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and most strenuous support, inasmuch as they are unquestionably calculated, in a pre-eminent degree, to attract attention, and to excite interest where, without their agency, archæology would have remained without notice or regard, if not actually unknown. The claim which societies such as ours may advance for support, in their capacity for developing the archæology of particular districts, for organizing and imparting a definite system to research and investigation, and for giving a fresh impulse to advance archæological science, it is beside my present purpose to urge; I do, however, venture to introduce the subject which has been intrusted to me on this occasion, with a passing remark upon the worthiness of these institutions as the means for strengthening archaeology, both by very considerably increasing the number of archæologists throughout the length and breadth of the land, and also by removing those vulgar and unjust prejudices which would define an archæologist as a sort of would-be scientific dustman, whose elaborately erudite trifling is as worthless in itself, as it is repulsive to all but the high-dried brethren of his craft. With those who take an active part in the establishment and the subsequent administration of archæological societies, the importance of winning fresh adherents to archæology is well understood and duly appreciated. They estimate aright the results of elaborate research, and they regard with mingled sentiments of admiration and gratitude the attainments of illustrious individuals; still they feel that the great lessons which the past has written from age to age on those diversified memorials which each age enshrines in the sanctuary of its own memory, and treasures up for those who should come after, as the visible and tangible expressions of its own (once living) presence amongst the