John George Bourinot

“ For one I range myself among those who, like James Russell Lowell and Matthew Arnold, still consider the conscientious and intelligent study of the ancient classics—the humanities as they are called—as best adapted to create cultured men and women, and as the noblest basis on which to build up even a practical education with which to earn bread and capture the world. Goldwin Smith very truly says, "A romantic age stands in need of science, a scientific and utilitarian age stands in need of the humanities." ”

“ The animating principle with the majority of people is to make a young man a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or teach him some other vocation as soon as possible, and the tendency is to consider any education that does not immediately effect that result as superfluous. Whilst every institution of learning must necessarily yield something to this pervading spirit of immediate utility, it would be a mistake to sacrifice all the methods and traditions of the past when sound scholars at least were made, and the world had so many men famous in learning, in poetry, in romance, and in history. ”

“ Let us now apply these remarks of the eminent American poet and thinker to Canada—to ourselves, whose history is even older than that of New England; contemporaneous rather with that of Virginia, since Champlain landed on the heights of Quebec and laid the foundations of the ancient capital only a year after the English adventurers of the days of King James set their feet on the banks of the river named after that sovereign and commenced the old town which has long since disappeared before the tides of the ocean that stretches away beyond the shores of the Old Dominion. ”

“ Give us science, too, but give, first of all and last of all, the science that ennobles life and makes it generous.... Many-sidedness of culture makes your vision clearer and keener in particulars. For, after all, the noblest definition of Science is that breadth and impartiality of view which liberates the mind from specialties, and enables it to organize whatever we learn, so that it becomes real Knowledge by being brought into true and helpful relation with the rest. ”

“ Not only does the exhibition of paintings in the world's fair make one very hopeful of the future artistic development of this continent, but the beauty of the architectural design of the noble buildings which contain the treasures of art and industry, and of the decorative figures and groups of statuary that embellish these buildings and the surrounding grounds, is a remarkable illustration of the artistic genius that has produced so exquisite an effect in general, whatever defects there may be in minor details. ”

“ The poets that claim Ontario for their home give us rhythmical and pleasing descriptions of the lake and river scenery of which the varied aspects and moods might well captivate the eye of the poet as well as of the painter. It is very much painting in both cases; the poet should be an artist by temperament equally with the painter who puts his thoughts on canvas and not in words. Descriptions of our meadows, prairies and forests, with their wealth of herbage and foliage, or artistic sketches of pretty bits of lake scenery have their limitations as respects their influence on a people. ”

“ I mean national in the sense of being thoroughly imbued with a love for the country, its scenery, its history and its aspirations. The people of that great island continent possess great natural beauties and riches—flowers and fruits of every kind flourish there in rare profusion, and gold and gems are among the treasures of the soil, but its scenery is far less varied and picturesque than ours and its history is but of yesterday compared with that of Canada. ”

“ Australians cannot point to such historic ground as is found from Louisbourg to Quebec, or from Montreal to Champlain, the battle ground of nations whose descendants now live under one flag, animated by feelings of a common interest and a common aspiration for the future!
Perhaps if I were at any time inclined to be depressed as to the future of Canada, I should find some relief in those poems by Canadian authors which take frequently an elevated and patriotic range of thought and vision, and give expression to aspirations worthy of men born and living in this country. ”

“ These Virginian statesmen won their fame in the large theatre of national achievement—in laying the basis of the most remarkable federal republic the world has ever seen; whilst Canadian public men have laboured with equal earnestness and ability in that far less conspicuous and brilliant arena of colonial development, the eulogy of which has to be written in the histories of the future. ”

“ All the evidence before us now goes to prove that the French language will continue into an indefinite future to be the language of a large and influential section of the population of Canada, and that it must consequently exercise a decided influence on the culture and intellect of the Dominion. It has been within the last four decades that the best intellectual work—both in literature and statesmanship—has been produced in French and English Canada, and the signs of intellectual activity in the same direction do not lessen with the expansion of the Dominion. ”

“ Let me frankly insist that we have far too much hasty and slovenly literary work done in Canada. The literary canon which every ambitious writer should have ever in his mind has been stated by no less an authority than Sainte-Beuve: "Devoted to my profession as a critic, I have tried to be more and more a good and if possible an able workman." A good style means artistic workmanship. It is too soon for us in this country to look for a Matthew Arnold or a Sainte-Beuve—such great critics are generally the results, and not the forerunners, of a great literature ”

“ I cannot boast that we have produced a great poem or a great history which has attracted the attention of the world beyond us, and assuredly we find no noteworthy attempt in the direction of a novel of our modern life; but what I do claim is, looking at the results generally, the work we have done has been sometimes above the average in those fields of literature—and here I include, necessarily, science—in which Canadians have worked. They have shown in many productions a conscientious spirit of research, patient industry, and not a little literary skill in the management of their material. ”

“ If we in Canada are open to the same charge of attaching too much importance to material things, are we able at the same time to point to as notable achievements in literature as results of the three centuries that have nearly passed since the foundation of New France? I do not suppose that the most patriotic Canadian, however ready to eulogize his own country, will make an effort to claim an equality with New England in this respect ”

