The scientists' efforts to involve the public in science and the particular terms they chose to express that concern raise complex issues. In seeking a way of understanding these phenomena it will be most useful to consider a wide range of influencing factors. It is important to look beyond the immediate needs of the scientific establishment and to the wider context. The scientists may have been presenting science as valuable to the community in the hope of securing funding or prestige; it appears that this is how many historians of science would interpret their motives. It is also possible that the scientists meant what they said, and were seeking wider public participation in science in order to ensure the quality of the colonial community. Considering this possibility allows a deeper understanding of the scientists and the complex social imperatives and beliefs about the role of science that formed the context of their work. Instead of always reading between the lines, we need to read the lines themselves.
Historians assessing the motives of the scientists who spoke publicly about the role and benefits of science have tended to conclude that they had ulterior aims to fulfil. Morrel and Thackray have said that the scientists within the British Association for the Advancement of Science presented science in terms that would be greeted favourably by the ruling classes in order to gain personal recognition and thus 'claim the political fruits they coveted.' [1] Colin Russell has analysed the rhetoric of major British scientists who popularised science. One of his conclusions is that they were seeking to replace the church as the major guiding force within society [2]. There have been fewer analyses of intentions of Australian scientists, but Sybil Jack has done so in relation to the first fifty years of settlement and suggests that particular actions of the scientists can be explained by their desire to maintain social order, stimulate immigration, or legitimise their own status [3].
It is possible the scientists were spurred by such motives. They may have been speaking of the progress that science could bring in order to win a general appreciation for their work, to gain financial support, personal prestige or power. The arguments sound plausible to us; these are the sorts of motives we are familiar with. People today find it easy to accept the scientists' statements about wanting to bolster the scientific establishment and bring material prosperity to the community. There is more difficulty in accepting that the scientists were seeking to bring intellectual improvement; scientists today speak of this only occasionally [4]. It is when the scientists of the nineteenth century speak of assisting moral improvement that we are most skeptical. Moral objectives have moved out of today's scientific discourse. It is hard to picture scientists thinking differently from the way they appear to think now.
There has been a tendency for historians to see the scientists as people somewhat apart from the rest of society. Admittedly, when describing the activities of a particular group, it is necessary to discuss them alone. Nevertheless, when analysing the statements and actions made by the members of a group, the wider context that shaped them and impelled them to think and act in certain ways must be considered. To be able to understand the presidents' motives as fully as possible, we need to recognise that they were were living and working within a conceptual and social framework specific to the late nineteenth century.
Deane, Hamilton, Ellery, and the others had grown up either in Britain or in Australia within a loosely defined group of usually well-educated, often professional people [5]. This group was bound not only by similar educational and occupational standards. A certain middle-class ethos can be identified. Although highly complex and often debated [6], the members of this group shared fundamental beliefs regarding individual obligations and the nature and priorities of progress.
According to this conceptual framework, as we shall see, material advance was important; but it was vital that intellectual and moral quality be cultivated as well. Material advance on its own could cause minds and morals to degenerate. The framework was not particularly new. However, it was only from the middle of the century, when science in the Australian colonies came to be seen as an interesting and approachable subject, that science came to be recognised as a method of effecting material, mental and moral reforms. During the 1890s, the depression increased the need for reform and the perception of science as an ameliorative force was strengthened.
The convictions common to the middle class may have had their roots in a stream of English Puritan values. Puritan values, says David E. Allen, had lain beneath the surface of English society for decades and became a force again in the nineteenth century [7], perhaps as a response to the problems of increasing materialism and the growing violence, crime, and disease of the expanding cities. Stressing duty to God, the family and the community, hard work, respectability, and altruism, it was important for the individual to be pious, familial, charitable, not to waste time on frivolities, to be clean and selfless [8]. Those with the means were spurred to make untiring efforts to alleviate the material hardships of the suffering and to uplift the minds, morals, and spirits of all.
The future scientists of the eastern colonial Royal Societies and the AAAS were sons of clergymen, professors, and other middle-class people who, to varying extents, would have spoken of such virtues, worked to carry them out, and sought to ensure their children did so too. Deane, Hamilton, Liversidge, Ellery, Maiden, and the others would have been surrounded from an early age by the actions and spoken convictions of those within and without the family circle. In school and church, in all manner of public speeches, in books, newspapers, and periodicals, the children and young adults of the middle-classes had impressed upon them the importance of devoting themselves to achieving certain ideals. They were to work diligently at assisting the poor, advancing the material well-being of all, and improving their own and others' minds and morals.
