6 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Since he goeth to his rest? 
Does he play in their flowers as he played among these with his 
mother? 
Do the gods smile downwards and love him and give him their care? 
Guard him well, O ye gods, till I come; lest the wrath of that | 
Other 
Should reach to him there.” 
During the past year the eminent University of Aberdeen celebrated 
the four hundredth anniversary of its foundation, and when an invita- 
tion was received by our Society to be represented on the occasion, a 
member of our section was chosen to discharge that honourable duty. 
We now congratulate him, as Dr. Campbell, not that the title adds 
lustre to the name already cherished in the hearts of Canadians, but 
because we believe that he will honour the title in the discharge of 
that highest function granted to man by his Creator, that of the poet- 
prophet who at once delights, instructs and elevates his people. 
From this brief annual review, I may very readily turn your 
attention to a topic of a practical character, viz., the relation of our 
Canadian Literature to the work of Education in our Schools and 
Colleges. 
OUR CANADIAN LITERATURE. | 
Has it reached such a position that it can be introduced into our 
Schools and Colleges as a subject of study? 
With the dawn of the present century there has been awakened 
throughont the length and breadth of our country a strong sense of 
national life. We are beginning to think seriously of ourselves as a 
Canadian nation, “ Daughter in her mother’s house, but mistress in 
her own.” Several causes have contributed to this birth of national 
spirit. The union of the scattered British American provinces in the 
Dominion and the expansion of our territory to embrace the northern 
half of the continent laid the foundation. The adoption of protection 
in the United States and of the national policy in Canada favoured 
the growth of the national spirit and swept away the last vestige of a 
disposition towards annexation. The opening of a new century, the 
Diamond Jubilee, the death of Queen Victoria, and the accession of 
King Edward all exerted a powerful educative influence on national 
views and sentiment in all parts of the Empire, involving as they did 
a review of the past and an outlook to the future. The South African 
war introducing Canadian, Australian and New Zealand contingents 
into the field and making it a war of the empire rather than of the 
