Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Address on Vacating the Presidency of the Archaeological Society of Glasgow: Delivered at the Annual General Meeting 15th November, 1894
In my opening address I adverted to the vast domain of Archaeology, and the necessity, not only of individual students, but even of societies, confining themselves to such topics of investigation as lie closest to their hands. For ourselves, it is not requisite to go from home for material to examine; the field of research in Scotland alone is far from being exhausted, the country teems with relics of a forgotten past: place names, legends, prehistoric remains, early literature, family history, ancient buildings, castles, houses, churches, monuments, personal relics, legal and other documents - there they are in great profusion for whoever will take the trouble to enquire about them.
It would be a work of much value, but of no small labour, to give a survey of all that has been done during the last two or three years to illustrate the antiquities of Scotland, by individuals and by the half-dozen and more Scottish antiquarian societies. There has been, I think, a broadening of the interest in the subject for some little time past. Besides works of great importance, such as the treatise on Domestic Architecture, the publications of the His torical Society, and of the Spalding Club, the Rhind lectures, editions ofearly travels, and the papers which have appeared in Societies' transactions, there have been smaller books, specially dealing with the topography, the scenery and antiquities of particular places or districts, which, if not pro found or exhaustive, but merely popular and amusing, still serve the all important purpose of keeping the popular mind in touch with the past, and infusing into it the desire to preserve what still remains. A danger to which all remains of antiquity are exposed, is the ignorance of those who live beside them. The stones of Hadrian's Wall are converted into cow-houses; the rampart which marked the most northerly point of the Roman Empire is cut into to make the foundation for a but and a ben in literal truth, the dust of imperious Caesar is used to stop a hole to keep the wind away, and when the object of antiquity has been fairly wiped out, its disappearance is called improvement and progress, and is ascribed to the irresistible march of civilisation, when it is merely the result of ignorance or the childish or spiteful love of destruction. It is well that knowledge of the antiquities about us should be as wide-spread as possible. It is only by the weight of universal public interest in the preservation of objects of antiquity that these can be protected from the selfishness of individuals and the iconoclasm of certain classes, public companies and others. When once it is understood thoroughly that a monument of the past of any description, though it may, as property, be justly claimed by an individual, yet historically and archaeo logically belongs to the country at large, there is a greater chance of its being preserved. It may be that certain changes in Glasgow have been improve ments; I am certain that others have not been, in all cases, absolutely necessary; anyhow, they have made the city so much the poorer. It will be well for this Society, which presumably has the interest of historic Glasgow specially at heart, to watch carefully alterations which may be suggested hereafter. There is hardly anything of an earlier Glasgow left; what little there is should now be jealously guarded.
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