XXXII EOYAL SOCIETY OP CANADA. 



societies and universities. Some such bond is needed in a country of diverse languages and races, 

 where common sentiments are only beginning to grow, where the population is widely scattered, and 

 the centres of intellectual activity are far apart. It may be mentioned here that one of the objects 

 specified in our act of incorporation is the offering of inducements for valuable papers on subjects 

 relating to Canada, and to aid researches already begun and carried on so far as to render their ultimate 

 value probable. The only action hitherto taken to carry out this object is enough to show that the 

 desire of the society is not so much to magnify itself as to call attention to the needs of our univer- 

 sities. In 1883 a committee was appointed to report upon the forms of aid and encouragement given 

 in other countries to young men deemed qualified and desirous to engage in original literary and 

 scientific work, and to suggest the best means of providing similar aid for young men in Canada. The 

 committee took a great deal of trouble and made exhaustive enquiries on the subject. It reported in 

 1885, and presented in tabular form a complete list of the aids offered in Great Britain and Ireland 

 in the form of fellowships. One has only to glance at this list to see how varied and extensive is the 

 provision made in the mother-country in this regard. Such endowments are also growing rapidly 

 in the United States, but in Canada only a small beginning has been made, and our few fellowships 

 are so conditioned that their holders, being required to engage in teaching, are unable to study 

 abroad. After surveying all the sources from which aid might be given for those scholars whohave 

 jn'oved their fitness to devote themselves to pure science or literature, the committee reported that 

 Canadian fellowships must be expected from private benevolence, that apparently inexhaustible source 

 which has never failed in Britain, and which is now flowing so freely in the States; and as the pro- 

 gress recently made by some of our universities warranted the hope that when the utility of fel- 

 lowships was understood and their necessity perceived, the funds would be forthcoming to endow 

 them, the society ordered a large number of separate copies of the report to be struck off and sent to 

 the heads of Canadian universities, to be distributed bj- them to persons able and willing to assist in 

 the work. I mention this not merely for the sake of showing, by this instance, that the society has 

 not dreamed of Constituting itself a literarj" or scientific monopoly, but also for the sake of expressing 

 my own conviction that science or literature must be studied, not for immediate practical results, but 

 for its own sake. The true practical man is surely he who can look furthest ahead and plan accord- 

 ingly, with a view to permanent rather than immediate results. 



It will not be out of place to repeat the warning of Sir Daniel Wilson in his presidential address: 

 " It is impossible to neglect pure science, and yet hope to reach those results which are but its latest 

 fruitage. . . . We can no more look to have the practical fruits of science without the prelimin- 

 ary labour of ardent search for abstract truth, than we can look for the reaping of the harvest whore 

 thei-e has been no seed time." This is even more profoundly true in the case of literature. The men 

 who intei'pret for us the age in which we live, who expand our range of thought and reveal to us new 

 sources of beauty and power in human life, are not produced in the feverish struggle of commerce and 

 politics. They grow only in deep soil, and they need favourable conditions for full and harmonious 

 development. These conditions are best fulfilled when the general state of the j^eople is satis- 

 factory, and when the universities are equipped to meet the demands and opportunities of the time. 

 Canadians are giving proof that they understand this, so far as their universities are concerned. 

 Considering the stock from which they have sprung, it would be very strange if they did not, and the 

 proofs are not confined to the two or three cities where our wealthy men chiefly reside. The general 

 university extension that has taken place since Confedei'ation is very remarkable for a new counti-y. 

 This is not the occasion to go into statistics, but I may say that it compares favourably with the 

 increase in the general wealth and the development of our railroads, canals, mines, manufactures, com- 

 merce and agri'cultui-e. It has come, not from the generosity of a few millionaires, though the names 

 of such will readily occur to any Montreal meeting, but from the self sacrificing spirit of many of the 

 graduates, and the fiiith that inspires the best of our people with a deep conviction of the value of 

 learning. A people so inspired will in due time provide all that may be needed, travelling as well as 



