As an old citizen of Glasgow, whose life was for many years bound up with its great University, I count it no little honour to give the opening address to its new Civic Society. Glasgow as any one may know who will turn over the pages of the magnificent record of civic progress published by Sir James Bell, is undoubtedly one of the cities which stand in the front rank of municipal achievement, one of those cities which have realized most clearly what municipal organization can do to improve the external conditions of life for its citizens. Owing to its situation, its climate, the extent of its trade and manufactures, and the consequent great influx and increase of population within its boundaries, it has had early to face many of the most serious difficulties as to the safety, the health, the economic and the social welfare of the people, which beset modern communities. It has had to consider, not as a matter of theory but as a pressing practical necessity, the great problem how the community can interfere with the life of individuals so as to strengthen and develop their energies, and not to weaken or pauperize them. And if it has not discovered any general solution of this problem – as who has discovered such a solution? – yet I think it is not doubted by many that the steps it has so far taken have been judicious, and that none of them will need to be retracted or reversed.