1880.] 



President's Address. 



79 



is one upon which I have often heard opinion expressed, and 

 upon which opinion has always weighed in the same direction : I 

 allude to the period of office of those elected to serve on the Council of 

 the Society. By the terms of our charter ten of the ordinary members 

 retire every year ; and as it is our custom to remove six according 

 to seniority and four in respect of least attendance, it rarely happens, 

 although the contrary is possible, that any Fellow, except those 

 holding the posts of President, Treasurer, or Secretary, should remain 

 in office more than two years. Experience, however, appears to show, 

 that for a member serving on the Council for the first time, there is so 

 much to learn, so many heads of business demanding attention which do 

 not in general come before the Fellows at large, that his first year is 

 occupied quite as much in ascertaining his duties as in actively per- 

 forming them. This objection is in some degree met by selecting for 

 the ten incoming members five who have served before and five who 

 have not so served ; but, nevertheless, there is usually an interval of 

 several years between two periods of office, and as a matter of fact 

 we often lose a member of Council at the moment when his advice is 

 becoming most valuable to our body. 



I am aware of the great convenience attaching to our present im- 

 personal mode of selecting the members to retire in each year, and 

 am not at present prepared to suggest any specific alteration. But 

 the great confidence which the Society has, especially of late years, 

 placed in its more permanent officers, and the power which naturally 

 accrues to them from the comparatively short tenure of office by the 

 other Members of Council, appear to me to be points of which the 

 Society should not lose sight. On the part of the officers, I think it 

 right to state that we are very sensible both of the honour which is 

 thus done to us, and of the responsibility which is thereby entailed, 

 and that we hope never to discredit the one, nor to abuse the other. 

 And having said so much, we are quite willing to leave the matter in the 

 hands of the Society to be taken up whenever they see reason so to do. 



It will be in the recollection of the Fellows that the position of the 

 Royal Society in respect of the Government Fund of £4,000 per annum 

 is different from that in relation to the Government Grant of £1,000 per 

 annum. In the latter case the sum is placed unreservedly in the hands 

 of the Society for promoting scientific investigation, subject only to an 

 annual report to the Treasury of the sums granted ; and, in admi- 

 nistering it, the Society has in no case applied it to the personal 

 remuneration of the applicant. In the former case, the Society has 

 been requested to advise the Science and Art Department as to the 

 distribution of the grant, not only for the direct expenses of investiga- 

 tions but also for personal remuneration for the time expended on 

 them, whenever the circumstances and wishes of the applicant appeared 

 to render this desirable. The responsibility of this advice lies with a 



