XXIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
above the ordinary navigator, and, launching into the fearful solitude of 
northern oceans, won a new world for England. 
“True, he had his son Sebastian for a companion in his victory, but 
that son was not yet twenty years old in 1497, and could give but little 
aid to his father. 
“Tf the work of the younger, in a later voyage, was very efficient, it 
is still John Cabot that led the victorious expedition ; to him alone is the 
discovery of 1497 to be ascribed, and it is his name alone that should 
receive the acclaim of the English nation. 
“ If the expedition of 1498 was brought back by the son, it was still 
unquestionably prepared and for a time conducted by his aged and 
experienced father. 
“ No low place can then be assigned to John Cabot in the glorious 
roll of the discoverers of four centuries ago, but he may be justly placed 
among the highest, very near the great chief that led them all, the Genoese, 
Christopher Columbus.” 
12. FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES. 
The council of the Royal Society have much pleasure in calling 
attention to an agitation which the National Council of Women, under 
the earnest presidency of her Excellency the Countess of Aberdeen, has 
commenced in favour of the establishment of a free public library in the 
city of Ottawa and other places in the province of Ontario. 
Hitherto entire dependence has been placed in the political capital on 
the parliamentary library, to which, necessarily, only a minority of the 
citizens can have access, and that, too, solely when the two Houses are 
not sitting, 
It is to be hoped that this appeal to the public spirit of Ottawa will 
have some success, and that her citizens will afford an example to other 
places in the Dominion still behind in this respect. 
The Free Libraries Act, which is an illustration of the wisdom of the 
Ontario Government, has not taken that hold of the public mind that one 
would naturally expect from a section of the Dominion which has always 
prided itself on its liberal system of education for the masses. In Massa- 
chusetts every town of over one thousand souls has a free library, whilst 
in Ontario there are only some seven or eight cities and towns that have 
made any effort in the same praiseworthy direction. 
Of course, when we advocate a free library, we are met by the objec- 
tion that it means taxation of the people for the reading of novels, many 
of them most injurious to the mind, and leading to a great waste of time 
which ought to be devoted to studies of a more profitable character. 
We are quite sure that no one who looks at the mass of rubbish which is 
yearly circulated by English and American publishers but must feel that 
there is much force in the objection. It does not certainly say much 
