9 
report of 
to encourage intellectual commerce and communion, by of¬ 
fering freely to strangers the hospitality of science, or 
^vhethei any wish be felt to shew the mental cultivation of 
our country in an advantageous light, it cannot but gratify 
the Meeting to reflect, that the eye of the scientific traveller 
lias rested, with approbation and profit, on the collections 
which tlie Museum now displays. Without forgetting its 
oblio-ations to the Crown, the Society may be permitted to 
O 
boast that these collections and the edifice which contains 
them have not been furnished from the public revenue, 
nor bestowed by royal munificence , and when it is con¬ 
sidered that ONE COUNTY of England has supplied this 
provision for the advancement of natural knowledge, the 
survey of foreigners and their estimate of our exertions in 
the cause of science, may be allowed perhaps to kindle some 
sentiments of national complacency, and an honest warmth 
of patriotic pride. 
It was not in the hope only of advancing the knowledge 
of nature by the researches of its members, that this Society 
was founded. One of its principal objects has always been 
to give to studies too much neglected a more popular cur¬ 
rency and a freer facility of access, to attract attention to phi¬ 
losophical subjects, to awaken scientific curiosity, and afford 
more ready means of information. This indeed is the charter 
of the Institution; this is the tenure on which it must rest 
its most constant claim to public support: on this principle 
of communicating and diffusing knowledge its rules have 
been framed; and to this principle the views of the Council 
have been directed, in all the arrangements which they 
