96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



The President's Address. By James Bain, Jr., Esq. 



(Read i8th November, igoo.) 



In declaring open the fifty-second session of the Canadian Institute, my first 

 duty is to thank you for the honour you have conferred by electing me to fill a 

 chair which has for half a century, been occupied by a succession of eminent 

 men, the very recollection of whose names fill me with a sense of my own 

 unworthiness. The recent semi-centennial celebration j'orcibly reminds us that 

 the old generation has almost passed away and that a new generation has entered 

 into its place, let us hop®, with the same simple, earnest, unselfish desire to 

 advance the cause of scientific research in this city and province, and to enrich 

 ourselves with a deeper insight into the secret processes of nature. In addressing 

 you on this occasion, it seems natural that I should consider the Institute and 

 the work which is being carried on in it, from the standpoint of my own 

 profession, and its library, therefore, occupies a leading position in my remarks 

 this evening. 



Private libraries, when accumulated by thoughtful men are almost always 

 the reflex of the owner's mental pursuits, whether he gathei-ed his books as his 

 working tools, or indulged in what is generally called literature, for the 

 refreshing of his mind and indulgence of his love for the beautiful. Associations 

 of persons engaged in search for common objects or desiring a common end, 

 must, if they accumulate books, follow the same course as private individuals, 

 and their library becomes the reflex of their wants. The collection is more or 

 less heterogeneous according to the number of those who have influenced the 

 purchasing. In this way, libraries such as our own have grown up, and 

 while special libraries for scientific use have oiten been collected in a brief space 

 of time, and with a strict adherence to the definite purpose for which they were 

 intended, most collections made by young and energetic societies have grown, 

 as I have described. When the Natural History Museum was removed from 

 the British Museum to South Kensington, it was resolved, to buy new working 

 libraries for each department, rather than deplete the collection in Bloomsbury. 

 A large sum of money was granted for this purpose to the Botanical Department, 

 and perseverance and energy extended over a few years, created a library of 

 books on this branch of Science, which has few equals. It is seldom however, 

 that libraries are thus formed. During the early years of this Institute, it 

 was the intention of the members to obtain either by purchase or donation, 

 those books on science, history, travel or biography, which, mouth by month 

 as they were published, commended themselves to the council, as being of 

 more than ephemeral value. In looking over the remains of the early purchases, 

 it is interesting to trace the individual tastes of the members of council of those 

 years. The removal of the Institute twice, the change in the manner of life, 

 carrying the homes of the members further from the centre of the city, and 

 most important of all, want of funds, tended to diminish interest in the Society's 

 collection of modern scientific literature. A library of current books, whether 

 scientific or not, depends for its active existence upon a steady influx of new 

 books, and when this ceases, the library rapidly loses its position and usefulness. 



During this period however, a continuous stream of transactions, collections, 

 proceedings, archives and other publications of learned and scientiflc societies 

 poured in, so that when the present building was being completed, the council 

 realized for the first time, that they had the nucleus of a library which might 

 become extremely valuable from its wealth of scientific material. For some 

 years the council devoted a considerable portion of its limited income to 

 binding the accumulations, but finding that they were not able to overtake 

 the arrears and keep up to the yearly additions, they asked the government 

 of the Province to aid them in what they felt was a provincial work. This 



