THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
■21 
In searching through the records, incomplete as they are, of the 
labours of our predecessors, we cannot but be struck with the very 
complete manner in which the original designs of the founders of 
the Institution have been carried out. But these records after all 
convey but a very feeble representation of the work accomplished; 
for a most important part of the proceedings, the discussions, 
have not been reported. I have been particularly struck with this 
when reading the reports of the discussions on the lectures always 
given in full in the Society of Arts Journal ; for I have then been 
reminded of the many intensely interesting, often most spirited 
and exceedingly useful discussions, that have taken place here, when 
the great value of some apparently dry and uninteresting, because 
perchance most laboriously prepared lecture, has been splendidly 
elucidated. 
The changes of condition of society render this part of the design 
more important than ever; for the great abundance of supply of 
information in periodical literature to a certain extent supersedes 
the necessity for communication by lectures. The increased num- 
ber of Societies — such as the Eoyal Society, British Association, 
Chemical, and Geological — for the cultivation of special studies, 
draws off the reporting of results of original research to their more 
attractive, because more extensive, form of publication ; but none 
of these can replace the advantages obtainable by the common viva 
voce discussion of subjects of interest here. In books " we may 
read, and read, and read again, and still find something to please 
and something to instruct;" but they are but poor substitutes for 
the life and spirit of living thought, which in conversation act and 
react, produce and reproduce ideas that may energize latent power 
into beneficent action, and convert spiritual thought into per- 
manent deed lasting as the world itself. 
Are there not even yet still among us some who can with vivid 
pleasure recollect prophetic enunciations of schemes, at once pro- 
nounced Utopian and ridiculously impossible, which have already 
become the accomplished facts and utilities, the indispensable 
comforts, of our every-day life 1 
To know where we are now and to contemplate where we are 
going, it is necessary to consider the way by which we have come. 
Let us take the a.d. as the mile-post of our road. In 1812 there 
was no gas, neither steam-boat nor locomotive, no telegraph, no 
daily press, very poor postal communication ; all the necessaries of 
