III.

In a new country like Canada one cannot look for the high culture and intellectual standard of the old communities of Europe. But there is even now in Canada an intellectual activity which, if it has not yet produced a distinct literature, has assumed a practical and useful form, and must, sooner or later, VOL. LI. No. 3.

with the increase of wealth and leisure, take a higher range, and display more of the beauty and grace of literary productions of world-wide interest and fame. The mental outfit of the people compares favourably with that of older countries. The universities of Canada-McGill, in Montreal, Laval, in Quebec, Queen's, in Kingston, Dalhousie, in Halifax, and Trinity

and Toronto Universities in Toronto-stand deservedly high in the opinion of men of learning in the Old World and the United States, whilst the grammar and common school systems in the English-speaking provinces is creditable to the keen sagacity and public spirit of the people, who are not behind their 'cousins of New England in this particular.

We have already seen the low condition of education sixty years ago-only one in fifteen at school; but now there are almost a million of pupils in the educational institutions of the country, or one in five, at a cost to the people of up wards of $10,000,000, contributed for the most part by the taxpayers of the different municipalities in connection with which the educational system is worked out. In Ontario the class of school-houses is exceptionally good, and the apparatus excellent, and the extent

to which the people tax themselves may be ascertained from the fact that the Government only contributes annually some $1,512,000 out of a total expenditure of about $4,200,000.

In French Canada there is an essentially literary activity, which has produced poets and historians. whose works have naturally attracted attention in France, where the people are still deeply interested in the material and intellectual development of their old colony. The names of Garneau, Ferland, Frechette, and Casgrain, especially, are recognized in France, though they will be unfamiliar to most Englishmen, and even to the majority of Americans, who are yet quite ignorant of the high attainments of French Canadians, of whom Lord Durham wrote, in 1839, "They are a people without a history and without a literature," a statement well disproved in these later times by

the works of Parkman, and the triumphs of French Canadians in Paris itself.

The intellectual work of the English-speaking people has been chiefly in the direction of scientific, constitutional and historical literature, in which departments they have shown an amount of knowledge and research which has won for many of them laurels outside of their own country. In the infancy of the United States, works like "The Federalist," with its wealth of constitutional and historical lore, naturally emanated from the brains of publicists and statesmen.

In

grace of oratory-especially in the case of some French Canadians like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the present premier, and Sir Adolphe Chapleau, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebecwhich would be creditable to the United States in its palmy days.

Anyone who reviews the fourteen. volumes already published by the Royal Society of Canada-one of the most useful results of Lord Lorne's administration-will see how much scholarship and ability the writers of Canada bring to the study of scientific, antiquarian and historical subjects. In science, the names of Sir William Dawson, of

laying the foundation of a great nation the learning and wisdom of the best intellects were evoked, and it has been so in a measure in Canada, where the working out of a system of government adapted to the necessities of countries with distinct interests and nationalities has developed a class of statesmen and writers with broad national views and large breadth of knowledge. On all occasions when men have arisen beyond the passion and narrowness of party, the debates of the legislature have been distinguished by a keenness of argument and by a

-From Bonnycastle's Canada, 1840.

his equally gifted son, Dr. G. M. Dawson, as well as of many others, are well known in the parent state and wherever science has its votaries. In poetry we have the names of Frederick G. Scott, Pauline Johnson, Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archbishop O'Brien, Speaker Edgar, Ethelwyn Wetherald, Lampman and Wilfred Campbell, who merit a high place among their famous contemporaries. The historical novels of Major Richardson, William Kirby, Gilbert Parker,notably The Seats of the Mighty" and other works of the latter,

66

show the rich materials our past annals offer for romance. Sam Slick the Clockmaker," and other books by Judge Haliburton, a Nova Scotian by birth and education, are still the only noteworthy evidences we have of the existence of humour among a practical people, and his "Wise Saws" and "Sayings" were uttered fully half a century ago. In art we have L. R. O'Brien, George Reid, Bell Smyth, Robert Harris, J. W. L. Forster, W. Brymner, and Miss Bell, who have done much meritorious work. Yet, on the

stages of its development the Canadian people, composed of two distinct nationalities, will prove that they inherit those literary instincts which naturally belong to the races from which they have sprung.

The political system under which the provinces are now governed is eminently adapted to the circumstances of the whole country.

In the working out of responsible government, won for Canada during the Queen's beneficent reign, there stand out, clear and well-de