John George Bourinot

“ A wider field of thought has, undoubtedly, been opened up to these communities, so long dwarfed by that narrow provincialism which every now and then crops up to mar our national development and impede intellectual progress. Already the people of the Confederated Provinces are every where abroad recognised as Canadians—as a Canadian people, with a history of their own, with certain achievements to prove their industrial activity. Climatic influences, all history proves, have much to do with the progress of a people. ”

“ Under such circumstances, it should be the great object of all true friends of the sound intellectual development of Canada to place our system of higher education on a basis equal to the exigencies of a practical, prescient age, and no longer cling to worn out ideas of the past. In order to do this, let the people of Ontario determine to establish a national University which will be worthy of their great province and of the whole Dominion. ”

“ The history of Joseph Howe from that day was a history of the triumph of Liberal principles and of responsible government in Nova Scotia. As a versatile writer, he has had no superior in Canada, for he brought to the political controversies of his time the aid of powerful invective and cutting satire; whilst, on occasions when party strife was hushed, he could exhibit all the evidences of his cultivated intellect and sprightly humour. ”

“ The influence of the press, during the century, must be measured by the political intelligence and activity of the people. Only in the United States are the masses as well informed on the public questions of the day as are the majority of Canadians, and this fact must be attributed, in a large measure, to the efforts of journalists to educate the people and stimulate their mental faculties. When education was at a low ebb indeed, when the leading and wealthier class was by no means too anxious to increase the knowledge of the people, the press was the best vehicle of public instruction. ”

“ Political controversy, no doubt, has too often degenerated into licentiousness, and public men have been too often maligned, simply because they were political opponents—an evil which weakens the influence of journalism to an incalculable degree, because the people begin at last to attach little or no importance to charges levelled recklessly against public men. But it is not too much to say that the press of all parties is commencing to recognise its responsibilities to a degree that would not have been possible a few years ago. ”

“ In this land there is a future full of promise for literature as for industry. Our soil speaks to the millions of poor in the old countries of the world of boundless hope. Here there is no ancient system of social exclusiveness to fix a limit to the intellectual progress of the proletariat. Political freedom rests on a firm, broad basis of general education. Our political constitution is not alienated from the intellect of the country, but its successful working depends entirely on the public intelligence. ”

“ If our soil is new, yet it may produce fruits which will bear a rich flavour of their own, and may please the palate of even those surfeited with the hothouse growth of older lands. Hawthorne, Emerson, Howells, Bret Harte, Sam Slick, are among many writers who illustrate the raciness and freshness of American production. Nor let it be forgotten that American and Canadian, in 'the fresh woods and pastures new' of this continent, have an equal heritage with the people of the British Islands in that rich, humanized soil which has borne such rare intellectual fruit. ”

“ If so much ignorance or indifference prevails with respect to the progress of Canada in this respect, it must be admitted—however little flattering the admission may be to our national pride—that it is, after all, only the natural sequel of colonial obscurity. It is still a current belief abroad—at least in Europe—that we are all so much occupied with the care of our material interests, that we are so deeply absorbed by the grosser conditions of existence in a new country, that we have little opportunity or leisure to cultivate those things which give refinement and tone to social life. ”

“ Indeed, if we are to judge from articles and books that appear from time to time in England with reference to this country, Englishmen in general know very little of the progress that has been made in culture since Canada has become the most important dependency of Great Britain, by virtue of her material progress within half a century. Even the Americans who live alongside of us, and would be naturally supposed to be pretty well informed as to the progress of the Dominion to their north, appear for the most part ignorant of the facts of its development in this particular. ”

“ Horace Greeley, Dana, Curtis, Whitelaw Reid and Bryant are among the many illustrious examples that the neighbouring States afford of men to whom journalism has been a profession, valued not simply for the temporary influence and popularity it gives, but as a great and powerful organ of public education on all the live questions of the day. ”

“ It was impossible that a people who had no inducement to study public affairs—who could not even hold a town or parish meeting for the establishment of a public schools—should give many signs of mental vigour. Consequently, at the time of the Conquest, the people of the Canadian settlements seemed to have no aspirations for the future, no interest in the prosperity or welfare of each other, no real bonds of unity. ”

“ He himself, whose life had been one of unremitting toil and endeavour, showed no culture, but his children reaped the full benefits of the splendid opportunities of acquiring knowledge afforded by the country which owed its prosperity to their father and men like him. The homes of such men, in the most favoured districts, were no longer the abodes of rude industry, but illustrative, in not a few cases, of that comfort and refinement which must be the natural sequence of the general distribution of wealth, the improvement of internal intercourse, and the growth of education. ”

