PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



BY REV. AV. CAMPBELL PENNEY, M.A. 



Principal of Elizabeth College. 



We all know, I suppose, the storj of the French advocate 

 defending a man who had killed his father and mother, and 

 appealing to the jnry for mercy on the plea that his client was 

 an orphan. Well, I suppose, I shall be somewhat in the 

 position of that poor orphan if I try to explain that I have 

 really had no time for this address. 



Of course, it has been hanging over my head for two 

 years, but I hoped that the Committee, even at the eleventh 

 hour, would see the al)surdity of my addressing you at all. 

 The trouble, of course, is that, if I were to attempt to 

 speak of any of the subjects so ably discussed at your 

 meetings I should make mistakes, at least as bad as the small 

 boy who said that a Pnffin is a kind or sort of Tea-cake. 



Well, ladies and gentlemen, and especially ladies, you 

 know tliat when a man is hard up for conversation he usually 

 talks about himself and his affairs. I do not know whether 

 my autobiography comes under the head of Local Antiqui- 

 ties. But I venture to ask your attention for a moment to 

 the story of a wasted life. 



My earliest recollections are all of the country-side ; my 

 very earliest recollection finds me sitting safely at the bottom 

 of a boat on the river Dee, playing with the fish my father, 

 alas, was catching on a hook. Observe thus early the cloven 

 hoof of sport — only in our family it is a cloven hook. 



Well, skipping a year in Scotland, near the famous Dollar 

 Institute, but also, I regret to say, near a good trout stream, 

 and a very piscatorial uncle, I found myself at the mature age 

 of eight at Sherborne School, where I spent twelve years of 

 life, on which I can only look back with shame and sorrow. 



The Blackmore Vale is one of the best hunting grounds 

 in the kingdom. It abounds in fossils and flowers and insects 

 and glorious antiquities. And yet, how few of us took any 

 interest, though the school museum was growing under our 

 very noses. Of course, there were brilliant exceptions ; for 

 instance, a boy called Buckman — but his father was a Professor 



