446 Golden Wedding Presentation [June 17, 



must be associated with hope or with joy, or with passion. How 

 much more efficacious must instruction be when communicated by 

 an object, beloved and venerated, and in infancy, almost adored; 

 and when, instead of being afforded with an effort of pain and of 

 labour, it is carried into the heart by kindness, and made delightful 

 by caresses and smiles !" 



As regards the response made to Davy's appeal, may I say that 

 the proportion of lady members at the present time is practically one 

 quarter ? 



When I was President of the British Association in 1902, I 

 made a statement, which caused a great deal of comment, about the 

 expenditure of the Royal Institution. During the whole of the 

 nineteenth century the total sum spent on its professorial staff was 

 £54,000. The professors had to live by working outside as well as 

 inside the Institution. The laboratory expenditure was £24,000, 

 and the assistants' salaries amounted to about £21,000. This total 

 of £100,000, with £9,580 contributed by members and friends of 

 the Institution to the fund for exceptional expenditure on experi- 

 mental research, and £9,600 representing the Civil List Pension of 

 £300 annually paid to Faraday for thirty-two years, really represented 

 the whole of the money cost of the scientific work during one century. 

 What a contribution to the world's progress, and what a meagre 

 amount of pecuniary recognition ! 



During the lives of Davy and Faraday the Institution received 

 little in the way of money gifts apart from some small legacies 

 amounting to £2,500. During the last thirty years, however, our 

 indefatigable treasurer, Sir James Crichton-Browne, has succeeded 

 in securing benefactions approaching £78,000. Of this sum a large 

 proportion has come from women, and what is interesting, the 

 largest benefaction came from an American citizen who divided his 

 fortune between the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the 

 Royal Institution, London. Then there was the splendid benefac- 

 tion of Dr. Ludwig Mond, who extended our libraries by purchasing 

 the house next door. The congestion we suffered was great, and 

 the fine rooms that were added have been of enormous value. 



During the recent war we were naturally in a critical state, and I 

 cannot help referring to what I consider to be one of the noblest 

 anticipations of difficulty and actual benevolence. One afternoon in 

 1915 Sir Charles Parsons came down to me in the laboratory and 

 said, " You know we are going to have a terrible time, and I am 

 afraid the Institution is going to have a serious arrest. Have you 

 thought it over ? " I said that I had. He said, " What do you say 

 we ought to do ?" and my reply was, " I anticipate that the member- 

 ship will drop to one-half in any case ; that will certainly be the 

 minimum." He said, " Let me think a moment. Yes, then £5,000 

 will just meet the loss of entrance and annual fees," and I said it 

 would. He at once sent a cheque for £5,000. 