“ There are even now in prosaic, practical Canada, some men and women who fully appreciate the aesthetic ideal that the poet Morris would achieve in the form, harmony, and decoration of domestic furniture. If such aesthetic ideas could only be realized in the decoration of our great public edifices, the Parliamentary buildings at Ottawa, for instance, the national taste would certainly be improved. At present huge portraits of politicians, who by intrinsic merit or political favour have become speakers, stare down from the walls in solitary grandeur, and already begin to overcrowd each other. ”

“ The fact that such men could be instructors of youth, half a century ago, is of itself a forcible illustration of the public indifference to the question of popular education. All the legislation in Ontario, and in the other provinces as well, has been framed with the object of elevating the moral and intellectual standing of a class on whose efforts so much of the future happiness and prosperity of this country depends. On the whole, the object has been successfully achieved, and the schoolmasters of Ontario are, as a rule, a superior class of men. ”

“ It is fair then to argue that the intellectual progress of a country like Canada must not be measured solely by the production of great works which have been stamped with the approval of the outside literary world, on whose verdict, it must of course be admitted, depends true fame. We must also look to the signs of general culture that are now exhibited on all sides, compared with a quarter of a century ago, when the development of material interests necessarily engrossed all the best faculties of the people. ”

“ The Globe and George Brown were always synonymous in the public mind, and the influence he exercised over his party—no doubt a tyrannical influence at times—proved the power that a man of indomitable will and tenacity of purpose can exercise in the control of a political organ. From 1844 to the present time the newspaper press made progress equal to the growth of the provinces in population, wealth and intelligence. ”

“ It is quite obvious that such able thinkers as Mr. Spencer and his followers in Canada, with Mr. Le Sueur at their head, cannot be 'snubbed' cavalierly by the professed teachers of religion. The tendency of modern thought, a wave of which has reached us, is undoubtedly in the direction of bringing all subjects, however sacred, to the crucial test of argument, fact and experience, and our religious guides must not think they will prevail by the exhibit of mere contemptuous indifference to the free thought that prevails around them. ”

“ Toronto University seems to have in some measure around it that aroma of learning, that dignity of age, and that prestige of historic association which are necessary to the successful establishment of a national seat of learning, and will give the fullest scope to Canadian talent. ”

“ Adam, editor of the Canada Educational Monthly, to the same purport: 'The tone of the Schools might be largely raised and the tender and plastic nature of the young minds under training be directed into sympathy with the noble and the elevating. Relieved of much of the red-tapism which hampers the work of the High-School teacher, the masters of the Public Schools have more opportunity to make individuality tell in the conduct of the school, and of encircling the sphere of their work with a bright zone of cultivation and refinement. ”

“ Education, we all know, does not necessarily bring with it refinement; that can only come by constant communication with a cultured society, which is not always, in Canada, ready to admit the teacher on equal terms. It may also be urged that the teacher, under the system as now perfected, is far too much of an automaton—a mere machine, wound up to proceed so far and no farther. He is not allowed sufficient of that free volition which would enable him to develop the best qualities of his pupils, and to elevate their general tone. ”

“ These facts illustrate that we are making progress in the right direction; but what we want, above all things, are public libraries, to which all classes may have free access, in the principal centres of population. The rich men of this country can devote a part of their surplus wealth to no more patriotic purpose than the establishment of such libraries in the places where they live, and in that way erect a monument for themselves far more honourable than any that may be achieved by expenditures on purely selfish objects. ”

“ On one side of the English Channel, the King of France soon forgot his mortification at the loss of an unprofitable 'region of frost and snow;' on the other side, the English Government looked with indifference, now that the victory was won, on the acquisition of an alien people who were likely to be a source of trouble and expense. Then occurred the War of American Independence, which aroused the English Ministry from their indifference and forced into the country many thousands of resolute, intelligent men, who gave up everything in their devotion to one absorbing principle of loyalty. ”

“ Some humorous writings, a few good poems, one or two histories, some scientific and constitutional productions, are alone known to a small reading public outside of Canada. Striking originality can hardly be developed to any great extent in a dependency which naturally, and perhaps wisely in some cases, looks for all its traditions and habits of thought to a parent state. It is only with an older condition of society, when men have learned at last to think as well as to act for themselves, to originate rather than to reproduce, that there can be a national literature. ”