Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/48

38 seeking to promote—the era of universal brotherhood, of "peace on earth and good will toward men."

Some of the impressions of an American member attending this meeting, as to its varied aspects—scientific, political, and social—may be briefly presented in this article, which is intended less as a record of papers and proceedings than as a series of general notes.

Compared with the annual meetings of our own association, one fact attracts notice at once, as it did also at the American meeting in Toronto in 1889, to wit, the official recognition of such a gathering by the city and the provincial authorities, and the granting of liberal appropriations for the entertainment of the scientific visitors. In this case sums estimated at over twenty-five thousand dollars were appropriated, partly by the Dominion Government, partly by the Province of Ontario, and partly by the city, aside from private contributions and entertainments. Our association relies entirely upon the latter source; and its local committees in each place of meeting appeal wholly to wealthy and public-spirited citizens to defray the expenses of the occasion. Here comes to view one point of difference between our methods and those of a country equally free indeed, but in which there abides a slight flavor of that "paternalism" so jealously dreaded among our people.

It goes without saying, however, that in consequence of this liberal provision the meeting was brilliantly successful from a social point of view, the public gatherings and the viceregal reception by the Governor-General and his wife, Lady Aberdeen, being social functions of a very striking character. The scene at the great reception in the Parliament House was one never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The long line of invited guests moved slowly through the crowded hall, passing between statuelike guards, in scarlet uniforms or picturesque Highland plaids, to the low dais, where stood Lord and Lady Aberdeen, with Sir John Evans, president of the association, Lord Lister, the ex-president, Lord Kelvin, the greatest of living physicists, and a number of provincial and city officials. The spectacle was both brilliant and impressive, and illustrated a phase of life to which we Americans are strangers—the recognition of intellectual eminence with all the formal honors that official station and social rank can bestow.

At the opening meeting, on the first evening, Wednesday, August 18th, the spacious Massey Hall, in the heart of the city, was thronged. All around its horseshoe-shaped gallery were hung pennants, bearing the coats-of-arms of the past presidents of the association—an array of great names in the history of science. Herschel, Playfair, Tyndall, Huxley, Siemens, Lubbock, Rayleigh, among the great students and discoverers; the Prince Consort, Argyle,