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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
adopted and took to his heart the broad land of Scotland ; and it 
was a labour of love with him to assist in administering one of the 
piost important of the educational Trusts of this country. It would 
be utterly out of place — both on this occasion and for myself — to 
attempt to speak of the scientific merits which rendered Professor 
Kelland worthy, by universal consent, to hold the high place of 
President in this Society. I will now merely recall one or two of his 
own utterances, still full of meaning for us, extracted from those 
addresses, which were always so pleasing and always so character- 
istic of him. Whenever I have listened to or read these addresses, 
they reminded me of that description of a Roman worthy : 
Yenit et Crispi jueunda senectus 
Cujus erant mores, qualis facundia, mite 
Ingenium. 
The pleasant old man, Crispus, 
Whose life and mind were, like his oratory, 
All in a gentle strain. 
But there was more than mere gentleness in Professor Kelland’s 
utterances. He had the art of conveying many deep and pregnant 
truths in apparently light and mirthful sentences. I never knew a 
lecturer who was at the same time so sunny and so wise. Had his 
life been prolonged and his health restored, we might have expected 
him often to delight us from this chair. But it has otherwise 
seemed good to Providence. 
Nineteen years ago Professor Kelland returned to his class after 
being face to face with death in a terrible railway accident. He 
had travelled sooner than some thought prudent after the injuries 
he had received. He said, in an address to his students, “I believed 
that the path of duty is the safest and the easiest path, and I acted 
on this conviction when, against the advice of my friends, I came 
down suddenly amongst you.” He spoke then of the deaths of no 
less than twenty-nine professors which had occurred since he had 
joined the University, and he added, “but I am spared a little 
while.” In that address he seemed to rise to a survey of human 
life, especially a life spent in pursuit of science. He paid a noble 
tribute to the earnest genius of Professor George Wilson, then re- 
cently dead, whom he compared and contrasted in a most interest- 
ing way with the great mathematician Baron Canchy, and he 
quoted that beautiful saying, which might almost be considered to 
! 
