34 



[Proc. 



In the first place your Club has got to encourage the specialists. 

 It is by fostering discovery and discussions of new scientific, 

 historical, and general propositions that societies most truly live. 

 You must encourage the specialists. But in the second place you 

 must encourage the public. After all it is through the public and 

 for the public your work is done. It is by the public getting 

 interested in your work that you will get the most advantage out 

 of the field work which you pursue. Your membership must be 

 steadily and jealously maintained. Fresh blood, of the best, must 

 always be coming in. Our Society in Glasgow has tackled this 

 question by maintaining a standing permanent Membership Com- 

 mittee to see that the ranks are always being filled up by the best 

 men. The results are sometimes very gratifying, and have had 

 the best effect possible in keeping the Society vigorously alive by 

 the maintenance and education of popular as well as scientific 

 interest. 



Mr. Wm. H. Patterson, an original member and ex-President 

 of the Club, said : — Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen — I can 

 recollect so well the one or two informal meetings held fifty 

 years ago in the old Museum, where those who knew something 

 of the work of Field Clubs explained to the rest of us what we 

 might expect to do. I remember how pleased we were at the 

 prospect of taking part in the field meetings, and how gladly the 

 early members responded to the invitations they received to visit 

 various places where they might work together, examining, 

 collecting, and learning. 



I owe a debt of gratitude to those men and women who fifty 

 years ago founded this Club, and this for two main reasons — the 

 first connected with persons and the second with places. In 

 attending the meetings of the Club I met many members and 

 visitors whom I had not known before and who became my 

 friends, and whom but for the agency of our Club I might never 

 have met at all. Those who are still here remain my friends, and 

 I hope will be so till the end. 



