The Society's motto, "Knowledge gives rise to Friendship", a fore-runner of the current concept of many regional and global organizations, sums up the idealism with which members joined their efforts in launching various projects in the past as well as in the present. This idealism is reflected in the records of their transactions, meeting after meeting, year after year in the past century. The minutes show that, over 100 years and more, the knowledge promoted and generated by the Society has expanded to cover diverse fields of interests, such as language and literature, law, history and archaeology, cultural expressions of ethnic groups including textiles, music, beliefs and indigenous knowledge, natural science and medicine, conservation and tourism. The friendship, through the Society's networks under its various sections, has also grown in quantity and quality, as well as in diversity, in terms of nationality, age groups, and fields of interest.