E THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
and elsewhere in Ontario many libraries which cannot be described 
as public, e.g., those in the universities, colleges, etc. In Toronto 
there are eighteen such libraries with, in the aggregate, about 500,000 
volumes. 
The value of the intellectual asset to be found in public libraries 
seems to be scarcely appreciated in the other provinces as it is in 
Ontario, though I believe in several provinces legislation has been or 
is to be introduced following the lead that has been set by Ontario. 
In Prince Edward Island there are two public libraries of import- 
ance, at Charlottetown and Summerside. 
In Nova Scotia the libraries have not been placed under the 
direction of the Department of Education, and therefore seem lacking 
in the advantages which organization, or at least such an organization 
would impart. In the school libraries there are 62,564 volumes. 
In the city of Halifax there are twelve libraries with an aggregate 
of over 100,000 volumes, one of these being the Citizens’ Free Library 
with 24,000 volumes. In eight other towns there are libraries, for 
the most part open to the public, with an aggregate of about 50,000 
volumes. I believe the private libraries in Nova Scotia contain 
valuable collections of books, and represent perhaps the intellectual 
asset of the Province in this regard. 
In New Brunswick the libraries are not under the control of the 
Department of Education. There are two in the Province, the 
Public Library at St. John and the Legislative Library at Fredericton. 
In addition various libraries are maintained by subscription, and many 
school libraries have been established. 
In Quebec the institutions which virtually fall under the defini- 
tion of a free public library are the Fraser Institute Library of Montreal, 
the Westmount Library, the Montreal Free Library in course of con- 
struction, the Public Library of Waterloo, and the Library and Art 
Union of Sherbrooke. There are in addition thirteen libraries, 
chiefly those of the universities and colleges and of the literary and 
scientific societies. The libraries of Montreal contain at least 500,000 
volumes; those of the city of Quebec 269,218 volumes. The new - 
Montreal Free Library is designed to be in every way worthy of the 
great city in which it is situated. Several of the libraries of Quebec 
contain most valuable archives, notably those of St. Mary’s College, 
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and Ecole Normale Jacques Cartier of 
Montreal, and of Laval University, Quebec. In the Legislative 
Library are the famous Washington Papers, complete from 1775 
to date; and in the Laval University Library are about 30,000 original 
manuscripts relating to the history of Canada under the French 
régime,—What a mine for historical research and for writers of his- 
