@ THE STORY OF CANADIAN SCIENCE

Great names and |
big achievements

E history of Canadian science

is closely knit to the history
of struggle for the Canadian na-
tion.

We need to achieve economic
independence and we need to
develop the potential riches of
our great country for the ‘bene-
fit of its people. For this, we re-
quire Canadians with a compre-
hensive and specialized knowl-
edge of its resources, and the
technical skill to develop them
for the building of Canada.

Canadian science, hampered as

it has been by colonial and semi-'

colonial conditions, has never-
theless provided the foundation
of tradition and achievement
from which this new generation

_ of scientific workers will come.

Modern bourgeois science de-
veloped from the arts and crafts
of earlier systems. For Canadian
science, this development is
absent. Conquest of the Indian
tribal system by the French
seigneurial system, and its con-
quest in turn ‘by the British col-
onial system, prevented a con

_ tinuous development.

The comparatively primitive
techniques of the Indians ‘and the
early French and English pio-
neers did not rise to the level of
science.

We find that the first three

centuries of our recorded history
show nothing more in the field

‘of stience than mapping and ex-

ploration by discoveries from
Jacques Cartier to David Thom-
son, and the descriptive botany
of a few French colonial doctors
like Michel Sarrazin and Jean
Gaultier. :

Not until the first stirring of
the spirit of Canadian indepen-
dence in 1837 can we say ‘that the
real history of Canadian science
begins. The development. of na-
{ive Canadian industry created a
demand for, scientists. And the
freeing of higher education from
church domination, demanded by
the Reformers, had to be ac
complished before real scientific
education could be introduced,

The year 1843 can be taken as
marking the beginning of scien-
tific advance in Canada, with two
great events.

The first was the selection of
Henry Holmes Croft as first pro-
fessor of chemistry at the Uni-
versity of Toronto. This was the
first ch§ir of natural science in
Canada.

In the same year, the Canadian

government organized the Geo-

logical Survey of Canada under
the leadership of William Logan.

Men like Dawson, McConnel
and Tyrrel prepared accurate

covered the benefits of summer.
allowing.

By this time, too, great devel-.

cpments were under way in the
physical sciences.

H. L. Callender, professor of
physics at McGill University
from - 1893-98 was famed for ‘his
advances in heat: measurement.
He was succeeded in his post by
Ernest Rutherford, who during
his nine years work at McGill
made it a world centre for radio-
activity work.

We have our great names in
applied science, too. ;

The famous Alexander Graham
Bell invented the telephone at
Brantford, and pioneered in early
aeronautical work in Nova Scotia.

Thomas L. Wilson invented the

DR. NORMAN BETHUNE

commercial calcium carbide for
acetylene production.

In metallurgy, Canada has
many firsts — the successful
cyanide treatment of low grade
ores; the separation of cobalt,
nickel, arsenic and silver; the
first electrolytic zine refining pro-
cess; and the first successful
flotation of lead, zinc, and iron
ONES y age)

Yet in spite hg the brilliant be-
ginning of Canadian science, its

full development has been hamp-’

ered by scientific* colonialism.
We notice that industrial expan-
sion took place in Canada largely
in the raw materials industries,
whete important discoveries were
made, primarily in mining and
metallurgy.

However, these alone will not .

provide a ‘balanced scientific de-
velopment. It is for the indus-
tries producing finished products
that most new scientific knowl-
edge is required.

In Canada, with a few excep-
tions, these industries are large-
ly U.S. branch plants — fun-
damental research is carried out
by the parent companies in the
WSs

A Canadian industrial news
magazine noted recently _ that

“our whole chemical industry is

cursed by. a ‘branch-plan men-

talitye: 3

The emigration of Canadian
escientists to the U.S. is another
expression of scientific colonial-
ism. The bureau of statistics
estimates that 2,500 of our pro-
fessionally trained people go to
the U.S. every year, either look-
ing for better jobs, or for lack of
any employment here at all.

Economic penetration by the
U.S. has also led to a change in
emphasis in our scientific train-
ing, stressing the physical sci-
ences at the expense of the bio-
logical ‘and social sciences, and
Canadian universities have be-
come recruiting grounds for U.S.

industry and its branches in Can-

ada.

