of readers, and their continual craving for something new, 
 ensures the sale of even those books which nobody much esteems. 
 One result of this natural law is to take away from those who have 
 not even that which they have, and to destroy, or at any rate to
 
 20 
 
 retard, the growth, as regards literature, of any of that energy and 
 originality of intellect which the dependencies have shown that they 
 do not lack in certain other directions. The evil must, however, 
 work its own cure, for even in this advanced age no one has been 
 found bold enough to recommend " Protection " by way of encourage- 
 ment to native talent, or to suggest a tax on imported ideas. 
 
 I wish very briefly to summarise my conclusions. I think 
 that on the whole it would be just to say that the dependencies of 
 Great Britain show many signs of an active and original develop- 
 ment of intellectual life in the matter of politics, and that many 
 questions both of government and of society may find new and 
 unthought-of solutions in these communities ; that this activity and 
 originality has to contend with a spirit of apathy and a want of 
 earnestness, arising partly out of the inherent qualities of a demo- 
 cracy, and partly also out of the state of provincialism that gives an 
 air of unreality to public life. On the other hand, that very great 
 advantages have arisen from the peculiar system under which the 
 dependencies of Great Britain have sprung up, and that we have 
 enjoyed at once the privileges of freedom and of immunity from 
 external danger without parallel in the history of the world, both of 
 which have had a great effect on our intellectual condition. 
 
 In Art I do not think it is possible for the most partial observer 
 to contend that the colonies show much development in the present, 
 or much promise for the future. That the accumulation of wealth 
 will, in their case, as elsewhere, produce a class who will attempt 
 to secure the material evidences of their riches in the shape of 
 works of Art is likely enough, but unless some great change passes 
 over the race there is an hereditary disability which will prevent 
 the formation of a general artistic sense like that, for instance, 
 which permeates Japan, and seems to be inherent in the craftsmen 
 of Eastern nations. This disability is strengthened rather than 
 diminished by the very advantages of our social condition. In 
 Literature, if we may judge by the example of the United States, 
 the outlook is more cheerful. There is no reason to think that we, 
 as a class, have lost the divine faculty of genius which is the best 
 heritage that we derive from our forefathers ; but rather that we 
 are only journeying through a sort of intellectual Sahara, and that 
 there may be a promised land of exuberant fertility beyond. The 
 multiplication and improvement of the means of communication 
 and of those for the diffusion of knowledge tend to centralisation of 
 thought, and it is time alone which can effect a change in this 
 respect. It may not be our lot to see the provincial schools of the 
 British Empire crowded with scholars from the Mother Country 
 like those of the provinces of Rome, and it will be long indeed before 
 our municipalities seek to erect statues to distinguished philosophers 
 or to successful schoolmasters ; but there is no reason why we in 
 the colonies should not attain to general level of culture of New
 
 21 
 
 England, and it is only when we do so that we can hope to exercise 
 upon the world the influence that may belong to our wealth and 
 position. 
 
 I hope that in these few remarks I have not said too much. I 
 know how perilous it is not to throw a few grains of incense on the 
 altar of national pride, but it is well sometimes to turn from the 
 mart and the mine, from power and from wealth, and to reflect that 
 it was not by these alone that those who went before us made the 
 names of England and Holland, of Germany and France famous in 
 the world. These are but the results of qualities of mind, and in 
 these it will be well that those that come after us are not found 
 lacking, for as the poet truly says in speaking of modern progress : 
 
 ' ' Children of men ! Not that your age excel 
 In pride of life the ages of your Sires, 
 But that ye think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well, 
 The Friend of Man desires."