Finding employment in Australia, the scientists would have seen plenty in the material, mental and moral standards of the colonists that needed improvement. There were already wide-spread concerns in Britain over a rising materialism that threatened to undermine traditional spiritual and moral values and make cultivating the mind unnecessary to financial and social success [9]. Such materialism was particularly noticeable in the colonies. From the 1850s, as George Nadel points out, there was much wealth to be had by a wide range of people, but little of the traditions and 'gestures' that covered the 'vulgarity' of money-making in Britain [10]. Many colonists were aware of the propensity of Australians to devote all their energies to generating wealth, to playing sports and indulging their senses with drink and other 'debasing passions' [11] . Little was spared for the 'higher' things in life: exercising the mind [12], appreciating art and literature, attending church, and cultivating clean respectability and a pure moral character [13]. By the end of the century interests in intellectual pursuits were growing [14], but educational networks were underdeveloped. Further, the majority of colonists appeared only slightly interested in spiritual matters [15]. There was much room for improvement.
Those who were concerned about the moral standards of the colonists worked for reform. They hoped that by discovering the world of learning, of classics of literature, art and music, the colonist besotted with money and material pleasures would be lifted to a higher plane of 'mental culture' and refinement of character [16].
Reformers worked to cure the problems they identified in the colonial environment. Ignorance could be overcome by making education more accessible to people of all classes through schools, universities, reading societies [17], and libraries [18] (with instructive books and classics rather than novels, as novels could lead to flights of romantic or even criminal fancy [19]). Hoping to halt the degrading habit of drink that led the besotted to abandon family, work, and civic responsibilities, charity workers and temperance societies campaigned for sobriety [20]. The crime and disease in colonial cities was growing [21] . Especially convinced, like their American counterparts, of the significance of environment in shaping the individual [22], many members of the Australian middle-class were concerned enough to work for health education, sewerage systems, gardens and parks to bring into each suburb a small oasis of clean, balanced nature [23]. The reformers of the physical environment and of intellectual and moral standards encouraged people of all classes to improve their own condition, minds and characters, but they set themselves the task of providing the prod and the facilities.
Deane, Hamilton, and the other presidents also worked for reforms in the public sphere. Concerned about improving colonial education overall, Hamilton, McCoy, Wilkinson, Knibbs, Russell and Kernot all worked on Boards of Education [24]. Hamilton, Liversidge, Rolleston, McCoy, Wilkinson and Maiden established, supported and improved museums [25]. Rolleston gave much time to various charities and worked on the Government Asylums Board, establishing institutions for the Infirm and Destitute, Deaf and Dumb, and the Blind [26]. Mueller urgently called for the protection of native forests and animals [27]. Maiden, too, worked diligently for forest protection and urban reform, hoping to establish parks [28]. Professor John Smith at the University of Sydney fulfilled the civic duties he felt bound to by working to improve public facilities such as education and the Young Men's Christian Association. He termed his contributions efforts at 'public usefulness' [29]. The scientists continued to work through the 1890s, as the need grew for the kind of assistance they could provide.
The depression of the 1890s shook the confidence of all; material advance was not continuing inevitably as it had been expected to [30]. Some people felt that the depression was divine retribution for the colonists' preoccupation with material things [31] . Measures to correct the moral faults of colonists were required. Others felt that better education and training were needed to allow the colonists to work more efficiently.
That science had a role to play was acknowledged by the community at large. The priorities of nineteenth-century people and the crisis of the depression that heightened the awareness of these priorities meant that many saw in science the capacity to bring progress of a material, but also a mental and moral nature.
The capacity of science for progress and amelioration had long been acknowledged. Enlightenment philosophers had often spoken of science as a force which could improve the condition of humankind [32]. Francis Bacon, one of the more outspoken of these philosophers on the subject of science, wrote of an utopian world governed by benevolent scientific workers. These workers brought a world of plenty, 'a restoration of the Garden of Eden' [33]. His ideas remained central to notions of the role of science throughout the centuries that followed. The people of the nineteenth century were no different in placing their confidence in the ability of science to bring about positive transformations [34].
Up until the nineteenth century, the benefits of science had been spoken of as something that scientists could bestow upon humanity. This was to change. In the early nineteenth century science was becoming much more a part of the public scene. With science closer within their reach, people saw it as something they could be a part of, and use to bring reform. It was from around mid-century that the ameliorative capacity of science was spoken of not just as something that the men of science would hand down to the masses, but as something that members of the general community could also use to help themselves.
Science was seen by all to be central to material advance. Science would bring prosperity through technological advance and greater exploitation of resources. It would also assist specifically in the reforms that were being sought. In an age of unpredictable, quickly spreading, and often lethal diseases [35], advances in medicine and research into the control of germs, infection, and methods of sanitation were in high demand. New knowledge of sanitation and chemical processes would alleviate the soiling of the cities with industrial waste and smog [36]. Technology was seen as the means to ease the burden of the worker's labour [37]. The new social sciences looked to answer questions about the means by which civilisation progressed, and, among other important questions, the efficacy of strikes for improving the 'condition of the masses' [38].
Some people were not sure that all the effects of science would be entirely beneficial. An editor of The Age felt that scientific knowledge was progressing, but not always with wisdom. He viewed the application of new knowledge with trepidation as he witnessed the changes to so many parts of life, and the creation of even more devastating weapons [39]. However, such expressions of uncertainty as to the benefits of progress appear to have been the exception. It is doubtful that anyone felt that, for better or for worse, science was not fundamentally progressive.
