Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/9



Vol. III.]

BELIEVE the remark has been made on other occasions, by other Presidents, that the Society might have done much better by electing some one more fitted to fill the post than the individual chosen. Other Presidents in other Societies, and in this Society, have disproved their own assertion by the benefits they have conferred upon the bodies who elected them; and I certainly must pause to observe that under our late President this Society gained a distinction and a place which even in the courtly hands of Earl Beauchamp and the friendly hands of the Earl of Verulam it had not previously obtained. I think Mr. Lang’s services cannot be counted by the number of times he attended the meetings, the practical assistance he rendered in organisation, or the addresses with which he favoured the Society. It is by Mr. Lang’s place in literature and science that we must measure his services to the Society, and in my judgment they cannot be overrated.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to follow such a man, even at a distance. All the qualifications I can bring for the post are what I will term internal qualifications—an intimate knowledge of the Society’s affairs, an intense love and enthusiasm for the subject it deals with, a strong desire to see that subject dealt with adequately and completely upon scientific grounds, and upon scientific grounds only. I am supported by loyal and kindly VOL. III