10 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
literature as well as to the community at large, and the results which he“ 
confidently hoped that it might achieve. 
“We are sometimes told,” he said, “that the enterprise in which 
we are engaged is premature, that like some tender plant too early 
exposed to the frosts of our Canadian spring, it will be nipped and 
perish. But we must remember that in a country situated as this is, 
nearly everything is in some sense premature. It is with us a time 
of breaking up ground and sowing and planting, not a time of reaping 
or gathering fruit, and unless this generation of Canadians is content, 
like those that have preceded it, to sow what others must reap in its 
full maturity, there will be little hope for our country. In Canada 
at present, whether in science, in literature, in art or in education, 
we look around in vain for anything that is fully ripe. We see only 
the rudiments and beginnings of things, but if these are healthy and 
growing, we should regard them with hope, should cherish and nurture — 
them as the germs of greater things in the future. Yet there is am 
charm in this very immaturity, and it brings with it great opportunities. M 
We have the freedom and freshness of a youthful nationality. We can 
trace out new paths which must be followed by our successors, we have 
the right to plant wherever we please the trees under whose shade ~ 
they will sit. The independence which we thus enjoy, and the originality — 
which we can claim are in themselves privileges, but privileges that 
carry with them great responsibilities. ; i z 2 À 
“We aspire to a great name. The title of ‘ Royal Society,’ which, 
with the consent of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen, we hope to assume, 
is one dignified in the mother country by a long line of distinguished 
men who have been Fellows of its Royal Society. The name may 
provoke comparisons not favourable to us ; and though we may hope to 
shelter ourselves from criticism by pleading the relatively new and 
crude condition of science and literature in this country, we must 
endeavour, with God’s blessing on earnest and united effort, to produce 
by our cultivation of the almost boundless resources of the territory 
which has fallen to us as our inheritance, works which shall entitle 
us, without fear of criticism, to take to ourselves the proud name of 
the Royal Society of Canada.” 
In 1893, Sir William was seized with a very severe attack of 
pneumonia, and his health became so seriously impaired that he was 
obliged to give up his work for a time and spend the winter in the" 
southern United States. His strength, however, was not restored, and 
he resigned his position as Principal of McGill University in June, … 
1893, and retired from active work. During the latter years of his life 
his strength gradually ebbed away, and what little work he could 

