The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People: An Historical Review

or working out abstruse mathematical problems in the great academic seats on the banks of the Cam or Isis, they would probably wonder wha

on such a subject, and take many opportunities of concealing their ignorance by depreciating the intellectual efforts of their countrymen. 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. Many persons lose sight of the fact that Canada, young though she is compared with the countries of the Old World, has passed beyond the state of mere colonial pupilage. One very important section of her population has a history contemporaneous with the history of the New England States, whose literature is read wherever the English tongue is spoken. The British population have a history which goes back over a century, and it is the record of an industrious, enterprising people who have made great politica

tative institutions; the third, from 1840 to 1867, during which interval the country enjoyed responsible government, and entered on a career of material progress only exceeded by that of the great nation on its borders. Since 1867, Canada has commenced a new period in her political development, the full results of which are yet a problem, but which the writer believes, in common with all hopeful Canadians, will tend eventually to

ts. From the hardy peasantry of Normandy and Brittany came reinforcements to settle the lands on the banks of the St Lawrence and its tributary rivers, and lay the foundations of the present Province of Quebec. The life of the population, that, in the course of time, filled up certain districts of the province, was one of constant restlessness and uncertainty which prevented them ever attaining a permanent prosperity. When the French regime disappeared with the fall of Quebec and Montreal, it can hardly be said there existed a Canadian people distinguished for material or intellectual activity. At no time under the government of France had the voice of the 'habitants' any influence in the councils of their country. A bureaucracy, acting directly under the orders of the King of France, managed public affairs; and the French Canadian of those times, very unlike h

able qualities in the formation of a new community. If, in their Toryism, they and their descendants were slow to change their opinions and to yield to the force of those progressive ideas necessary to the political and mental development of a new country, yet, perhaps, these were not dangerous characteristics at a time when republicanism had not a few adherents among those who saw the greater progress and prosperity of the people to the south of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. These men were not ordinary immigrants, drawn from the ignorant, poverty-stricken classes of an Old World; they were men of a time which had produced Otis, Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Washington-men of remarkable energy and intellectual power. Not a few of these men formed in the Canadian colony little centres from which radiated more or less of intellectual light to brighten the prevailing darkness of those rough times of Canadian settlement. The exertions of these men, combined with the industry of others brought into the country by the hope of maki

ell as materially, and not only facilitates the interchange of the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove natural and provincial antipathies and to bind together all the branches of the human family.] During the first years of the settlement of Canada there was a vast amount of ignorance throughout the rural districts, especially in the western Province. Travellers who visited the country and had abundant opportunities of ascertaining its social condition, dwelt pointedly on the moral and intellectual apathy that prevailed outside a few places like York or other centres of intelligence; but they forgot to make allowance for the difficulties that surrounded these settlers. The isolation of their lives had naturally the effect of making even the better class narrow-minded, selfish, and at last careless of anything like refinement. Men who lived for years without the means of frequent communication with their fellow-men, without opportunities for social, instructive intercourse, except what they might enjoy at rare intervals through the visit of some intelligent clergyman or tourist, might well have little ambition except to satisfy the grosser wants of their nature. The post office, the school, and the church were only to be found, in the majority of cases, at a great distance from their homes. Their children, as likely as not, grew up in ignorance, even were educational facilities at hand; for in those days the parent had absolute need of his son's assistance in the avocations of pioneer life. Yet, with all these disadvantages, these men displayed a spirit of manly independence and fortitude which was in some measure a test of their capacity for better things. They helped to make the country what it is, and to prepare the way for the larger population which came into it under more favourable auspices after the Union of 1840. From that time Canada received a decided impulse in everything that tends to make a country happy and prosperous. Cities, towns and villages sprang up with remarkable activity all over the face of the country, and vastly enlarged the opportunities for that social intercourse which is always an important factor in the education of a new country. At the

a reached nearly a million and a half, of whom at least fifty-five per cent. were French Canadians. Then the tide of immigration set in this direction, until at last the total population of Canada rose, in 1867, to between three and four millions, or an increase of more than a hundred per cent. in a quarter of a century. By the last Census of 1870, we have some idea of the national character of this population-more than eighty per cent. being Canadian by birth, and, consequently, identified in all senses of the term with the soil and prosperity of the country. Whilst the large proportion of the people are necessarily engaged in those industrial

point: 'Canada and the other British possessions in British North America, though apparently blessed with fewer physical advantages than the country to the South, contain a noble race, and are evidently destined for a lofty destination. Everything there is in proper keeping for the development of the combined physical and mental qualities of man. There are to be found at once the hardihood of character which conquers difficulty, the severity of climate which stimulates exertion, and natural advantages which reward enterprise.'] If our natural conditions are favourable to our mental growth, so, too, it may be urged that the difference of races which exists in Canada may have a useful influence upon the moral as well as the intellectual nature of the people as a whole. In all the measures calculated to develop the industrial resources and stimulate the intellectual life of the Dominion, the names of French Canadians appear along with those of British origin. The French Canadian is animated by a deep veneration for the past history of his native country, and by a very decided determination to preserve his language and institutions intact; and consequently th

he priest or clergyman was, as often as not, a guide in things temporal as well as spiritual. Dr. Strachan was not simply the instructor in knowledge of many of the Upper Canadian youth who, in after times, were among the foremost men of their day, but was as potent and obstinate in the Council as he was vigorous and decided in the pulpit. When communications were wretched, and churches were the exception, the clergyman was a constant guest in the humble homes of the settlers, who welcomed him as one who not only gave them religious instruction, but on many a winter or autumn evening charmed the listeners in front of the blazing maple logs with anecdotes of the great world of which they too rarely heard. In those early days, the Church of England clergyman was a man generally trained in one of the Universities of the parent state, bringing to the discharge of his duties a conscientious conviction of his great responsibilities, possessing at the same time varied knowledge, and necessarily exercising through his profession and acquirements no inconsiderable influence, not only in a religious but in an intellectual sense as well-an influence which he has never ceased to exercise in this country. It is true as the country became more thickly settled and the people began to claim larger political rights, the influence of many leading minds among the Anglican clergy, who believed in an intimate connecti

ishop's Palace, on the heights of Quebec, and in the more humble structure on the banks of the Niagara River, and study the record of their initiation into parliamentary procedure. It is a noteworthy fact that the French Canadian Legislatures showed from the first an earnest desire to follow, as closely as their circumstances would permit, those admirable rules and principles of procedure which the experience of centuries in England has shown to be necessary to the preservation of decorum, to freedom of speech, and to the protection of the minority. The speeches of the leading men in the two Houses were characterized by evidences of large constitutional knowledge, remarkable for men who had no practical training in parliamentary life. Of course there were in these small Assemblies many men rough in speech and manner, with hardly any education whatever but the writers who refer to them in no very complimentary terms [Footnote: For instance, Talbot, I, chap. 23. He acknowledges, at the same time, the great ability of the leading men, 'who would do credit to the British Parliament.'] always ignore the hardships of their pioneer life, and forget to do justice to their possession, at all events, of good common-sense and much natural acuteness, which enabled them to be of use in their humble way, under the guidance of the few who were in those days the leaders of public opinion. These leaders were generally men drawn from the Bar, who naturally turned to the legislative arena to satisfy their ambition and to cultivate on a larger scale those powers of persuasion and argument in which their professional training naturally made them adepts. With many of these men legislative success was only considered a means of more rapidly attaining the highest honours of their profession, and consequently they were not always the mo

of political rights had a remarkable effect in stimulating the public intelligence and especially in improving the mental outfit of the people. The press increased in influence and ability; but, more than all, with the con