Along with lifting the standard of living, science could bring mental and moral progress. Accordingly, some people - those with a substantial educational and financial background in particular - saw it as their duty to pursue science. Some of those who were particularly interested in science felt it their duty not just to enjoy the subject for its own sake but to pursue it for the well-being of the community.
Further, many of the educated middle-class public felt it their duty to encourage others to pursue science [40]. Others could experience, as perhaps they themselves had felt, their intellects being strengthened and feel the calming effects of quietly studying nature, imbibing the harmony and virtue inherent in the natural world.
Means by which science could be presented to the wider community were established and supported. Many clergymen, professors, and middle-class women devoted themselves to writing popular science manuals. Botanic gardens, exhibitions and both government and private museums [41] were seen as an important vehicle for refining the populace. The number of popular science periodicals rose in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Newspapers reported on science more frequently, and began running regular science columns [42]. The 1880s in Australia saw the beginning of a range of scientific societies who aimed to involve a greater range of people in the pursuit of science [43]: Field Naturalists' Clubs, Microscopical Societies [44], and groups for amateur astronomers [45]. These forms of presenting science were often initiated and maintained by educated people outside the established Societies.
The wide range of people behind these scientific publications and institutions openly stated the benefits that were to arise from members of all classes participating in and learning about science. First, studying science gave exercise to the intellect. As George Foord, in Melbourne, said:
Science was a rational subject requiring disciplined application. It thus could instil constancy and override obsessions with physical activities [47]. Consequently, science was seen as a particularly important subject to teach in schools; the subject was increasingly incorporated into curriculums in the latter part of the century [48]. Popular science manuals reinforced the effect. They urged the reader to go and collect sea-side plants and animals, or to observe the stars, in order to exercise their minds, thus keeping it healthy [49].
Not only enjoyable and healthy, science as an
intellectual pursuit was useful. A lecture given in the Public Reading
Room in Melbourne 'On the Pleasures and Advantages of Scientific
Pursuits' by the Reverend Richard Connebee, a synopsis of which was also
printed in the Argus, encouraged the audience to study
science because the subject supplied 'the mind with some of the highest
sources of gratification', and could 'be at all times rendered
subservient to many of the most useful purposes of life.' By improving
their intellects through the study of science, he said, the youth of
Australia would be of most use to their country [50].
As part of the technical education movement, teaching the latest scientific principles underlying the work of the manual labourer was often spoken of as central to the aims of the Mechanic's Institute, School of Mines or School of Technology. An education in basic physics and chemistry would not only encourage the worker to pursue healthy and rational thought, but would allow him to work more efficiently with an understanding of why things moved and responded the way they did. A deeper understanding of these principles would give the worker 'an additional pleasure in his work,' enabling him to occupy his mind fruitfully. The Englishman Sir Lyon Playfair said that such education would 'dignify' the manual workers' labour [51] . Some saw a possibility that workers educated in science could make discoveries themselves and thus assist in the advance of science [52]. The diligent study of the natural world would, many acknowledged, allow students of all types to become healthy in mind and more useful to themselves and the community.
Many people throughout society considered the pursuit of science to be of benefit to one's morals. Science was a study of the natural world - a world that was fundamentally good. Some of those who presented science in a public format stressed the advantages for developing religious feeling. Most stressed the advantages for building a worthy character. As Melleuish has said: 'Nature was the source of morality' [53].
The advantages of studying the natural world for developing an appreciation of the Creator were often discussed. Particularly before the 1860s, the thousands of popular science handbooks written in Britain were dotted with ecstatic exclamations about the glory of God that was there to be seen by anyone who would take the time to look and be 'filled with wonder' [54]. The few Australian works tended to be more low-key in their references [55], but many of the British works were read in the colonies [56]. Although in the latter part of the century, debate over evolutionary theory disrupted natural theology somewhat, many authors retained their faith in the Mosaic account of the six-day creation of the world [57]. Most found a combination of the two systems of thought that they were comfortable with [58], and wove their view of matters into their narrative.
It was good for one's character, many authors maintained, to be humbled by the greatness of the natural world. Studying the night sky, wrote the Reverend T.W. Webb, led to 'the most impressive thoughts of the littleness of man, and of the unspeakable greatness and glory of the CREATOR.' [59]
Children's science books could also provide an education in correct religious feelings. In the final dialogue of the Reverend T. Wilson's Lessons in Natural Philosophy for Children, the student is asked by a teacher to sum up various natural laws and then is asked 'Who made all things?' The student replies:
Across society, studying the harmonious, ordered world of nature was recognised as a way of instilling morals of a more general kinds [61] . Popular science handbooks presented animals as exemplars of virtue and vice [62]. Birds, horses and dogs provided examples of virtuous family life, generosity, humility, or self-sacrificing devotion [63]. Snakes and wasps provided authors an opportunity to condemn malicious characters [64].
