646 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
Sir Sandford Fleming, K.C.M.G., LL.D., spoke as follows :— 
Your Excellency, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
It is my happiness to be the medium to convey to the members of 
the Canadian Institute, on this auspicious occasion, the congratulations 
of Queen’s University. 
As the official head of a seat of learning in another part of Canada, I 
bring the warmest felicitations. On the shelves of our library in King- 
ston, we have the very best testimony of the useful work upon which this 
association has been engaged for half a century. We have only to open 
these thirty-four volumes and examine the many papers relating to the 
intellectual and material development of the country, and to matters of 
common interest to all countries, to find special cause for thankfulness 
that the Canadian Institute has been essentially a working society for 
so long a period as fifty years, and that it is now firmly established. 
We recognize that every society, such as this, is a human agency 
employed to shape and develop movements for the common good. On 
this pleasant planet we find everywhere a field for such agencies. Each 
individual member of such societies is an agent. He is given an oppor- 
tunity of co-operating with his fellow-members in investigations, in 
acquiring information, or in assisting in disseminating knowledge 
obtained. In one way or another, every right-minded person, by 
becoming a member, can extend a helping hand in promoting the 
general advantage. Members of the Canadian Institute have accepted 
the opportunity offered them, and we come to recognize that their 
united efforts have been crowned with a full measure of success. 
This society, as its name implies, is neither sectional nor local ; it 
occupies a wide sphere of activity and usefulness. One of its functions 
has been to encourage workers in all parts of Canada, however remote, 
to induce them to bring forward the result of their investigations, and to 
have those results of sufficient importance placed on record. 
For half a century the Institute has diligently followed its broad, 
elevated and patriotic aims. Its published proceedings have regularly 
found their way to kindred societies in every civilized country, and by 
being placed in the great public libraries of the world they are made 
accessible to all peoples. Inquiry into the published proceedings goes 
to show that the society has given much attention to questions of public 
concern, and by its successful efforts in extending the domain of know- 
ledge, it has been the means by which great benefits have been conferred 
ee a a 
