106 THE president's ADDRESS. 



ment and cooperation whicli men of education and of habits of intel- 

 lectual thought among us can give. To maintain and to advance this 

 Institute are in more senses than one the duty of enlightened patri- 

 otism. In a country governed through the medium of representative 

 institutions, and in which the greatest possible amount of civil and 

 religious liberty is enjoyed, it is impossible but that differences of a 

 political or of a sectarian character must prevail. While the com- 

 munity, though rapidly increasing, is yet comparatively small, there is 

 greater danger than exists on a larger theatre, that such differences 

 should degenerate into personal hostility or individual rancor. But 

 here, in this Institute, may be found an arena where no such difterences 

 can ever be permitted to find an entrance. It is here that all those Avho 

 appreciate the worth of science and its power to contribute to the 

 real wealth, the true greatness of the country, may find a common 

 ground of action ; where the love of knowledge, the refinement of 

 education, the grace of scholarship, may, for the time at least, smooth 

 the asperities of other pursuits, and exercise a healing influence, be- 

 fore which the bitterness of sectarian and party contentions shall at 

 last disappear. 



We may well aspire to join ourselves to those who are advancing 

 the triumphs of scientific discovery, and are applying those discove- 

 ries to the benefit of their fellow men ; to form part of that mighty 

 host, who in the increase of knowledge perceive an augmentation in 

 the excellence of their own condition, making intelligent man still 

 more intelligent. Never was there an era wherein greater triumphs 

 have been wrought, nor upon which such a bright future seems to open 

 itself. The very greatness of present success seems almost calculta- 

 ed to make us doubt its reality ; and if it were not that we stand upon 

 facts and not upon theories, we could scarce credit the wonders we 

 see, far less anticipate that they are but the precursors of still greater 

 success. The transmission of our corporal selves is now so accom-' 

 plished that we scarcely know whether most to wonder at the speed 

 at which we move, or at the possibility of uniting safety with it ; while 

 for the transmission of inquiry or intelligence, of thought or of wish, 

 space may be almost said, without hyperbole, to be anniliilated. The 

 energy and perseverance which in recent years have solved and are 

 solving so many problems in geography, have in like manner advanced 

 actual discovery into unexplored or imperfectly known regions of 

 science, which, — like this western continent, — at first suspected by the 

 profound thinker, and next foretold by the more imaginative enthu • 

 siast, were at last and after repeated failures, followed always by 