Pursuing science was clearly beneficial to moral and physical health as it involved going out into the natural world - a healthier, more virtuous environment than that of the city. Observing or collecting specimens of the natural world caused people to leave behind the cares and man-made difficulties of the town, to rejuvenate themselves and, it was hoped, regain the virtuous qualities of their characters by going out into the forests or by the rivers to enquire into the mysteries of nature. The Australian Samuel Hannaford, author of Sea and River-Side Rambles in Victoria, said:
Anyone who spent time in the natural world would imbibe, sometimes without even being conscious of it [66], the harmony and virtue that so many colonists sought.[67]
So, there can be seen throughout the nineteenth century a broad movement to involve the public in science. The impetus came from the middle classes. They encouraged participation in science as a way for the colonists of all classes to help themselves and uplift their minds and morals. Studying science was a rigorous intellectual activity that took one out into the natural world; a world that was pure, beneficent, miraculous. Studying science was a way of fostering an active mind, piety, humility, and a pure character.
As we saw, increasingly throughout the nineteenth century, many colonists did decide to participate in science. Some of them found a particular interest in a branch of science, enough interest to want to pursue it as their profession or as their main activity outside their paid occupation. Those who did so could easily see their pursuit as having a special significance. Surrounded by the words and actions of so many authors, speakers, founders of Mechanics Institutes, museums, and presidents of popular scientific societies, it was easy for those joining the ranks of scientific workers to see themselves as part of a force working for the material, mental and moral advancement of humankind.
The men who were to become the presidents of the major scientific societies of the colonies had grown up surrounded by people who believed the importance of civic duty and in the need to tie mental and moral enlightenment to any material advance. After establishing themselves in the Australian colonies, they devoted time to public causes. They worked in positions of responsibility within government and scientific societies. While they did not stress the religious refinement that could be gained by pursuing science, they did feel that Australian colonists were particularly in need of mental refinement and of having their materially-impassioned characters raised to a higher plane. Science was capable of bringing such benefits, if the colonists of all classes would but engage in its pursuit. Scientific knowledge and the material prosperity of the colonies would also progress once greater numbers of scientific workers were found. It must have been satisfying to believe that one was helping to advance one's community and, ultimately, all of humanity.
As we saw earlier, the scientists' concern to involve the public in science became more emphatic during the 1890s. The changing nature of the scientific enterprise, new public responses, and particular anxieties of the 1890s could explain why the concern to secure public involvement grew during that decade. If the scientists who presented science in a positive light were (as some have assumed) seeking funding and recognition, then one would expect them to have sought public involvement and support when they needed it most, earlier in the century [68]. They did not. Scientists only began seeking wider public involvement when their enterprise was flourishing. They appear to have been responding more closely to the growing public enthusiasm for science than to the need for funding and recognition. It may be that, as the enterprise became stronger, scientists were able to set their sights on more ambitious goals than was previously possible and thus felt free to encourage the relationship that had developed between science and the wider community.
It is also probable that other factors within the 1890s contributed to the increased efforts to involve individuals in science. The depression probably brought a slight slackening of participation as colonists had less money to spare on subscriptions to scientific societies and had more to be worried about than collecting specimens, attending lectures and strolling in the botanic gardens [69]. As the benefits arising from public involvement had been widely acknowledged, one would expect scientists to have been particularly concerned about maintaining public involvement during the 1890s if they had recognised such involvement declining.
The 1890s brought a crisis of confidence in material progress and alarm about the moral state of the colonists. In order to regain material prosperity and moral quality, more relevant education was needed, along with improvements to the efficiency of methods of production, and as much technological, medical, social, and moral advance as it was possible to obtain. Science was a way to bring these advances. The science of the colony needed more support and the colonists needed more improvement. Encouraging public participation was a way to effect these changes.
Further, by the 1890s the AAAS had appeared on the scene, an organisation which was particularly focused on advancing science, and advancing it within the wider community. Federation was increasingly on the agenda, in the general and scientific communities alike [70]. The AAAS took a first substantial step in forming a national body [71] , an innovation that was noted with approval by public commentators [72]. There was a general self consciousness, a concern for the quality of the citizens of the nation that was forming [73].
The end of the century was approaching. There was a feeling that the best possible world should be bequeathed to 'posterity'. Many people were looking back over the progress of the century, considering whether it had lived up to their expectations, being aware that the nineteenth century would be seen as a whole, and would be judged by those in later centuries. Baron von Mueller, for one, felt that the people of the next century would judge those of the nineteenth by the technological feats they had accomplished and by the heights of intellectual and moral quality they had attained [74]. There was much to be done before the century closed.
It had been a century increasingly marked by concerns across the colonial community for the standard of intellect and morality. Material advances were needed, but would only be welcomed if accompanied by a parallel growth of the colonists' minds and morals. Many within the community saw the encouragement of greater individual involvement in science as an important way to achieve higher standards. As a part of that community, the men who chose to become scientists saw the potentials of science in the same way. The importance of public involvement was clear to them all.
[1] Morrel and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, p.224.
