1880.] °3* [Oilman. 



emies, and to congratulate the members of this association 

 upon the success which has followed its operations from the 

 colonial days until now. I congratulate you on beginning 

 right and on keeping right through a century of incorpora- 

 ted life, and on the prospect of a good continuance through 

 years to come. As the eldest in a family is looked up to as 

 a leader, so the eldest in the academic sisterhood is watched 

 and followed by a long line of younger kin. Your methods 

 of work,your modes of selecting associates, your philosophi- 

 cal discussions, and above all your publications of import- 

 ant contributions to human knowledge, are scrutinized 

 throughout the land. Your progress has been the progress 

 of science; in your success the country shares; in your cen- 

 tennial the academies and universities of the nation rejoice, 

 and to your future they look forward with bright antici- 

 pations. 



The sentiment to which you have asked a response sug- 

 gests the reflection that in this wonderful epoch of intellec- 

 tual activity, when light beams from such unexpected 

 sources, on so many crypts, dispelling the shadows and 

 ghosts with which they had been occupied, Universities 

 and Academies stand like priests at the altar of truth, 

 keeping bright the coals from which the torches of research 

 are lighted. Their objects are the same; perhaps indeed there 

 is a correlation of forces, and university heat becomes aca- 

 demic work. This at least is certain, that they are the 

 most potent agencies which our civilization possesses 

 for the discovery of truth. While it is important that 

 they should be co-operative, it is also important that 

 their methods should be individual, not identical, or in 

 other words that their distinctive functions should not be 

 confounded. I take it that the prime purpose of the uni- 



