XL ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
It has been said that there is something inconsistent in our having 
a department of Canadian Literature, since it can be regarded as only a 
branch of English literature. But this is not strictly the case, and, even 
if it were so, we should still have not unimportant functions to discharge 
in more ways than one. 
In the first place, we have a history of our own, a history full of 
interest and even of romance; and the work done in regard to this history 
is of great value as history and as literature. It is hardly necessary to 
refer to the work of Parkman, who, although not a countryman of our 
own, has won the right and more than the right to be an honorary Cana- 
dian by his splendid contributions to the past history of our country. In 
the fulness, carefulness, and impartiality of his researches he has left 
hardly anything to be desired. Those who may follow him will have but 
the merest gleanings of the field which he reaped; and the form in which 
he has presented the story of the country is as attractive as the matter 
of the story is trustworthy. He has gone beyond our thanks or our 
appreciation ; but the memory of his work will be fresh when this and 
many generations shall have passed away. 
We cannot have many Parkmans in any country, and Can is too 
young to hope for many such for years to come. Yet we are not without 
diligent and successful labourers in the same field, who have made con- 
tributions of permanent value to the records of the past. Among these 
a high place of honour must be assigned to a member of our own body, 
the late Dr. Kingsford, a man who, after a long and busy life, devoted to 
labours and interests the most varied, consecrated the closing years of his 
sojourn here to the accomplishment of a work which should tell the story 
of Canada, in full detail, from the earliest times to the union of Upper 
and Lower Canada in 1841. If we cannot claim for this work of Dr. 
Kingsford’s that it shall be reckoned as the final history even of the 
period which it covers, it must at least be acknowledged that it contains 
an amount of carefully collected and sifted material which no future 
historian can properly or wisely neglect, and that the author conducted 
his researches and wrote his book in a truly historical spirit. It was a 
source of the greatest satisfaction to his numerous friends that Dr. 
Kingsford lived to see the publication of the last volume of his work. 
It has been truly said that history belongs almost equally to the sphere 
of science and to that of literature ; and in some recent histories we 
have the predominance of the one or of the other. In Mr. Roberts’ 
recent History of Canada we have literature, if not so largely science ; 
and in Sir John Bourinot’s we have a happy blending of both. And 
here, I trust, I shall not be thought to be guilty of a liberty if I refer 
