The Ninth Science Exhibition

Geography, again, is understandable, and I have a passion for maps. In particular the Junior School's section was most impressive, and the custodians were so eager to explain and so good at it. Some of the mumbling seniors in other parts of the Exhibition might take note.

And so to the real Scientists. Of course it is the spectacular that sticks in the memory. How impressive nonchalantly to light a bunsen burner with a finger tip, or watch in a vast illuminated explosion chromium being separated from . . . alas, I forget exactly from what. Or the light-hearted, "Do you want to dye, Sir", is such a superb opening gambit. I had to stay and watch the whole process. Or the gruesome : cigarette-coated lungs, dissected rabbits, embryonic chickens. As someone remarked, "I don't ever want to eat a poached egg again".

As I say, the layman picks upon the obvious things. Once among the test-tubes I begin to panic. The demonstrators reel off so casually, confidently the long names. But I, who can never remember why it is that acids and alkalis turn things different colours, feel that when I suddenly meet dinitrophenylhydrazone the only hope is to turn and run. Even the knowledge that what emerges at the end is only peardrops doesn't quite reassure. I tended to go on muttering "Yes, yes" as the fluent accounts went on, hoping the demonstrator wouldn't ask me any questions, while trying desperately to ask him something which wouldn't by its very inanity betray my stupidity. They were all certainly enthusiastic; occasionally, when I asked why such a process produced such a result, there came the answer, "Oh, we haven't learnt that yet". More often they pityingly explained for me all over again.

My own feeling was that it was a pity to introduce outside material. The School did so well with its own stuff that the I.C.I. plastic washers seemed impersonal, while diagrams of Atomic piles are so meaningless that it was a waste of time even to try to explain.

I left, feeling that my carping criticisms hadn't amounted to very much. The Wonders of Science? Yes, very much so; I had just the faintest feeling that perhaps I'd been wasting my time all these years, just reading instead of doing.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION

Presenting Science to the Public

The Editor has asked me to say something about the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose Annual Meeting will be held in York from 2nd-9th September.

The British Association was founded in 1831 to convince an indifferent public and Government that science was important. The prime mover among its founders was Sir David Brewster (U.VI 19

physicists will recall Brewster's law), who defined its original aims thus :—"To make the cultivators of science acquainted with each other, to stimulate one another to new exertions, to bring the objects of science more before the public eye and to take measures for advancing its interests and accelerating its progress". He addressed his proposal to the secretary of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society on the grounds that York was centrally situated for a general meeting such as was contemplated and that the Society already established here was flourishing and well managed. So the "British Association for the Advancement of Science" was born in York—to be precise, in the newly erected museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society on 26th September, 1831, the 200 eminent men of science travelling here by stage coach. It annexed the existing officers of the Society as its own. So the President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretaries of the Y.P.S. held the same office respectively in the newly formed B.A.

Of interest to us at St. Peter's is the fact that Mr. William Vernon Harcourt, the first President of the Y.P.S. and the first Vice-President of the B.A. "took an active part in re-modelling St. Peter's School, and placing it upon that footing on which it has since been able to maintain its position as one of the leading schools in the North of England".

At the close of the first meeting, Sir Roderick Murchison said, "To this city, as the cradle of the Association, we shall ever look back with gratitude, and whether we meet hereafter on the banks of the Isis, the Cam or the Forth, to this spot we shall proudly revert and hail with delight the time at which, in our periodical revolutions, we shall return to the point of our first attraction."

Meetings have been held annually in different places. When the meeting visited York a second time in 1844, the members' tickets bore the words "Antiquam exquirite matrem". The same motto could be adopted for this year's meeting, but visitors will find that the old lady has had her face lifted—in places.

The Jubilee meeting of the Association was held in York in 1881 and a glance at the programme for that meeting reveals some interesting details. One could, for instance, obtain a hot dinner at the Station Hotel for 2/6 and a cold luncheon for 2/-; one of the speakers was T. H. Huxley; parts of York were specially illuminated for the occasion with arc lights and the York Gas Co. lit up parts of the centre of York, including Duncombe Street, "with Bray's improved lamps". Now Duncombe Place has fluorescent lighting !

Meetings were subsequently held in York in 1906 and 1932, so that the forthcoming meeting will be the 6th to be held in York. It, will be the 121st in the history of the Association—the meetings were suspended during the two world wars.

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