DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42348#0018
This table shews the very limited incomes of these
Societies, and well may it create our surprise, that they
should be able to effect any good, much more that they
should have kept alive the attention of the scientific to their
respective pursuits, and contributed so essentially to the
advancement of knowledge.
The expence, which is incurred by these Societies in the
rent for apartments affording accommodation quite inade-
quate to their wants, and, in many cases, in situations most
inconvenient for their operations, weighs like an incubus,
so that at their first formation they are obliged to be satisfied
with any apartments however insufficient, in order not to incur
too serious a rental. Some Societies want but little accommo-
dation, requiring only a mere meeting room, ante-room, and
library: but to others a museum also, and other apartments,
are necessary. Still, in all cases, the rent presses most heavily.
I would therefore venture to suggest, that Government
could afford assistance to such Associations, at once effectual
and little liable to abuse, by locating them suitably; in fact,
by extending to other Societies that privilege, which is now
peculiar to the Royal Society, Antiquarian, Geological and
Astronomical Societies, and the Royal Academy of Arts.
By this means their funds would be relieved from a material
item of expence; and the fact of being in an edifice provided
by Government, and as it were carrying on their proceedings
with its immediate sanction, would give them a weight and
importance, which no other method could produce so effec-
tually or so unobjectionably.
It would be necessary to erect a fire-proof building in a
central situation of the metropolis, containing numerous sets
of chambers of various capacity and extent. These might
be allotted under the following restrictions, which are hinted
at rather than insisted upon, in order to prove the practica-
bility of the scheme:—
Societies, and well may it create our surprise, that they
should be able to effect any good, much more that they
should have kept alive the attention of the scientific to their
respective pursuits, and contributed so essentially to the
advancement of knowledge.
The expence, which is incurred by these Societies in the
rent for apartments affording accommodation quite inade-
quate to their wants, and, in many cases, in situations most
inconvenient for their operations, weighs like an incubus,
so that at their first formation they are obliged to be satisfied
with any apartments however insufficient, in order not to incur
too serious a rental. Some Societies want but little accommo-
dation, requiring only a mere meeting room, ante-room, and
library: but to others a museum also, and other apartments,
are necessary. Still, in all cases, the rent presses most heavily.
I would therefore venture to suggest, that Government
could afford assistance to such Associations, at once effectual
and little liable to abuse, by locating them suitably; in fact,
by extending to other Societies that privilege, which is now
peculiar to the Royal Society, Antiquarian, Geological and
Astronomical Societies, and the Royal Academy of Arts.
By this means their funds would be relieved from a material
item of expence; and the fact of being in an edifice provided
by Government, and as it were carrying on their proceedings
with its immediate sanction, would give them a weight and
importance, which no other method could produce so effec-
tually or so unobjectionably.
It would be necessary to erect a fire-proof building in a
central situation of the metropolis, containing numerous sets
of chambers of various capacity and extent. These might
be allotted under the following restrictions, which are hinted
at rather than insisted upon, in order to prove the practica-
bility of the scheme:—