2 ALEXANDBE JOHNSON: 



the attention of the people of Canada, more powerfully than a Society so young as this 

 can be expected to do, to the Advancement of Science. 



How can we best try to advance Science? I think there can hardly be a member of 

 this Section who is not aware of the difficulties that beset our work in a country so young 

 as Canada. I mean our work especially, and more particularly in Mathematics and 

 Physics, not Science in Greneral. The Natural Sciences are far more favorably placed, a fact 

 which was recognized by Lord Rayleigh in his Address. 



The reason is, of course, obvious. A new country offers a new and wide field for 

 investigations in Natural Science ; while Literature and History are generally attractive 

 studies that can find subjects everywhere. Now, I am afraid we cannot say that Mathe- 

 matics is a popular study ; at any rate the taste for it is less general than for other branches 

 of Science, and its cultivation in the higher departments requires a long and expensive 

 preliminary training, for which, in a new country, not only is there no adequate subsequent 

 reward, beyond that of the acquisition of the knowledge and the training, bvrt there is, 

 even, positive discoviragement, in as far as the man who has pursued this study in a 

 university course is compelled to abandon it afterwards, — partly through the pressure of 

 the daily avocations by which he earns his living, and partly through the want of asso- 

 ciates with similar tastes in his own locality. Not until Canada can make some such pro- 

 vision as is found needful in other countries, can we expect to find its youth able to take 

 up Mathematics with any thoroughness. This Society, it appears to me, may do something 

 to hasten the arrival of that time, by drawing public attention to the need. 



Physics, again, is becoming more and more closely connected with Mathematics, and 

 therefore likely, to this extent, to be withdrawn from general cultivation. Both this and 

 Chemistry share in the difficulties which arise from the necessity, in many cases, for 

 expensive apparatus. 



The Society has, through a special committee, been making inquiries as to the manner 

 in which encouragement is offered in other countries, or other divisions of the Empire, to 

 young men of adequate talent, to induce them to enter upon a scientific career. "What 

 result may arise from the Report laid before the Society, it is impossible to forecast. But 

 the subject should not, I think, be lost sight of It might be well even to go farther than 

 this, and to keep continually before us one of the three objects for which the British 

 Association was founded, which is stated in these words in every one of its Annual 

 Reports : " To obtain a more general attention to the objects of Science and a removal of 

 any disadvantages of a public kind which impede its progress." 



Possibly no better way of pointing out such disadvantages in Canada for the 

 purpose of subsequent removal could be found, than by a Report which would give an 

 account of our present scientific resources in all the branches of this Section, viz., 

 Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, — in other words, of the present state of these 

 sciences in Canada. I do not mean merely an account of laboratories and of collections 

 of scientific apparattis, though these are important, but also of the number of posts in 

 Canada open to scientific men, whether in Universities or under Government, of tlie 

 salaries attached to them, and of the number of hours of daily work involved, so as to 

 enable competent judges to form an opinion on the opportunities and facilities for original 

 investigation ; other practical information might be added. The British Association 

 appointed a Committee in 1868 to make a RexDort, somewhat of this kind, for Great Britain 



