10 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



not alone for the sake of money, but for the same reason which led 

 the sophists to Athens, which leads the provincial to London or to 

 Paris, — the need of a richer and a fuller life. But financial rewards and 

 encouragements are not wholly to be despised. Long ago the muse 

 of Manhattan Island sang to Charles Roberts : 



"You've piped at home, where none could pay. 

 Till now, I trust your wits are riper, 

 Make no delay, but come this way, 

 And pipe for them that pay the piper." 



Recently the Académie Française celebrated the centenary of the 

 Prix Monthyon. Some of us remember how Canada thrilled when 

 Frechette received a similar prize from the Academy. Why should 

 not one or other of our millionaires found one or more such prizes 

 to be given by this society, at the recommendation of this section, 

 to our rising novelists or poets or essayists or historians ? The ob- 

 jections are obvious. There would be, as there are in Paris, accusa- 

 tions, not wholly foundationless, of jobbery and log-rolling. What 

 matters it ? Every way the kingdom of letters would be forwarded. 



To our council we should commend further supplication to the 

 Government for a National Library. They should storm and batter 

 at the gates till that disgraceful lack is removed. 



Another suggestion which must sooner or later come up for 

 discussion is that of the enlargement, if not of the splitting of this 

 section. While we must beware of exaggerating differences, while 

 we must remember that even the starkest humanist has in him a touch 

 of the scientist, and that in a sense even the binomial theorem is 

 humane, we must recognise that the work of this section does in a 

 very real sense divide itself into Belles-lettres and History on the one 

 side; and Philosophy and Sociology and Economics and Folk-lore on 

 the other. That they touch hands I admit, but so do the various 

 sciences of sections 3, 4, and 5. The time is not yet ripe for division, 

 but for an enlargement of numbers we are fully ready. 



