PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 



Our Semi-Jubilee has arrived, and it belongs to my office to speak of 

 the Society^ its origin, its objects, and its success. 



First, however, let me express wiïh a warm heart, although with im- 

 perfect words, the thanks which I feel that I owe to the society which 

 has elected me to be its president at such an epoch in its history, the 

 society which is itself representative of all that is highest and best, in 

 the Literature and Science of the Dominion and is in sympatliy with and 

 isupported by. the lovers of knowledge and of intellectual culture, who 

 have their more frequent gatherings for the same objects in the widely 

 scattered local centres of this quarter of the empire. 



How did this Society originate? Not from any action of our own. 

 (Separation by long distances and other obstacles prevented mutual ac- 

 quaintance and union in the past. I speak as one who was a University 

 Professor long before the existence of the society. 



The Founder, the DuJce of Argyll. 



But fortunately we had in 18S1, as governor-general, a far-seeing 

 statesman, then Marquis of Lome, who could estimate rightly the future 

 of this country and foresee its needs. Fortunately, too, when initiating 

 the movement, he was able to call to his assistance in organizing the 

 young society a man so wonderfully capable and energetic as the late Sir 

 William Dawson. 



The idea was entirely that of the ]\Iarquis himself as Sir William 

 tells us in his autobiography. Indeed Sir William sa3^s that his own pref- 

 ;ference would have been for a purely scientific society like the Ro}ial 

 Society of London, but the Marquis had before him the thought of 

 the French Institute also, in which literature has its place; and there 

 is much to be said for his decision. 



Literature and Science. 



If I may speak as a member of our scientific division and on its be- 

 half, we may acknowledge that, while we are all proud of the wonders 

 science has done for mankind yet, if we compare ife efforts for goodi or 

 evil with the influence of literature, we find that while the aimazing pro- 

 ductlions of science may bulk large before the eye at any one place or 

 time yet a general view brings before us tihe transcendent powers of 

 literature. The costly guns and equipment of a monster' man-of-war 

 dwarf the small and inexpensive flag that floats above it. But behind 