And even within Canada itself,
economic discrimination and a
backward
education have robbed us of
much of the potential scientific
contribution of our French-Cana-
dian countrymen. ;

Even the great French-Cana-
dian scholar Bruchesi, a loyal
Catholic, admits the educational
deficiencies of the Quebec sys-
tem, which he calls: '

“A form of education which
has been too speculative, with
too great a tendency to cultivate
the memory rather than the rea-
son, and encourages the student
to follow rather than to explore
or explain.”

As a result, the proportion of
French Canadians

sectarian system of,

in . scientific °

careers is scarcely more than

seven or eight percent.

maps and reports on the soil, wild Jats

life, rocks and minerals of the
eountry. No region comparable
in size was ever so quickly and
accurately surveyed for ' settle-
ment.

The opening up of the West
that followed brought a rapid ad-
vanee of agricultural science.

The key year is 1885, when the

Dominion Experimental Farm
system’ was inaugurated under
William Saunders, the originator
of the famous Marquis wheat
strain. In the same year, Angus
Mackay, a farmer at Indian Head,
Saskatchewan, accidentally dis-

a

Ro a ates oi
ot Cow Jerrenys

Mapping his way

across Canada ‘was David Thompson, close

friend of the Indian peoples, who discovered a pathway through

the Rockies.

Despite this, we have names in
our scientific field like Pierre
Masson, whose Masson stains are

“used «all over the world for stain-

ing nerve tissue. And Quebec was
the first place in North America
to adopt and spread the use of
BCG vaccine against TB,

Another influence hindering
Canada’s scientific progress is the

increasing drive toward militar-
lization and communication of
their work by the all-pervading

shroud of U.S.-style “security.”

In Dr. Leopold Infeld, we have
already lost one of our leading
figures in atomic physics, who
felt himself bound to return to
the country of his birth in order
to work for the peaceful develop-
ment of atomic energy. —

The Defense Research Board is
still sucking off our best scien-
tific brains and wasting them in
the narrow canalization and stul-
tifying atmosphere of purely
military research.

@ |
_ But with all these unfavorable
imfluences,: Canadian science con-
tinues to progress. ay ia

~

One of the most significant de-

velopments of the postwar years
is the use of-the airplane and the
new science of geonhysics, which,
armed with magnetic, electro-

“magnetic, and radioactivity detec-

. geological work in Canada.

tion instruments has accelerated

“Perhaps the main” contribu-
tion that Canada has made to
science is in interpreting the

various events of her pre-Cam-
4 1

brian ‘history” says the Cana-
dian geologist Alcock.

Canadians like Boomer, the
Alberta physical chemist, work to
stop the waste of Canada’s na-
tural resources by private indus-
try. He developed a method of

saving the natural gases from oil

wells. Before this, enough gas
in the Turner Valley alone was
“flared” (wastefully set afire) by
the oil companies, to provide 50
years supply for the Calgary-
Lethbridge pipeline. ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 1, 1955

recently, Dr. Murray ps

In ‘botany, too, W
progress.

e are mabist

Alcorn says: es

“The rapid expansion in ec
omic botany in the last y on
is due in large part to the 8
ous development of the “
jon experimental farms”
nt disease se :

*

Among the pla
cently mastered in Canada | ak
result of this work is “B®
corky-core” in apples, wheat
rust, and. potato skin disease”
an ache”

In medicine, Canadian
ments have received wor :
cognition, beginning with
ing and Best’s discovery ©
lin in 1922. ee

Many others have carrie
their tradition; Collip, who
ed on hormones; Abbot, B
diseases; Liteas and Hé

who developed the cyclone
anaesthetic, and ven 5 gpd

geographer of the Dr

babies.” : so
But noné more proudly
sents the best in Canae y
ence than Dr. Norman 4 se
x and
yife *

His mobile blood fe i
shears have broug ee0vet
health to thousands. More fie
along with his great °C), the
achievements, he fought "ed
benefits of his work to ‘be at ju
ed to all the people, a
those who could afford

And it is to
that the future of ge
ence belongs; men Wh” fy
their training and taler ig
to their work a real cOPr™
the development of the? ipo
try for the benefit of et, wo
people, Men who not 077
to discover new prin
Who strive that they sM4
plied for the common o” att

The best of canadiad 5 opt
is a record. of achieveM iid 4
triumph over difficult °C” gepet
cf development. In a? 2 ow

f

dent, ‘democratic Canad@ 5.
have an even more ©
future.

_ PAG

Fe