TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
erie, CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
Peer iy “DAYS OF . THE -CANADIAN: INSTITUTE: 
Ev SIR-SANDEORD. FLEMING, K.C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S.C., Etc. 
FIFTY years is a small space in the life of a nation, or in the history 
of the human family; as a unit to be employed in chronological compu- 
tations, it is, however, of appreciable extent. If we employ it according 
to the method of a surveyor of lands, in measuring through the vista of 
the past, eight such units will bring us to the days of Cabot, when the 
continent was first seen by European eyes ; and if we continue our exact 
survey into earlier days, but forty units of fifty years will extend our 
measurements to a date in history a century before the beginning of the 
Christian era. 
As denizens of the new world where so much is modern on every side; 
we cannot view the Canadian Institute as a new society, seeing that it 
took its origin half a century back. We feel bound to consider that this 
association has passed into its adolescence, and having reached that 
stage, the mere fact implies that the body is in possession of a degree of 
robust vigour and vitality. Since the birth of the Canadian Institute, 
great changes have been witnessed in everything around us. At the 
time of the first appearance of the Society the Dominion had no political 
existence; it scarcely entered into thedreams of the most sanguine of men. 
Canada was but a province, or at most, two provinces united. The name 
which they bore in those days applied only to a limited extent of 
territory forming part of the basin of the St. Lawrence. Now the 
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