Annual Presidential Address. 185 
to be read, taken with those of the curator, editing com- 
mittee and librarian, furnish in a direct and forcible 
manner the facts connected with another year of this 
Society’s progress. 
There is no question that this Society has connected 
with it some singularly active members, that its aims are 
ever good; and that its influence is sufficient to arouse a 
prophetic spirit in its most faithful members as 1o the 
possibilities of its future. 
If some of those large hearted and public spirited 
gentlemen, whose boundless munificence is fast making our 
city a magnificent educational centre, would only place the 
Natural History Society on their list of educational insti- 
tutions worthy of being enquired into as a possible future 
field for their liberality, the higher educational influences 
of the city would unquestionably receive a much needed 
and admirable addition. 
The true destiny of a society such as this should be that 
of centreing within its field of operation those aids to study 
which would illustrate to the eye and ear and mind of the 
hundreds of students who throng oer colleges and schools, 
the direct instruction of their scientific and _ literary 
teachers, and which would also constantly create a desire 
in the minds of others who are not students, to seek to 
improve themselves through the impetus to study which a 
well equipped Natural History Society would hold out to 
them. Our aims as I said are admirable, namely ‘“ the 
study of Natural History, General Science and Literature ” 
but none I faney would claim that the work of the Society 
has ever permanently reached the aims set forth in our act 
of incorporation. The record made by the Society since 
its foundation has been in every way creditable and fully up 
to the limit of its financial opportunity; but whilst other 
educational institutions once weak and ineffective, have 
been developing with rapidity their original aims, and 
gathering about them the well earned lustre which ever 
comes from increasing success, our society can scarcely 
claim a proportionate advancement, as the “Sure yet 
Silent Years pass on.” 
