82 THE PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



in some of the leading scientific journals of Europe. Tour owifc 

 Journal, in which such papers first appear, has already attained dis- 

 tinction among periodicals of the same character. 



But you have had it also in view to induce a more general atten- 

 tion amongst the Canadian people to the objects of Science ; and, in 

 the observations I am to make upon this occasion, I am sure that I 

 shall have your indulgence, though I should chiefly keep in mind 

 this part of your design, and though I should speak from the stand- 

 point of a politician and a public man — a character which it is but 

 a few weeks since I ceased to fill, rather than profess to speak from 

 the stand-point of a man of science — a character to which I do not 

 venture to make any pretension. 



The worth of the Canadian Institute has not been altogether 

 mirecognized in the Councils of the Province. Parliament has for 

 many years been in the habit of making to it an annual grant. Our 

 country is under popular government, and the mass of electors, or 

 indeed of their representatives, make no claim to science ; and it is 

 therefore gratifying to know that to some extent they appreciate the 

 value of scientific pursuits. Our fellow Canadians are almost all 

 engaged, as in a new country like this almost all must be engaged, 

 in the struggle to obtain for themselves and their families the means 

 of subsistence, or to add to these some of the comforts of life. Yet 

 they have certainly shewn some ability to recognize, and some dispo- 

 sition to encourage, pursuits entirely foreign to their own, and of 

 which, therefore, it always needs a considerable amount of intelli- 

 gence to perceive the claims or the utility. This disposition will, 

 I trust, gradually increase ; but that it now exists to the extent 

 it does, is a fact of peculiar interest in view of the work which 

 our statesmen are at this moment engaged in, of laying the foun- 

 dations of a nation of which Canada will long be, and will perhaps 

 always be, the most important portion : a nation, though still re- 

 ceiving, and wishing to receive, its Chief Magistrate from the 

 sovereign of the Fatherland : a nation, though still cordially recog- 

 nising the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament : a nation, not inde- 

 pendent of any other, but continuing, and preferring to continue, part 

 of the country from which we have sprung ; of the country whose lan- 

 guage we speak ; whose institutions we adopt or imitate ; whose his- 

 tory is our own ; and which, in science and literature, in freedom and 

 power and wealth, in the purity of its statesmen of all parties, and 



