The prizes, consisting of a handsome certificate supplemented by a cheque for fifteen thousand dollars, have been in the gift of successive Ministers of Education. They have been presented at ceremonies graced, at various times, by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, the Premier, or the Minister. The task of selecting the recipients has been undertaken by the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies, which is to say primarily its Executive Director, aided by a panel of leading scholars from across the province and across the huge range of disciplines. Without their generous expenditure of time and effort, there would be no prizes. The brief essays in this volume give a glimpse of the subjects and styles that have characterised the prizewinners of roughly the first decade.
Scholarship is, of necessity, narrow.
It is frequently discounted because of that narrowness. However, when it is good scholarship it goes deep, and can be depended on to surprise us with what it uncovers. Again and again, it has surprised us, by placing vast new power in our hands. It is then up to all of us, scholars and citizens alike, to use that power wisely. Few today doubt the power of intellect, and, happily, with the passage of time, fewer than before seek to channel it in advance.