PROCEEDINGS 



OP THE 



Cmbrifrgc ^{jito^ljiral S&aaekg. 



THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY YEARS 

 OF THE SOCIETY: 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY 

 JOHN WILLIS CLARK, M.A. Trin. Coll. President, 



ON RESIGNING OFFICE, 



27 October, 1890. 



When the President of a Society lays down his office, it is 

 usual that he should take a more or less extended view of the 

 past history of the body with which he has been connected, 

 thank his officers, and anticipate a brilliant future from the efforts 

 of his successor. I have no wish to depart from these excellent 

 precedents. I am using no empty phrase when I say that I felt 

 it a distinguished, and not wholly deserved, honour to be chosen 

 to succeed my dear friend Mr Coutts Trotter — one who by his 

 intellectual attainments, by the breadth of his sympathies, and by 

 his unwearied efforts to develop the scientific side of University 

 training, was so distinctly marked out as the proper person to 

 preside over a Philosophical Society. I, on the contrary, though 

 the office which I have held for so many years in connection with 

 the New Museums may have enabled me to be a promoter of 



