For myself, it would be much more agreeable to me to occupy a position of less prominence than that in which it has pleased the members of this Institute to place me, for I cannot but feel that much more will reasonably be expected from the President than I can hope to fulfil. I should, therefore, have declined the proffered honour, but, well knowing the difficulties that promoters of such an institution have to encounter in its establishment, and unwilling to refuse assistance in any capacity in which my colleagues considered that I could be serviceable, I, adversely to my own opinions and wishes, reluctantly consented to become the first President. I can only promise that I will endeavour to compensate in zeal for what I may lack in attainments and ability.
The New Zealand Legislature, in its last session, passed a statute for the establishment of an "Institute for the Advancement of Science and Art in New Zealand," and conferred on it, together with the societies to be incorporated with it, the privileges of a body corporate. The Act, in the first place, provides for the appointment of a "fit and proper person to superintend and carry out the geological survey of the colony, and also to superintend the formation, establishment, and management of a public museum and laboratory." This refers to the parent society (if I may so call it), domiciled at Wellington; but the services of this gentleman (the Act does not give him an official name) are also to be available "to superintend the formation and establishment of any museum and laboratory intended to be established by any society incorporated with the parent institution."
Por the management of this Institute there is a Board of Governors, in the first instance nominated, but afterwards partly to be nominated and partly to be elected. Their powers are defined, provision made for their meetings, and for the enactment of rules, by the Governor in Council, for the management and regulation of the Institute. Such is the general character of the provisions of the New Zealand Institute Act. How far it will satisfactorily answer the purposes for which it is intended remains yet to be seen. Experience is necessary to settle that question; but I must say that I very much fear that some of the provisions will be found cumbersome, and difficult to work satisfactorily. We cannot but be struck with the similarity of the scheme for the government of science to that for the political government of the colony. The General and Provincial Governments appear to have afforded models for, and to be reproduced in, the New Zealand Institute and those institutions, when established in the provinces, to be incorporated with it. The Auckland Institute has been successfully formed, and now numbers nearly eighty members. It has not yet been associated with the New Zealand Institute. It is competent for us now to
