Scheme for Encouragement of Research

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 21, 1888, Page 512

The report contained a proposal made by the President, with the view to the greater encouragement of research in the different departments of the Society's work, and it had been resolved to submit the following scheme for the approval of members: That the Society offer bronze medals, to be given annually for the best papers in the following groups: (1) Natural science (botany or zoology or geology of the New Zealand zoological sub-region), one medal; (2) physics, chemistry, and technical science, one medal; (3) history, archæology, and anthropology, one medal; (4) literature and philology, one medal; (5) philosophy; (6) art. That the Board of Governors of the New Zealand Institute be asked to appoint a judge in any group in each year for the papers competing in that group; that only those papers be submitted to the judges which shall have been read during the year at a meeting of the Society; that the writers of the papers must be members of the Society at the time the papers are read; that each writer must declare when sending in his paper if he wishes to compete; that the judges should be empowered to declare that in their opinion no paper of the year is sufficiently meritorious for a medal; that for the foregoing object the Society set apart annually £20 only of its income as a prize fund; that the medals be presented by the President at the first meeting of the Society ensuing after the receipt of the judge's awards; and that the Governors of the New Zealand Institute be requested to announce specially in the “Transactions” the names of the successful writers, though not necessarily to print the papers. The scheme was, after discussion, adopted.

Mr. W. T. L. Travers moved a vote of thanks to the retiring President, Mr. Maskell, and in so doing referred to the great interest that gentleman had taken in the Society, and to the able manner in which he had carried out the duties of President. He also referred to Mr. Maskell's valuable contributions to the “Transactions”—especially to his work on the insect-pests now so numerous in the colony.