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LETTERS IN CANADA: 1939 323 VI. quent as a story of great interest we treat it here-the story of a ,O;..I\...''"'.L","''''-I. lad who arrived in uncanny H which ..."'I'•...,." ....,."t'Pr! in quotation marks are a survey of Social Studies by Professor A. Brady and notes other writers. LETTERS IN CANADA: 1939 323 VI. quent as a story of great interest we treat it here-the story of a ,O;..I\...''"'.L","''''-I. lad who arrived in uncanny H which ..."'I'•...,." ....,."t'Pr! in quotation marks are a survey of Social Studies by Professor A. Brady and notes other writers. 324 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY might have led into a cuI-dc-sac. The secret was that he never pursued a career at the expense of his work; with all his strong, and healthy ambition, he regarded them as one and indivisible. In Professor Eve's pages we follow him from the New Zealand farm, through schpol and college, to Cambridge, out to McGill, already equipped with a fine laboratory and a resident millionaire, and requiring only a professor able to make the most of them; then, jn no real danger from the sirens in the shape of American university presidents, back to England when the work and career demanded 'it, and the opportunity came to make Manchester a new Mecca; and finally, the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge-the House of Lords-Westminster Abbey! And keeping pace with the increasingly processional movement of the career, two things: the great work unfolding, and a life lived, rich in enjoyment, in friendship, and in domestic affectiqn. Professor Eve is a cautious and not very inspiring biographer, but he is happily able by the use of letters to have much of the story tell itself in Rutherford's own words. Similar in its subject, though different in scope and method, is Mr H. H. Langton's Sir John Cunningham McLennan: A ,Memoir. The reader whose special interest is Canada will find it an equally fascinating book; for McLennan belonged to Canada in a way in which Rutherford soon ceased to belong to New Zealand. In lesser degree the Empire and the international world of science also became McLennan's stage; but his most impressive monument was reared at home. Extensive as were the contributions to physics made by him and his collaborators (they are listed in a bibliography, and treated, in a brief but admirable chapter by his former student and successor at Toronto, Professor E. F. Burton), it is not alone for the distinction of these contributions that his memory should be cherished by his country and his alma mater. Mainly to his vision and effort the University (and thereby Canada) owes the magnificent equipment of ~'the largest physics laboratory in the world," which appropriately bears his name. But his own subject, vast and important though it was, did not absorb all his energy or all his goodwill. By his organization of the Alumni Association as a nucleus of enlightened opinion, he was instrumental in preserving the well-being, and perhaps the very life, of the University and University College, and he taught the Association a lesson of its respopsibility and its power,' which surely cannot be 324 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY might have led into a cuI-dc-sac. The secret was that he never pursued a career at the expense of his work; with all his strong, and healthy ambition, he regarded them as one and indivisible. In Professor Eve's pages we follow him from the New Zealand farm, through schpol and college, to Cambridge, out to McGill, already equipped with a fine laboratory and a resident millionaire, and requiring only a professor able to make the most of them; then, jn no real danger from the sirens in the shape of American university presidents, back to England when the work and career demanded 'it, and the opportunity came to make Manchester a new Mecca; and finally, the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge-the House of Lords-Westminster Abbey! And keeping pace with the increasingly processional movement of the career, two things: the great work unfolding, and a life lived, rich in enjoyment, in...