REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1017. 17 



It was an inevitable consequence, therefore, of inexorable condi- 

 tions that a majority of the commendably enthusiastic workers in 

 these numerous provinces should fail to get from the Institution 

 all the aid they desired. It was a similarly inevitable consequence 

 of those conditions that some of these enthusiastic workers should 

 attribute their disappointment to wrong causes. And it might 

 likewise have been predicted with certainty that the largest share 

 of the resulting disapprobation visited upon the Institution 

 should come from the province of the humanists, not because 

 they possess any property of superiority, of inferiority, or any 

 other singularity, but, firstly, for the reason that they are more 

 numerous in the aggregate than the devotees of all other provinces 

 combined; and, secondly, for the less obvious but more important 

 reason that the subjects and objects of their i)rovince are more 

 numerous, more varied, more complex, and in general less well 

 defined than the subjects and objects of any other province. 



Concerning all these matters humanistic which have agitated 

 academic circles especialh' for centuries, the administrative office 

 of the Institution is naturally called upon to share in an extensive 

 correspondence. Some of this is edifying, most of it is instructive, 

 but a large if not the greater part of it appears to have been 

 relatively fruitless in comparison with the time and the effort 

 consumed. Why is this so? Or, is it only apparently and not 

 actually so? I\Iay it not be due to the pro\'erbially narrow, 

 or possibly '^materialistic," tendencies sometimes attributed to 

 administrative officers? IVIuch attention has been given to these 

 inquiries with a view to securing answers free from personal bias 

 and independent of administrative or other ejDhemeral restric- 

 tions. Essentially correct answers are furnished, it is believed, 

 by the voluminous correspondence referred to, since it has sup- 

 plied the data required for application of the objective methods of 

 observation and experiment as well as the data for api)lication of 

 the subjective methods of a priori reasoning and historico-critical 

 congruity. 



An appeal to that correspondence shows, in the first place, 

 that there is no consensus of opinion amongst professed humanists 

 as to what the humanities are. It is well known, of course, by 

 those who have taken the trouble to reflect a little, that the words 

 humanistic and humanist are highly technical terms, more so, for 

 example, than the term "moment of inertia," the full mechanical 