“ It must be admitted too that so much inferior work has at times found its way from Canada to other countries that publishers are apt to look askance at a book when it is offered to them from the colonies. Still, while this may at times operate against making what is a fairly good bargain with the publisher—and many authors, of course, believe with reason that a publisher, as a rule, never makes a good bargain with an author, and certainly not with a new one—a good book will sooner or later assert itself whenever Canadians write such a book. ”

“ Even in these days of heated controversy on the Irish question one can always find in the columns of the London press fair and accurate reports of the speeches of Gladstone, Balfour, McCarthy, Chamberlain, Morley and Blake. This is the sound basis on which true and honest journalism must always rest if it is to find its legitimate reward, not in the fickle smiles of the mere party follower, but in the support of that great public which can best repay the enterprise and honesty of a true newspaper. ”

“ It was in the legislative halls of the provinces that the brightest intellect naturally found scope for its display, and at no subsequent period of the political history of Canada were there more fervid, earnest orators than appeared in the days when the battle for responsible government was at its height. ”

“ In Montreal and Quebec the old buildings which represent the past have no architectural beauty, however interesting they may be to the antiquarian or the historian, and however well many of them harmonize with the heights of picturesque Quebec. Montreal is assuredly the most interesting city from an architectural point of view in Canada, simply for the reason that its architects have, as a rule, studied that effect of solidity and simplicity of design most in keeping with the grand mountain and the natural scenery that give such picturesqueness to an exceptionally noble site. ”

“ But we cannot expect to find the signs of intellectual development among a people where there was not a single printing press, where freedom of thought and action was repressed by a paternal absolutism, where the struggle for life was very bitter up to the last hours of French supremacy in a country constantly exposed to the misfortunes of war, and too often neglected by a king who thought more of his mistresses than of his harassed and patient subjects across the sea. ”

“ Perhaps the fine arts in the Dominion—where sculpture would be hardly heard of were it not for the French Canadian Hébert—may themselves even gain some stimulus from the examples of a higher conception of artistic achievement that is shown by this exhibition to exist in a country where a spirit of materialism has obtained the mastery so long. Canadian architecture hitherto has not been distinguished for originality of design—much more than art it has been imitative. ”

“ No doubt literary stimulus must be more or less wanting in a colony where there is latent at times in some quarters a want of self-confidence in ourselves and in our institutions, arising from that sense of dependency and habit of imitation and borrowing from others that is a necessity of a colonial condition. The tendency of the absence of sufficient self-assertion is to cramp intellectual exertion, and make us believe that success in literature can only be achieved in the old countries of Europe. ”

“ It may be aristocratic in the sense that there are certain men and women who have won fame and stand on a pedestal above their fellows, but it is the world, not of a class, but of all ranks and conditions, that has agreed to place them on that pedestal as a tribute to their genius which has made people happier, wiser and better, has delighted and instructed the artisan as well as the noble. ”

“ After all, the poetry that lives is the poetry of human life and human sympathy, of joy and sorrow, rather than verses on mountains, rivers and lakes, or sweetly worded sonnets to Madame B. or Mademoiselle C. When we compare the English with the French Canadian poets we can see what an influence the more picturesque and interesting history of French Canada exercises on the imagination of its writers. ”

“ In one respect indeed Canadians can claim a superiority over their fellow-citizens of the British Empire in that far off Australian land, and that is, in the fact that we have poets, and historians, and essayists, who write the languages of France and England with purity and even elegance; that the grace and precision of the French tongue have their place in this country alongside the vigorous and copious expression of the English language. More than that, the Canadians have behind them a history which is well calculated to stimulate writers to give utterance to national sentiment. ”

“ If the instinct for beauty is served by Greek literature and art as it is served by no other literature or art, we may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping Greek as part of our culture." With the same great critic and thinker, I hope that in Canada "Greek will be increasingly studied as men feel the need in them for beauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this need." ”

“ Statesmanship rather than Letters has been the pride and ambition of the Old Dominion, its brightest and highest achievement. Virginia has been the mother of great orators and great presidents, and her men of letters sink into insignificance alongside of those of New England. It may be said, too, of Canada, that her history in the days of the French regime, during the struggle for responsible government, as well as at the birth of confederation, gives us the names of men of statesmanlike designs and of patriotic purpose. ”

“ In the course of the coming decades—perhaps in four or five, or less—Canada will probably have determined her destiny—her position among the communities of the world; and, for one, I have no doubt the results will be far more gratifying to our national pride than the results of even the past thirty years, when we have been laying broad and deep the foundations of our present system of government. ”

“ The Swedish botanist, Peter Kalm, who visited America in the middle of the last century, was impressed with the liking for scientific study which he observed in the French colony. "I have found," he wrote, "that eminent persons, generally speaking, in this country, have much more taste for natural history and literature than in the English colonies, where the majority of people are entirely engrossed in making their fortune, whilst science is as a rule held in very light esteem." ”

“ In the meantime, while this confederation is fighting its way out of its political difficulties, and resolving wealth and refinement from the original and rugged elements of a new country, it is for the respective nationalities not to stand aloof from one another, but to unite in every way possible for common intellectual improvement, and give sympathetic encouragement to the study of the two languages and to the mental efforts of each other. ”