b ANNUAL MEETING. 



from the United States Government Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, from which the following is quoted : '• We are 

 fortunate enough to have in the library the volumes of the 

 Iransactiotis of the Victoria Institute, which are much used 

 and highly prized."' 



The Special Fund. 



This fund was founded with a view to still further advance 

 the influence of the Institute. I. By the publication of the 

 twelve papers in the People's Edition. II. For helping to 

 give grants of papers or volumes of tlie Transactions to those 

 Home and Colonial bodies which may specially need such. 

 (Many applications have been refused of late, as the fund 

 has not been sufficient.) III. To maintain the Institute's 

 Library of Reference. 



It has been suggested by many members that the present 

 Jubilee year is a fitting occasion for the members and asso- 

 ciates to take some step which may tend to permanently 

 advance the cause which the Institute was founded to pro- 

 mote, — either by adding to the Special Fund or the Gunning- 

 Shaftesbury Fund, or by becoming life members or associates. 



CoJiclusion. 



The Institute lias sought, not without success, to associate 

 men of cultured mind and calm judgment in the investiga- 

 tion of important questions of Philosophy and Science, 

 more especially those which are alleged to bear on the 

 great Truths of Holy Writ — so that hasty conclusions may 

 no longer afford ground for unseemly attack, to the injury 

 both of Religion and Science. It is becoming yearl}^ 

 more apparent that the Institute meets a need felt both at 

 home and abroad, especially in the Colonies and India, 

 where imperfect appreciation of the actual results of philo- 

 sophic and scientiflc inquiry has led many of the less 

 informed, to credit such statements as that " Science and 

 Philosophy are alike opposed to Revelation," or that "the 

 progress of Science has given a death blow to all belief in 

 the truth of the Bible " — misappreliensions Avhich, in some 

 cases, have led even to systems of Education divorced from 

 Religion ; hence the strengthening by every means of so 

 successful and desirable a movement claims all encourage- 

 ment, its object being, in the words of the Institute's motto,. 

 '"Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam." 



G. Stokes, President. 



