186 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION I. 
upon it by the increase of biographic and other literature add 
more and more to its value. Its boundaries also have been 
enlarged within comparatively recent times by the discovery 
of ancient records of surpassing interest, which, being deciphered 
by the acumen of Egyptian and Assyrian scholars, reveal to us 
the wonderful story of great, powerful, and civilised nations long 
buried in oblivion. And if the East has been compelled to give 
up her secrets, may we not hope that the western world will also 
be induced to do so, and that further researches in Central 
America among those mysterious cities of a vanished and 
forgotten race may result in the discovery of some key to their 
numerous hieroglyphic inscriptions, and thus furnish yet another 
fascinating chapter to the literature of the world. A hope may 
also perhaps be entertained that in this age of research, discoveries 
may even yet be made of a lost literature in the case of one of 
Europe’s oldest civilisations. Our museums show many an 
exquisite production of Etruscan art; it would therefore be 
doubly interesting should some happy “find”—some Rosetta 
stone—introduce us to the literature itself of old Etruria, 
especially as, like its national art, this would probably afford 
evidence of ancient Greek and Egyptian influences, and possibly 
solve the mystery of their introduction. The literature of the 
Press, within my own recollection, which dates back to a period 
beyond half a century, wher 7%e Zimes itself boasted of but two. 
leaves of modest dimensions, has made an enormous advance, that 
of the leading papers—Australian, we may be proud to say, as 
well as English—being now generally so excellent in tone and 
literary finish as to leave little or nothing to be desired. To 
this double excellence is due the admitted pre-eminence of the 
English newspaper, while to the energy and ability with which it 
is conducted may also be ascribed, among other matters, that com- 
paratively recent development known as war correspondence. 
This is undoubtedly a peculiar field for literary work, yet the 
ubiquitous correspondent, animated with a fine courage and severe 
sense of duty, never fails, under the most desperate circumstances 
and exposed to all the deadly perils of war, to furnish us virtually 
from day to day with graphic pictures, Homeric in personal 
interest, of every passing incident of the campaign and battle-field. 
Compare these brilliant productions with the staid official reports 
of the same scenes and occurrences, and we realise how much we 
owe to the daily press for giving us a new and stirring literature 
of universal interest. The increase in periodic literature, teeming 
as this does both with lighter works of imagination and with 
weightiest matter by the foremost writers of the day, is a very 
notable fact, whilst the favourable terms on which it is supplied 
point, in a highly satisfactory manner, to an enormous demand 
on the part of a vast, reading, and well-to-do public. I can here 
only allude to the incessant issue of work of the severer type, 
scientific, philosophic, classical, theological, critical, &e., which 