...science is worthy of cultivation for its own sake, for the pleasure and satisfaction which it yields. Idleness is misery ; intellectual activity is life and mental health. [46]
The Bible says, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hand;" and the more we learn about his wonderful works, the more we admire His power and goodness.
[60]
Communing with nature does much to soften down those feelings to which unhappily we are all more or less prone, and teaches us what mere specks we are in creation, and how much enjoyment might be had during our comparatively brief existence did we go the right way to work to find it. The lover of Nature becomes imbued with a kindly feeling to every living thing, and this must surely in a great measure be extended to his fellows. [65]
Footnotes
[2] 'The aim of the secularising scientists was...to displace the ecclesiastical hegemony with a scientific one.' Russell, Science and Social Change, pp. 258-9, F.M. Turner also argues thus. Turner, 'Victorian Scientific Naturalism', Darwin to Einstein, p.48.
[3] Jack, 'Cultural Transmission', pp.52, 60, 61.
[4] For instance, C. Putnam, a science teacher, echoes the statements of the scientists of the nineteenth century when he says that the value of students doing scientific experiments in the skills they will learn, such as 'being patient, observant, methodical, accurate and painstaking, which, he says, 'can be of use in other realms of life.' Science teachers, as Putnam points out, need to justify the pursuit of science to their students. They are probably more likely to ponder and speak about these intellectual benefits of science than are today's practising scientists. 'Meet the Real Philosophers of Science', New Scientist, Australasian edition, London and Dingley, Victoria, 12 January 1991, p.53.
[5] They were, as G. Melleuish has said, 'clergymen, lawyers, professional men - invariably good, solid respectable members of the community.' 'Beneficent Providence and the Quest for Harmony', pp.167-180, p. 167.
[6] G.B. Kauvar and G.C. Sorensen (eds), The Victorian Mind; an Anthology, London, 1969, pp.3-10.
[7] Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, p. 73.
[8] Kingston, in her chapter in the Oxford History on 'Belief', discusses the way these notions were held by Australians in the late nineteenth century - regarding the role of women and children as bearers of these virtues: pp. 76-7, regarding cleanliness: pp.79-81, regarding the 'virtues of poverty and humility, and the social benefits of altruism' that was emphasised by the Christian church: p.85; Roe, Quest for Authority, regarding the common emphasis upon moral rectitude and the duty of everyone to participate: p.149, and regarding the importance of physical cleanliness for respectability: p.157; Allen, in The Naturalist in Britain, p.73- 6 explores the beliefs in Britain, and W.A. Madden, 'Victorian Sensibility and Sentiment', in Dictionary of the History of Ideas; Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Vol. 3, 1973, pp.217-224 , analyses the occurrence of these beliefs during the Victorian age in general.
[9] Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, p.73- 6, and Madden, 'Victorian Sensibility and Sentiment', pp. 217-224.
[10] Nadel, Australia's Colonial Culture, p.5.
[11] '...the colony presented a picture of barbarization...[that was] denounced by almost all colonial writers and thinkers. In fact, the necessity to build a culture lest preoccupation with material concerns endanger the moral and mental equipment of the colonists was the staple of their discussion.' Nadel, Australia's Colonial Culture, p.5.
[12] MacLeod, 'From Imperial to National Science', p.55.
[13] Many Australian authors, journalists, visiting travel writers, and letter writers noted these lackings throughout the nineteenth-century. To take just a few examples from later in the century, Mr. H.K. Rusden lamented that an 'alarming proportion of society [was] immoral' 'Moral Responsibility', Trans. and Proc. of the Royal Society of Vic., 1868, pp. 27-46, p. 27. Commentators on Federation (such as W.J. Galloway, in Advanced Australia: a Short Account of Australia on the Eve of Federation, London, 1899) and turn-of-the-century Progressives (Cf. Roe, Nine Australian Progressives.) could see much in the colonial character that required improvement. It is a concern that has lingered: in the 1920s one Australian writer said it was 'depressing to note how little real love of literature, art, or ideas has been fostered in our seasons of plenty...Selfishness and shams, cant and materialism rule us, up and down and through and through.' W. Murdoch, Alfred Deakin: A Sketch, London, 1923, p.175, quoted in Kingston, Oxford History, p.5.
[14] Kingston, Oxford History, pp.90-1.
[15] Kingston refers to the concern of Christian churches in the late nineteenth century at the 'apparent decline in the numbers of worshippers taking their places regularly and the subsequent diminution of the church's moral authority.' The efforts of the Church to combat this decline in visible spirituality were not successful. Oxford History, p.65, 66.
[16] This process was often spoken of as one of 'filling' the individual with culture, thus displacing materialism and vice. The effects of art, for example, could be inculcated by just looking at the pieces: 'Merely to stroll through' the gallery that Sir R.L.J. Hamilton had opened in Tasmania, 'and look at its works of art has an elevating and refining tendency. ' Hamilton, 'President's Address', Papers and Proc. Royal Soc Tas., 1892, pp. xx-xxvi,p.xxiii. See also J.E. Neild's 'Short Address on Literature and the Fine Arts', Trans. and Proc. Royal Soc.Vic., 1889, pp.xxxii-xlii, for opinions on the benefits of seeing 'good' and 'honest' works of art.
