Frrcuson—Address delivered before the Academy. 185 
XX XIII.—ApprEss DELIVERED BEFORE THE ACADEMY. By Sir Samven 
Fereuson, LL.D., Q.C., President. 
[Read, 30th November, 1882. ] 
I am very grateful for the honour you have done me in electing me 
to your Chair in succession to Sir Robert Kane. An old Irish bishop, 
writing of a predecessor, has said— 
‘¢T wish that I, succeeding him in place 
As bishop, had an equal share of grace.”’ ! 
So I may say I wish that I, succeeding Sir Robert Kane as President 
of this Academy, may be endowed with an equal share of wisdom. 
An equal share of knowledge I hardly hope to attain to. 
Your choice of me, however, on this occasion, invites to subjects 
more important than personal considerations. My views regarding 
the inexpediency of organic changes in the constitution of the 
Academy have been so well known, that I feel warranted in accepting 
your election of me as evidence that the Academy does not desire 
the encyclopediac character of its constitution to be disturbed. The 
Academy was incorporated almost a hundred years ago for the promo- 
tion of Science, Polite Literature, and Antiquities. Down to 1870 
its Council of twenty-one was divided into three Committees, of 
seven each, representing the three pursuits respectively. In that 
year, on the representation of some Members who took notice that 
Polite Literature had almost ceased to be cultivated, and that the 
pursuit of Science was daily becoming more important and popular, a 
change was agreed to, by which the tripartite division of Council was 
abolished, and a dual constitution substituted—one Committee of ten 
Members, instead of the former fourteen, representing Polite Litera- 
ture and Antiquities; and the other, of eleven Members, in lieu of 
the former seven, representing Science :—a seasonable and beneficial 
change, in which none concurred more frankly than the Members of 
the non-Scientific Committees. This concession, however, did not 
satisfy. There remained a desire to push the process of re-organiza- 
tion into the constitution of the Academy itself. But these views did 
not, here, meet with encouragement. The consequence was a certain 
degree of estrangement, and the promulgation of a project for the 
establishment of a Royal Society for Ireland, designed, I do not 
doubt, in the supposed interests of Science, but which, in my judg- 
ment, and I think I may say in yours, by disuniting, would dissipate 
and weaken our intellectual resources, even if it did not involve an 
injurious reaction on the chartered rights of the Academy. Your 
1“ Huic ego succedens, utinam tam sanctus ut ille.’”’—Hpitaph of Miler 
Magrath, Cashel. 
R. I. A. PROC., SER. II, VOL. II.—POL. LIT. AND ANTIQ, Xx 
