36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
an opportunity is given them to acquaint themselves with what has 
been done and what is doing in all departments of science. 
Secondly, an important method of attaining this object is by 
means of public lectures upon scientific subjects delivered by com- 
petent persons. 
These lectures should be suited to a popular audience, in so far 
that they should assume no profound knowledge of the subject on 
the part of the audience, and hence should avoid unexplained 
technicalities. But they should not be “ popular” in the sense 
alluded to previously of conforming to the (generally erroneously) 
supposed popular taste for the sensational and the trifling to the 
exclusion of the useful and the solid. 
A popular scientific lecture, which is really popular and really 
scientific, is an excellent thing, and well deserving the encourage- 
ment of a Learned Society. 
Intercourse among the members is promoted formally by papers 
and discussions, and informally by affording a common meeting place 
and common interest for those engaged in scientific pursuits. 
Much of the value of a society from this point of view will depend 
upon the interest shewn at its meetings and the character of the 
papers read. And here a society of general scope, such as our own, 
is placed at a marked disadvantage as compared with one which 
‘addresses itself to the cultivation of a special branch of science. 
The reader of a paper before a mixed audience, such as the mem- 
bers of such a society, is placed between the horns of a’ dilemma. 
He must either adapt his discourse to the audience generally, and 
thereby make himself tedious to those whom he particularly wishes 
to interest, while he will be compelled to omit much of what would 
be of special value to those who understand the subject of his paper. 
Or he must address himself to those who have made his department 
of science their peculiar study, and thereby render himself unintelli- 
gible to nine-tenths of his audience. 
There are a hundred little points of detail which are of the keenest 
interest to those actually working in any branch of science but which 
are not the slightest consequence to anyone else. The discussion of 
such points as these gives life and interest to a meeting of specialists, 
which can not be attained elsewhere. From these and similar con- 
siderations, as well as from the mere demands of time and space, the 
various special societies have in England come to monopolize the 
