LU ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The Society has passed the period of adolescence, and, this year, both 

 series of its " Transactions " are rendered available to all by an index 

 covering the whole twenty-four volumes, prepared with great labour by 

 one of the fellows of Section One. The wealth of research over the whole 

 fields of Science and Literature thrown open to scholars is now manifest, 

 and the founders! of the Society have been justified by the results. To 

 have built on so wide a plan showed an abiding faith in the future of 

 our country, then only commencing to enter upon its astonishing period 

 of expansion. It would have been natural for men of little faith to 

 have founded some institution for the cultivation of Applied Science; 

 but here is an institution for nourishing the intellectual life of the 

 country — to follow the study of Science and Literature into every field, 

 and for their own sakes — not for any immediate material return. It 

 would have been far simpler to have followed precedent than to have 

 traced out a new course; and it would have been far easier to have copied 

 the Eoyal Society of London than to inaugurate a Society upon a new 

 plan adapted to meet the intellectual requirements of a country so 

 constituted] as ours. 



It is impossible to overlook the fact that, as the years pass, there is 

 a growing tendency to exalt Scifence at the expense of Literature; and 

 the complaint that " Letters are neglected and Science is all in all " is 

 too well founded. An idea is prevalent among the practical men who 

 control the purse-strings of the age that there is a cectainty and utility 

 about knowledge of the material world which Literature does not possess, 

 and this tendency is evident by the large endowments bestowed of late 

 years upon science in the older colleges, by the number of new scientific 

 institutions fonned, and by the increasing throngs of students following 

 strictly scientific studies ; while what used to be known as " the human- 

 ities " are correspondingly undervalued, and have to rely on the endow- 

 ments of former generations. In this respect our Society has been 

 assisted by the French traditions in favour of Literature, for Literature 

 was always patronized by the French kings and honoured by the French 

 Court. The love of letters in old France passed oversea into Canada 

 with the cultivated officials and highly educated ecclesiastics who came 

 over from time to time. The literary exercises of the Jesuits' College 

 at Quebec were graced by the presence of the Governor and his little 

 court, and we read of one occasion where the son of a wheelwright of 

 Quebec — the youthful Jolliet, afterwards to be the discoverer of the 

 Mississippi — took a brilliant part in the public exercises of the College 

 and the Intendant Talon — great statesman tbough he was — thought it 

 not beneath his dignity to take part with the students, and spoke like 

 the rest in Latin with fluency and correctness. Quebec was then a small 



