ee 7 
1898-99. | FIFTIETH YEAR OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 647 
upon the scientific and general public, both within and without the 
Dominion. We must, therefore, recognize the valuable and permanent 
services rendered to Canada by the society which we are now assembled 
to honour. 
Queen’s University cherishes a warm sympathy with the aims and the 
aspirations of the Canadian Institute. All the friends of Queen’s rejoice 
in this celebration, and no greetings are more cordial than those I bring 
from the City of Kingston and from our graduates in all parts of the 
Dominion. Our earnest hope is that each succeeding year will bear 
witness to the steady progress in usefulness of this society, and that 
the name of the Canadian Institute may acquire increased lustre as the 
events of each succeeding generation pass into history. 
Mr. President, it is not simply as the official head of a Canadian 
University that I have come to pay tribute to the good work done by 
the society over which you preside. 
I am highly privileged in being called upon to address you in a two- 
fold capacity. It is my happiness, as an early member of the Canadian 
Institute, to bear testimony to the progress made and the benefits which 
have resulted from the work which has been achieved. 
This is the fiftieth annual meeting. There are not many who can 
look back with me through the heat and haze of fifty Canadian summers 
and the snows of fifty Canadian winters to the beginning of this society 
in the year 1849. The first annual meeting was held on Saturday 
evening, December 7th, 1850. At that date, the close of the first year 
of the society’s existence, the membership counted sixty-four persons. 
Eight of these early members are still alive, and of the eight who sur- 
vive, I am delighted to find in this assembly, three who took an active 
part in founding the Canadian Institute so many years ago. I rejoice 
again to meet at an annual meeting of the Institute my old-time co- 
workers, Messrs. Kivas Tully and Thomas Ridout, both so closely iden- 
tified with its early days. It will suffice if I mention that in the office 
of Mr. Tully, the Canadian Institute was cradled, and it was to Mr. 
Ridout we were under great obligations in connection with the Royal 
Charter. 
These old friends will, I am sure, kindly permit me, on their behalf 
and my own, to express the very great gratification it gives us to be 
here to-night. I am afraid, however, I can only feebly and imperfectly 
put in words the feeling of genuine thankfulness we experience in being 
permitted to see realized the very sanguine expectations we long ago 
