230 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [vol. ix 



here as a Canadian. When I was in a Canadian University the only 

 outlook I could see for myself at that time was as teacher of a High School. 

 For that I did not care. I came here to be a Research professor." In har- 

 mony with this complaint one of my own students in Science, now a dean 

 of Faculty in one of the most prominent Universities in the United 

 States, lamented to me lately the few positions in Canada open to Can- 

 adians of higher grade. Even to Oxford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Lon- 

 don, have our men of scientific mark been taken from us. These bright 

 minds of ours are a national asset. We need them. We have no right 

 to let them leave us. They are the Creator's gift to us for our higher 

 development. Our Governments, our Universities, our private citizens 

 of means, and our manufacturers should take hold of them, open positions 

 for them, not specially for their own sakes, but because the field of profit- 

 able research requires them. 



2. Research is a spirit or a passion. The brilliancy, the inventiveness 

 and the aptitudes of the true disciples of Research seem to carry with 

 them a certain unsettledness and variability from rule, that some would 

 call genius. It is the power of keen mental vision, which reaches its 

 object by a species of intuition. It involves a sensitive intellect which 

 can be in touch with the deep fundamental principles of the Universe. 

 The bird sings because it cannot but sing. Wordsworth saw visions be- 

 cause he was in responsive touch with Nature. Kelvin saw the prac- 

 tical application of principles by a sort of instinct, and Edison simply 

 imagines the line of search which experiment ensures to him. 



3. Research is a concentrated piece of Intellectual work. The essence 

 of the process of Research is experiment, and continued trial. It means 

 to some extent isolation from the world. It means long nights and watch- 

 ing and laborious days to him who would succeed. The laboratory has 

 to be to a certain extent to the seeker his curling rink, golf links, his cricket 

 field, and his hunting ground. He should be provided with all the re- 

 sources of a high and scientific civilization. He must, however, know 

 what is going on in the world about him, what his fellow workers are 

 doing, what mistakes they have made, and what results they have achiev- 

 ed. And if he is all this, just as when we call for soldiers in time of war 

 and give our best to the volunteer, so we should see that our best of sup- 

 port, of respect, and consideration, is given to the men who will seclude 

 themselves in the Laboratory and will give up the pleasures of gaiety or 

 even of general culture. To secure the safety of the country, the soldier 

 is honored on his return from the war, so the experimenter who over- 

 comes ignorance and inefficiency should be crowned with laurels by his 

 country. 



