24 



JANUARY 2nd, 1880. 

 First Annual Geneeal Meeting. 



The Peesedent said • — '• It is a real pleasiu-e to me to think 

 that the few words it is my duty to address to you, on leaving the 

 Chair in which you did me the honour to place me last February, 

 must be words of congi-atulation on your success. 



" The Association is already constituted of a large number of 

 Members, its Meetings have been weU attended, it has had the 

 advantage of hearing Lectures from persons of high competence, 

 and its financial position is all it should be. These results are due. 

 you wiU all agree with me in saying, mainly to the circumstance 

 that we have had the sei'V'ices. as Secretary of the Association, 

 of its real founder. Mr, Jackson, who has thrown into the conduct 

 of its business all the energy which is characteristic of him. 

 My congratulations to you. on the prosperity of the Association, are 

 congratulations to him also on the realisation of a happy idea which 

 has long possessed him, and which he has had the good fortune to 

 carry to complete success. 



"When it became my duty last Febniary. by the flattering 

 invitation of those who had joined 'Mi: Jackson in promoting this 

 Association, to address you on its aims and purposes and possible 

 future. I believe some of my friends thought I placed all these too 

 high, and drew too rose-coloured a picture. Even if I had, it would 

 have been a fault in the right dii-ection : as the pious poet of 

 Bemerton advises us in his ' Church Porch : ' — 



' Pitch thy beha\'iour low — thy projects high — 

 .So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be : 

 Sink not in spirit — who aimeth at the sky 

 Shoots higher much than he that means a tree.' 



It may very well be that I was led by reflections ou the high 

 qualifications of some of my colleagues, and the well-earned 

 scientific reputation of others, into an eiTor of this kind. I am 

 not disposed, however, to admit even this much too readily : — for 

 I think, in its first year, the Association has succeeded in fulfilling 



