INAUGL'ilAL x\.DDi{ESS OF THE PUESiDENT, THE LUilD 

 BiSHur UE CAKLISLE. 



Ill looking forward to the delivery of an address sucli as that which 

 is demanded from me to-day, the question must always arise, " Shall I 

 write it or, shall I speak it 1 " A good deal may be said (as is usual in 

 the case of problems admitting of two solutions) in favour of either 

 course. I Avill not trouble you with the arguments which have chiefly 

 weighed with me in the present instance, but merely say that upon due 

 consideration I have come to the conclusion that I should perform my 

 duty best, as the President of this infant Association, in making the speech 

 which inaugurates its birth, if I set down beforehand on paper what I 

 intended to say. One advantage at least will accrue from this determi- 

 nation, namely, that I shall not be tempted by the interest of the subject 

 to address you at an unreasonable length — a temjJtation which you will 

 scarcely regard as imaginary, when I tell you that your Secretary, in ;i 

 communication which he, perhaps, regarded as " privileged," used these 

 remarkable word.s with reference to our meeting of to-day : " Please do 

 not hesitate to give us 'a good strring up,' of about an hour's duration." 

 I do not exactly know what will constitute, in the opinion of your worthy 

 Secretary, " a good stirring up;" but I confess that the notion of per- 

 forming that irritating process for the duration of a whole hour somewhat 

 appals me, and I trust that you will find me more merciful. Nevertheless 

 the subject before us is, in truth, one of vast extent, and which it will 

 require some care to reduce to reasonable dimensions, and, at the same 

 time, to treat profitably, or with anything like completeness. 



THE GOOD EFFECT OF FOKMING A CONFEDEEATION. 



The Association which we inaugiu-ate to-day, and to which you have 

 given the bold title of " The Cumberland Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Literature and Science," ajipears to be a confederation of a num- 

 ber of existing societies, with the proposal to afiiliate other similar 

 societies if formed, and with the offer of membership on certain terms to 

 suitable persons, not members of any affiliated society, either existing or 

 to exist hereafter. Assuming the fact of a number of separate societies, 



