6 The Royal Society of Canada. 



friends of this Society throughout the country, that the $5,000 

 annually voted by the House of Commons will go but a very short 

 way in preparing a publication which shall fully represent Canada 

 to the foreign scientific bodies of the world. We have only to 

 look to the Federal and State Legislatures of America to see 

 what vast sums are annually expended by the State for scientific- 

 research. We see there also how the proceeds of noble endow- 

 ments are annually utilized for the free dissemination of knowledge. 

 It is therefore not to be supposed that the comparatively small 

 pecuniary assistance provided by any government-grant can absolve 

 wealthy individuals from the patriotic duty of bequeathing or of 

 giving to such a national society the funds without which it 

 cannot usefully exist. 



You will forgive me, as one who may be supposed to have a cer- 

 tain amount of the traditional economical prudence of his country- 

 men, for mentioning one other matter, on which at all events, in 

 the meantime, a saving can be effected. While it is necessary to 

 have accurate and finely executed engravings of beautiful drawings 

 for the illustration of scientific papers, it is necessary that the 

 printing of the transactions should occasion as little cost as possible^ 

 and I believe you will find it advisable for the present that each 

 paper shall be printed only in that language in which its author 

 has communicated it to the Society. Your position is rather a 

 peculiar one, for although you work for the benefit of the public, 

 it is not to be expected that the public can understand all you say 

 when your speech is of science in consultation with each other. 

 The public will, therefore, I trust, be in the position of those who 

 are willing to pay their physicians when they meet in consultation, 

 without insisting that every word the doctors say to each other 

 shall be repeated in the hearing of all men. When funds increase 

 it seems to me that the economy it will probably now be necessary 

 to exercise in regard to this may be discarded. 



In the sections dealing with literature, it is proposed to establish 

 a reading-committee, whose duty it shall be to report on the 

 publications of the year, that our thanks may be given to the 

 authors who advance the cause of literature among us. To assist 

 in that most necessary enterprise, the formation of a National 

 ^Museum, circulars have been addressed by the Society to men 

 likely to have opportunities for the collection of objects of interest^ 



