1901.] General Monthly Meeting. 689 



GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, 



Monday, June 3, 1901. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. Treasurer and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Henry J. Wood, Esq. 



John T. Middlemore, Esq. M.P. 



were elected Members of the Royal Institution. 



The following Address to the University of Glasgow was read 

 and adopted : — 



The Royal Institution of Great Britain, which celebrated its Centenary two 

 years ago, desires to offer to the University of Glasgow its congratulations on 

 the completion of the Four Hundred and Fiftieth Year of its illustrious history. 



Dedicated as the Royal Institution of Great Britain is to the diffusion of 

 knowledge, and to teaching the application of science to the common purposes of 

 life, it recognises with sympathy and admiration the great work done by the 

 University of Glasgow in maintaining and extending the higher education in 

 Scotland, and so in spreading a knowledge of Science, the Arts and Letters, 

 throughout the world : for there is no shore touched by the commerce of the 

 great and enterprising city of Glasgow where the influence of that seat of learn- 

 ing, which is its chief ornament, has not been felt. 



The Royal Institution of Great Britain recalls with special interest that it 

 was in the University of Glasgow that originated that distinctive Scottish 

 Philosophy with which the names of Hutcheson and Reid must always be con- 

 spicuously associated, which, discarding mystical speculations, appealed to 

 common sense and inductive methods, and thus carried into the sphere of 

 mental phenomena the principles which Bacon had introduced into physical 

 inquiry, and which has had a powerful practical bearing on national life and 

 character. It recalls also with profound interest that it was in the University of 

 Glasgow that Joseph Black made his discovery of latent heat, and laid the foun- 

 dations of quantitative analysis; that James Watt nursed that mechanical genius 

 that has remodelled our civilisation and transfigured the face of the earth; and 

 that Adam Smith, in an epoch-marking work, expounded those economical laws 

 by which the body politic is governed. 



The Royal Institution of Great Britain, at the time of its foundation in 1799, 

 drew its first Professor of Natural Philosophy, Dr. Garnett, from Glasgow, and 

 since then a long succession of Professors and Graduates of the University of 

 Glasgow have lectured in its Theatre on scientific and literary subjects. Lord 

 Kelvin, while a Professor in the University of Glasgow, lectured at the Royal 

 Institution to the edification and delight of its Members fifteen times ; and" of 

 the Professoriate of Glasgow, one Member, Professor McKendrick, has held the 

 office of Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution, while two 

 others, Professors Raleigh and Gray, have contributed to its Friday Evening 

 Discourses. 



The University of Glasgow has in a gratifying manner recognised the value 

 of the work now being done in the Laboratories of the Royal Institution by con- 

 ferring an Honorary Degree on Professor Dewar — no unworthy successor of 

 Davy, Faraday and Tyndall — whose achievements have reflected honuur on the 

 Institution which has afforded him facilities for carrying on his memorable 

 researches. 



Vol. XVI. (No. 95.) 2 z 



