THE president's ADDRESS. 95 



all my fellow-members, entertain of the long continued liberality of 

 the Government towards us, I cannot help expressing my regret that 

 it has been deemed advisable to withdraw the grant formerly made 

 to the Toronto Athenaeum, and which we have enjoyed since the 

 amalgamation of the two institutions. The depressed state of the 

 financial affairs of the country, and the consequent necessity for a 

 strict economy in the expenditure of the public moneys, induced the 

 Government, I suppose, to limit their liberality last year to the grant 

 of ^250, but I hope that it will not be found necessary to confine it 

 to that amount hereafter. 



I cannot but regard a liberal appropriation from the public funds for 

 the purpose of aiding and supporting societies having for their objects 

 the advancement of science and the spread of knowledge, as a wise and 

 judicious act on the part of any government, and with reference to 

 this point I trust 3'^ou will pardon my again quoting from the excel- 

 lent address of Professor Owen, to which I have already alluded. In 

 that part of it in which he alludes to the aid and countenance which 

 the British Government had always given to science and scientific in- 

 stitutions, he proceeds to show how science makes return to govern- 

 ments for fostering and aiding her endeavours for the public weal : 



" Every practical application of the discoveries of science," says 

 the Professor, " tends to the same end as that which the enlight- 

 ened statesman has in view. The steam engine in its manifold 

 application, the crime-decreasing gas lamp, the lightning conductors, 

 the electric telegraph, the law of storms, and rules for the mariner's 

 guidance in them, the power of rendering surgical operation painless, 

 the measures for preserving public health, and for preventing or 

 mitigating epidemics — such are among the more important practical 

 results of pure scientific research, with which mankind have been 

 blessed, and states enriched. They are evidence unmistakeable of the 

 close affinity between the aims and tendencies of science, and those 

 of true state policy. In proportion to the activity, productivity, and 

 prosperity of a community, is its power of responding to the calls of 

 the Finance Minister. By a far seeing one, the man of science will 

 be regarded with a favorable eye, not less for unlooked for streams 

 of wealth that have already flowed, but for those that may in future 

 arise out of the application of the abstract truths, to the discoYery of 

 which he devotes himself." 