[17] For instance, the Home Reading Union; referred to, in glowing terms, by Hamilton, 'President's Address', Papers and Proc.Royal Soc. Tasmania, 1892, p.xxiv, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (which acted as a patron to writers of texts teaching skills appropriate to a working-class reader: Russell, Science and Social Change, p.156.), and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge.
[18] Nadel, Australia's Colonial Culture, regarding the activities of libraries in the colonies and the establishment of Library Associations in the 1890s; p.128, and footnote.
[19] Nadel, Australia's Colonial Culture, pp.91-2, and Roe, Quest for Authority, p.155.
[20] S. Garton, Out of Luck; Poor Australians and Social Welfare 1788-1988, Sydney, 1990, p.103; Roe, Quest for Authority, p. 165, and K. Dunstan, Wowsers: Being an Account of the Prudery Exhibited by Certain Outstanding Men and Women in such Matters as Drinking, Smoking, Prostitution, Censorship and Gambling, Melbourne, 1968, pp. 34-92,94-106.
[21] Garton, Out of Luck, regarding crime: pp.36-9, regarding disease: pp. 40-42.
[22] The British and Europeans stressed a less optimistic biological determinism. G. Davison, 'The city-bred child and urban reform in Melbourne 1900-1940', in P. Williams (ed.) Social Process and the City, Sydney, 1983, pp.143-174, referring to ideas in the 1890s: p.145; Garton, Out of Luck, p.87, and S.P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism 1885-1914, Chicago, 1968, pp. 76-77.
[23] Roe, Nine Australian Progressives, p.70.
[24] Refshauge, 'Hamilton, Sir Robert George Crookshank', ADB, Vol. 4, pp.331-2 ; Fendley, 'McCoy, Sir Frederick',ADB, Vol.5, p.135 ; Hoare, 'Wilkinson, Charles Smith',ADB, Vol. 6, p.402 ; Bambrick, 'Knibbs, Sir George Handley',ADB, Vol. 9, p.620; Walsh, 'Russell, Henry Chamberlain',ADB, Vol. 6, p.75; and 'Kernot, William Charles', ADB, Vol. 5, pp.20-22.
[25] Refshauge, 'Hamilton, Sir Robert George Crookshank', ADB, Vol. 4, pp.331-2 ; Mellor, 'Liversidge, Archibald', ADB, Vol. 5, p.93 ; Fendley, 'McCoy, Sir Frederick',ADB, Vol.5, p.135 ; Hoare, 'Wilkinson, Charles Smith',ADB, Vol. 6, p.402-3; Lyons and Pettigrew, 'Maiden, Joseph Henry',ADB, Vol. 10, pp.382.
[26] Cunneen, 'Rolleston, Christopher', ADB, Vol. 6, p.56.
[27] von Mueller, 'Inaugural Address', Report of the Second Meeting of the AAAS, Melbourne, 1890, pp.10-13.
[28] Lyons and Pettigrew, 'Maiden, Joseph Henry',ADB, Vol. 10, p.382.
[29] D. Campbell, "A Valuable and Self-Denying Citizen": The Public Life of John Smith', in R. MacLeod (ed.), University and Community in Nineteenth Century Sydney: Professor John Smith 1821-1885, Sydney, 1988, pp.47-60, p.56.
[30] Kingston, Oxford History, p. 57. Historians have located a faith in progress to have been a feature of the Victorian age. See, for instance, J.Bowle, B. Willey and others, various essays, in the section entitled 'The Theory of Progress', in British Broadcasting Corporation, Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians; an Historic Revaluation of the Victorian Age, London, 1949, pp.33-86. Faith in progress faltered during the depression. For instance, Hamilton noticed in 1892 that when, in recent conversations, he spoke of the great advances made in transport, communications and so forth, people were tending to reply "True, there has been great advancement, but all that has come to an end, and the country is in a more depressed state than it has ever been before." Hamilton, 'President's Address', Papers and Proc.Royal Soc. Tas., 1892, p.xxv.
[31] A. Hyslop, The Social Reform Movement in Melbourne, 1890 to 1914, PhD thesis, La Trobe University, 1980, p.56-58.
[32] Russell, Science and Social Change, p.96.
[33] F. Viscount St. Albans Bacon (1561-1626]
[34] R. Johnston 'Social Responsibility of Science: The Social Mirror of Science', in MacLeod, Commonwealth of Science, pp. 308-325, p.322; MacLeod, 'Introduction', ibid., p.4; Roe, Quest for Authority, pp.157, 158; Russell, Science and Social Change, p.171; and Knight, The Age of Science. p.168.
[35] B. Haley, The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978 pp. 6-8, 11.
[36] Cannon, Life in the Cities, p.98.
