Custom ordains that the incoming President shall open his term of office with an Address. This, it is surprising to discover, has not always been our practice. In fact, the first specific Presidential Address was not delivered until 1880 when Bailey initiated a series of Addresses unbroken since that date. Both you and the President are, however, more fortunate than our predecessors for, between 1880 and 1890, the President was expected—or, it may be, permitted—to deliver an allocution at the beginning of each Session falling within his term of office. Thus, Sprague, the last President who held office for more than the now conventional period of two years—subject always, of course, to re-election—holds the record of having delivered no fewer than four Addresses, all exhibiting, in matters actuarial and managerial, his redoubtable sagacity and authority.

Little space in the Journal has been devoted in the past specifically to graduation tests, and nowhere have the tests generally applied been concisely set out and fully discussed. The only papers during the last forty years on the subject have been by Seal and Daw; both these papers were submitted and discussed during the war years, with the result that many actuaries were unable to be present and state their views; indeed, many of us did not even know of them until the numbers of the Journal in question were published, and an opportunity to study them did not arise until after the war.