676 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 405. 



only as a matter of mutual congratulation, 

 but as a spur to arouse us to effort in our 

 own similar pursuit of educational aims. 

 But the stranger coming among you neces- 

 sarily feels the shortcomings of his ac- 

 quaintance with the details of these aca- 

 demic enterprises you have taken in hand. 

 One advantage, however, is his. His view, 

 gained from a distance, necessarily has 

 freedom and truth of perspective that may 

 give it a value in your eyes. 



Some things lose by perspective. Some 

 "things, imposing when seen close to hand, 

 dwindle when viewed from afar. Not so 

 Canada. The perspective given by the 

 width of the Atlantic is but an appropriate 

 setting across which to view her greatness 

 and her far-reaching activity. And this 

 event, this academic celebration, this dies 

 festus, in your university to-day, retains 

 from afar off all the significance of a great 

 event. It loses no tittle of its dignity and 

 import when viewed across ocean from the 

 crowded turrets of the older Cambridge, 

 or the hoary spires of Oxford. It shines, 

 I assure you, like a beacon to the new 

 university whose buildings are as yet un- 

 finished on the hill above the port of Liver- 

 pool. 



Coming from a region where history is 

 long and the land little to this where 

 written history is short and the expanse 

 of land incomparably great, one realizes 

 how relative is size. And in regard to 

 the event of to-day the largeness of this 

 country rises in my thought not as a matter 

 of mileage, but— that with yoix more than 

 with us in the old country, the size of to- 

 morrow is vaster than the size of to-day. 

 Each step of progress here, more than with 

 us, has to be measured by its ample conse- 

 quences in a more rapidly widening hori- 

 zon of the morrow. These new labora- 

 tories have a field already demanding them, 



and a still larger lies before them in an 

 immediate and historic future. 



Biology is the study of life in regard 

 especially to growth and organization. 

 Every medical man is a biologist, and 

 as a biologist it may be but natural if 

 I regard to-day's event from a biological 

 standpoint, and the community as an or- 

 ganism, and the university as a living or- 

 gan, essential to the healthy life of the 

 community. 



Science — especially medical science— is 

 growing in importance to the conimunitj'. 

 We must have organization in science as in 

 industry. This university to-day makes pro- 

 visions of first-rate importance for the or- 

 ganization of medical and allied sciences 

 in the region which centers here. Capacity 

 to rear and support men constitutes the ex- 

 tent of a country, and population is the 

 biological measure of the social organism. 

 The ceaseless energy of the race has begun 

 to plant a great population in this land. 

 Growth, great and rapid, is inevitably be- 

 fore it. The growth of nations as of indi- 

 viduals requires the vigilance of guiding 

 hands. Growth, for it to take its course 

 rightly towards perfection, requires that 

 provision for the security and expansion 

 of the liberal arts and sciences foreimn 

 rather than halt behind the actual require- 

 ment of the hour. It is not only for their 

 direct utilitarian service. They form a 

 whetstone for man's most universal tool, 

 his intellect, also a discipline for character, 

 in the pursuit of truth for its own sake. 

 Scientific truth, when found, has often 

 proved unpalatable to man, as when it 

 dethroned him from his fancied seat at 

 the center of the whole perceptible uni- 

 verse, a universe he had imagined simply 

 subservient to his needs ; or again, as when 

 it taught him that instead of being a crea- 

 ture altogether apart from the brutes, there 

 are flesh and blood bonds between himself 