[37] Whether it did in actuality is another matter. Roy MacLeod says that the benefits brought by the advances of science rarely reached the masses. MacLeod, 'On Visiting the "Moving Metropolis"', p.1. Greater knowledge and use of steam and electricity certainly changed work practices across society. That the changes were positive for all is unlikely.
[38] R.M. Johnston, F.L.S., 'Observations on the Influence of Strikes upon Real Wages', p.196f., and A.J. Ogilvy 'Can Strikes really Improve the Condition of the Masses?', p.202f., in Papers and Proc. of Roy.Soc. of Tasmania, 1889, Hobart, 1890.
[39] The editor found the advances of electricity less daunting, but still commented, with perhaps some nervousness, that there were so many electric light globes in production, 'man may get to the length of absolutely abolishing the night and giving us a perpetual day.'The Age, 15 December 1894.
[40] For instance, A. Player says that as a member of the British leisured class, J.E.T. Woods felt that the popularisation of science was his duty. Player, J.E.T. Woods. L.A. Gilbert has noted that clergymen felt it their duty to encourage science because of the benefits of natural philosophy upon the student; 'Plants and Parsons in Nineteenth Century New South Wales', pp.17-32, HRAS, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1982. p.27.
[41] J.W. Roach, 'Taxidermist, Collector and Preserver of Specimens of Natural History', announced in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 26 August 1843 (p.3]
[42] MacLeod, 'Organising Science Under the Southern Cross', p.21.
[43] For example, the president of the Victorian Field Naturalist's Club for 1886, the Reverend J.J. Halley, told a gathering of 350 members, that he wanted his '...plea for the study of natural history to be heard beyond our walls...', In a further effort to encourage the accessibility of natural history, Halley said that the club should also 'attempt in some way to incite those not in our own immediate neighbourhood to form societies for the cultivation of scientific studies.' Rev. J.J. Halley, 'Presidential Address', The Victorian Naturalist, Vol. III No. 1, 29, May 1886, pp.4-9, p.8. A notice on the cover of the Club's magazine asked readers to send in their own 'correspondence, notes and queries' on natural history, for publication. This would, the Club hoped, be effective in ' popularising the study of the Natural History of the Colony...'.
[44] Hoare, Science and Scientific Associations, p.229.
[45] Home, 'Beginnings of an Australian Physics Community', p.10.
[46] G. Foord, Esq., 'Address on the Mission of the Man of Science', (Address to the science section of a congress on the social sciences), Melbourne, n.d. [von Mueller notes a Social Science Congress being held at the 1880 Exhibition; it may have been this congress Foord spoke at; he certainly was speaking after the 1850s as he refers to the work being done by Victoria's University] p.8.
[47] Russell, Science and Social Change, pp. 165, 166, 168. A writer in the popular Illustrated Sydney News felt the memory of geologist J.E.T. Woods would be cherished by all Australians who possessed 'any aspirations beyond the development of brawn and the deification of sport,' 'P.J.H.' 17 October 1889, quoted in Player, J.E.T. Woods, p.1.
[48] Inkster and Todd, 'Support for the Scientific Enterprise', p.110-11. In Britain, 'Nature Study' was introduced to primary schools from the 1870s and 1880s, Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, p.202-3.
[49] Hannaford noted that the sea-side could become very monotonous unless one had some occupation for the mind. By searching out the beautiful sea-shore plants and animals, mental (and bodily) health could be maintained S. Hannaford, Sea and River-Side Rambles in Victoria; being a Handbook for those Seeking Recreation During the Summer Months, Geelong, 1860. Likewise,the well-known British author, Charles Kingsley, wrote to the readers of his handbook of marine life '...[D]oes it not seem to you, that six week's rest, free from the cares of town business and the whirlwind of town pleasure, could not be better spent in examining...' the wonders of the world about one, 'instead of wandering up and down like the many, still wrapt up each in his little world of vanity and self-interest...Why not, then, try to discover a few of the Wonders of the Shore?'C. Kingsley, Glaucus; or the Wonders of the Shore, London, (first published 1855]
[50] Argus, 17 January 1860, p.5.
[51] Playfair, letter quoted by Hamilton, Report Fourth Meeting AAAS, Hobart, 1892, pp.22-24, p.23; also quoted by F.A. Campbell, 'The Industrial Education of the People', Argus, 26 October 1889, p. 5. T.H. Huxley was another prominent figure who advocated technical education, Ibid., as well as the popularisation of science, for the amelioration of society. Cf. I. McCalman,The Social and Political Thought of Thomas Henry Huxley, BA Hon.s thesis, ANU, 1970.
[52] For instance, see Lord H. Brougham, F.R.S., 'Two Discourses of the Objects, Advantages and Pleasure I. of Science, II. of Political Science', London, 1846, p.99-101.
[53] Melleuish, 'Beneficent Providence and the Quest for Harmony', p.171.
[54] Barber, The Heyday of Natural History, p.19.
