9 



it is not difficult to understand that considerable advantage may arise 

 from some kind of confederation being established among them. The 

 possibility of advantage is so obvious, that I observe very little is said of 

 the raison d'etre of the Association in your printed rules. It is obvious, 

 I think, that if the purposes and operations of the component societies be 

 good, their confederation will also be good. Such confederation will 

 naturally lead to mutual encouragement and to progressive improvement. 

 Each society, without sacrificing its independance, will have the advantage 

 of seeing and knowing what is done in others. There will be, as it were, 

 a comparing of notes, and any bright thought originated by some vigorous 

 secretary will have free course beyond his own society. Moreover, I 

 should trust that the effect of confederation would be to excite emulation 

 in those places in which no affiliated society exists. It seems remarkable 

 (if I may say thus much by way of illustration) that we should inaugu- 

 rate an Association for Cumberland from which the name of Carlisle should 

 be conspicuously absent. One may hope, ever bearing in mind the as- 

 sumption that a literary and scientific society is a thing good in itself, 

 that the Association wUl find before long an affiliated society in each of 

 our larger towns ; and then it may be added, upon the general principle 

 that Vtmion c'esi la force, that, without attempting to define too carefully 

 the further operations of an Association like this, there will doubtless be 

 a variety of ways in which a confederation will be able to give an imijetus 

 to the cause for which it has been formed, such as would have been 

 quite impossible for any local society, however vigorous and however 

 well managed. 



THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL SOCIETIES EXIST. 



Passing, then, from the general question of the advantage of con- 

 federation, I will trouble you vsdth a few words concerning the purposes 

 for which as I understand them, the individual societies exist. Of the 

 four societies which at present constitute our " United States," one is 

 called "Scientific" only, and the other three " Literary and Scientific," 

 or, to be more exact, two of the three are " Literary and Scientific," and 

 the third " Scientific and Literary." I shall not be far wrong if I assume 

 that the purposes of all four societies are much the same, and that I may 