[55] '...all that cannot be made by man is termed "Nature"; i.e., God's creation.' Tissandier, G., The Royal Treasure House of Knowledge..., Sydney, 188?. 'So perfect', said Hannaford, 'is everything which has been created...' , Sea and River-Side Rambles, p.35.
[56] Kirsop, W., 'Scientific Information in Nineteenth Century Australia: A Note on Sources', in D.H. Borchardt (ed.), Some Sources for the History of Australian Science, Six Papers Presented at a Workshop on the History of Science in Australia Organised by the Australian Academy of Science, 24-25 August, 1982, Kensington, 1985, p.3-14.; and Hannaford, Sea and River-Side Rambles, p.1.
[57] A.Ellegärd notes that another impact of the Origin upon concepts of morality was to lead some to feel that moral qualities could no longer be assumed to be perfect, universal and given to humankind - it was being increasingly shown that the characteristics of organisms had occurred initially by chance and then by their effect upon the capacity of the individual to survive; Darwin and the General Reader; the Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution in the British periodical Press, 1859-1872, Göteborg, 1958, pp.321-329.
[58] Ellegärd has found that individuals tended to settle upon one of five positions - from utter rejection of evolutionary theory, through various notions of initial divine creation followed by a divinely-guided process of natural selection, to a total acceptance of natural selection and a 'non-teleological and non-supernatural' view of the development of the world and its species; Darwin and the General Reader, pp. 30-32.
[59] Rev. T.W. Webb, Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes, fourth edition, London, 1887.
[60] Rev. T. Wilson, Lessons in Natural Philosophy for Children, London, n.d., p.59.
[61] Such comments were often made in factual science texts. Works of science fiction late in the century also underlined moral quality; Joseph Fraser's Melbourne and Mars , published in 1889, focused on moral purity, generosity within the community of an utopian Martian society. Another Australian writer, Robert Potter, published The Germ Growers in 1892; a moralistic tale that featured flying cars and paints of invisibility. The heroes managed to combat a Demonic plot to enslave the world through disease.V. Ikin (ed.), Australian Science Fiction, St.Lucia, QLD, 1982.
[62] Barber, The Heyday of Natural History, pp.18-19; Melleuish has noted this too: 'The way to Perfection lay in living in accordance with the laws which [Nature] had laid down.' 'Beneficent Providence and the Quest for Harmony', p. 171.
[63] See Mrs. Loudon, The Entertaining Naturalist: Being Popular Descriptions, Tales, and Anecdotes of More Than Five Hundred Animals, Comprehending all the Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, &c., of which a Knowledge is Indispensable in Polite Education. With Indexes of Scientific and Popular Names, An Explanation of Terms, and an Appendix of Fabulous Animals, London, 1850. Barber gives further examples, pp.18-19, 130-1.
[64] 'Of the morals of snakes, especially their alleged malice much has been written.' F.G. Aflalo, in A Sketch of the Natural History of Australia, with some notes on sport. Aflalo argues against this common assumption, and yet, a man of his times, goes on to demonstrate the 'peaceful disposition of these maligned creatures.' London, 1896, p.160. Even the characteristics of fictitious animals were explained to useful effect - the fable of the half-man, half-beast satyr, one author says, could be interpreted as a personification of what intoxication does to remove man's reason, thus illustrating 'the debasing influence of animal propensities and sensual indulgence' on men. This may not have been the original intention of those who created the satyr, the author continues, but the readers could '... very rationally adopt this explanation, and thereby deduce an important moral lesson from what had been an extravagant fiction.'Mrs. Loudon, The Entertaining Naturalist, London, 1850, p.534.
[65] Hannaford, Sea and River-Side Rambles , p.95.
[66] Emerson, quoted in Hannaford, Sea and River-Side Rambles, p.67.
[67] Melleuish, referring largely to the mid-century, shows that harmony was a fundamental goal of many colonists, and that it was felt that one could find such harmony in nature. 'Beneficent Providence and the Quest for Harmony',p. 174-5.
[68] Johnston has concluded that science has generally been presented as beneficent and socially responsible when the establishment's need for support was the greatest. 'Social Responsibility of Science', p.308-9.
[69]MacLeod, 'From Imperial to National Science', p.51.
[70] Henry Deane was one who felt the prominence of the issue. He wrote to a colleague overseas, saying : 'There is nothing exciting going on except the Federation proposals.' Deane Family Papers, H.Deane, Hunter's Hill, Sydney, 1 February, 1897, National Library of Australia, MS 610/21/418, p.6.
[71] Hoare, Science and Scientific Institutions, p.315.
[72] For instance, Hobart Mercury, 6 January.1892, p.2.
[73] Remember G.H. Knibbs, quoted at the end of the previous chapter, urging such advances in 1899: 'Anniversary Address', Journ. and Proc. Royal Soc. NSW, p.38-9; see also Davison, 'The City-bred Child', pp.144-145.
[74] 'Inaugural Address', Report of the Second Meeting of the AAAS,1890, pp.12-13.
Honours Thesis submitted by Jenny Newell, Australian National University, June 1992.
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