The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People Part 3

Laval University has a far more valuable collection. We ought to have a National Library like the British Museum, where all Canadian publications can have a place. Strange as it may seem, only a few copies of old Canadian papers can be found in the Ottawa Library. Yet, if a little money were spent and trouble. taken, a valuable collection could be procured from private individuals throughout the Dominion.] 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 development of higher education, together with the formation of Art Schools, Museums, and Literary Societies, is ill.u.s.trative of the greater mental activity of all cla.s.ses. The paintings of O'Brien and Verner are pleasing evidences of the growth of art in a country where, hitherto, but few pictures of merit have even been imported. It is no longer considered a sign of good taste to cover the walls with oils and chromes whose chief value is the tawdry, showy gilt which encases them and makes so loud a display on the walls of the _nouveaux riches_. In the style of public buildings and private dwellings, there is a remarkable improvement within twenty years, to indicate not only the increase of national and individual wealth, but the growth of a cultured taste. The interior decorations, too, show a desire to imitate the modern ideas that prevail abroad; and in this respect every year must witness a steady advance, according as our people travel more in the older countries in Europe and study the fas.h.i.+ons of the artistic and intellectual world. 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. We search in vain for allegorical paintings by eminent Canadian artists, or monuments of ill.u.s.trious statesmen, such as we see in the Capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton, or in the elegant structure nearly completed at Albany.

In one respect we are still much behind hand, and that is in our Public Libraries. The library of the Parliament of Canada still remains the only inst.i.tution worthy of much notice in the Dominion. It was certainly an event in the history of literary culture in Canada when this library was moved into the edifice whose architectural beauty is in itself an ill.u.s.tration of the rapid advance in taste of the Dominion. As one looks up at its chaste, vaulted ceiling, which lights the tiers of volumes, arranged in a circle, one recalls the now forgotten poem of Crabbe, that ardent lover of books:--

Come, Child of Care! to make thy soul serene, Approach the treasures of this tranquil scene; Survey the dome, and, as the doors unfold, The soul's best cure, in all her cares, behold!

Where mental wealth the poor in thought may find, And mental physic the diseased in mind.

With awe, around these silent walks we tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:-- "The dead!" Methinks a thousand tongues reply: "These are the tombs of such as cannot die!

"Crowned with eternal fame, they sit sublime "And laugh at all the little strife of time."

But whilst we pay this tribute to its architectural grace, one wonders at the same time at the shortsightedness which has sacrificed everything to appearance, and given us a building not even equal to existing demands--as if a library was a thing of the present, not to increase with the intellectual requirements of the country. As it is now, the library contains only some 100,000 volumes, many of which have no particular value. The American and Canadian department is confessedly inferior in many respects, although we ought to excel in that particular. Of late years, the annual grant has been extremely small, and chiefly devoted to the purchase of books for the law branch, for the especial benefit of lawyers engaged in the Supreme Court. But we have as yet no Free Libraries like those in the United States, of which the Boston Library is a notable ill.u.s.tration. [Footnote: Boston, twenty years ago, spent and spent well, in founding her great free library, more than two dollars for each man, woman, and child within her limits, and she has sustained it to this day with great spirit and liberality.

That library has now more than 360,000 volumes, and her citizens in 1879 took to their homes more than 1,160,000 volumes. Many smaller places in New England and elsewhere, not without careful investigation, have followed her example, finding in the practical results of her 20 years'

work, proof satisfactory to their tax-payers, that a free library is a profitable investment of public money, while in the West the great cities of Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, with Western free-handed energy, have already free libraries on such a scale that one at least of them bids fair to rank among the greatest in the world--_Scribner's Monthly_ for September, 1880, where the advantages of a free library are very tersely shown.] But, nevertheless, the reading facilities of the people generally have increased very largely within two decades. At the present time, as far as we can estimate from the information within reach, there are some 130,000 volumes in the Parliamentary Libraries of the Dominion, 700,000 in the Universities, Colleges and Schools--all of which are necessarily of a limited professional cla.s.s--and 140,000 in Mechanics' Inst.i.tutes and Literary Societies. The grand total of library and prize books despatched to the Public Schools of the Province of Ontario alone within twenty-five years is over one million and a quarter of volumes--comprising of course books of an educational character, but nevertheless valuable in laying the foundation of general culture, and bringing the means of acquiring knowledge to sections where otherwise such facilities would be wanting. Last year, the value of the books imported into Canada amounted to about a million of dollars, or an increase of about 30 per cent. in ten years. Literary and Scientific Inst.i.tutes are increasing in number, and some are doing a useful, if not a national work: the Quebec Historical Society, referred to on a previous page, the Toronto Canadian Inst.i.tute, which has made not a few useful contributions to science and literature, and the Inst.i.tut Canadien which has erected in Ottawa one of the handsomest structures yet raised in Canada by a literary a.s.sociation. In Ontario there are also some 100 Mechanics Inst.i.tutes, including nearly 11,000 members, with an aggregate of 118,000 volumes in the libraries; [Footnote: 'Address of Mr. James Young, President of Mechanics' Inst.i.tutes a.s.sociation of Ontario (_Globe_, Sept. 24th, 1880).] and it is satisfactory to learn that inst.i.tutions which may have an important influence on the industrial cla.s.ses are to be placed on a more efficient basis. These facts ill.u.s.trate that we are making progress in the right direction; but what we want, above all things, are public libraries, to which all cla.s.ses may have free access, in the princ.i.p.al 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. All through the New England and Central States we meet with such ill.u.s.trations of private generosity, but there are few similar examples in Canada. Perhaps the handsome contribution recently made by Mr. Redpath towards the establishment of a museum in connection with McGill College--itself a memorial of private generosity--is a favourable augury of what we may often look for in the future, as the number of our wealthy men increase and they become more alive to the intellectual wants of those around them.

In the columns of our ablest journals there is a growing tendency to devote more s.p.a.ce to the discussion of literary, artistic and scientific topics which are engaging attention in the world of thought The publication of a periodical like the _Bystander_ may justly be considered an event in the political and literary annals of this country. It ill.u.s.trates the desire that exists for independent political criticism amid the intense conflict of party opinion; and even those who cannot agree with the views of the eminent gentleman who conducts this work will frankly admit the originality and independence of thought in all he says. But it is not only as a political writer that Mr. Smith is doing good service to this country; every one who reads his reviews of current events cannot fail to profit by the study of his graceful style as well as by the versatility of his knowledge on all the social, political and economic questions that are engaging attention at home or abroad. The pages of the _Canadian Monthly_ have also for some time shown that there is coming to the front a number of writers of considerable intellectual power on the leading social and religious problems to which so many able thinkers are devoting themselves now-a-days. Herbert Spencer has his disciples and defenders, who prove themselves no contemptible adversaries of the orthodox school of religion. Very few of us probably sympathize with these modern iconoclasts who would destroy all motive for right doing in this world, by breaking down human faith in the existence of one Supreme Being; but, at the same time, no one can deny the earnestness and ability these writers bring to their work. 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.

If our great theological schools and seats of learning are to prove themselves equal to the demands of the present day, it will be by moving out of their grooves of worn-out tradition and routine, and by enlarging their teachings so that the men they send out into the world may be more equal than most of them appear now to meet in argument the Positivist, Rationalist and Materialist, or whatever the disciple of the modern schools of philosophy may call himself. The man of true liberality and faith in the truth of his religious principles must be fully prepared to allow the freest expression of opinion, however antagonistic it may appear to the true happiness of society. This very conflict of ideas and arguments between such opposite schools of opinion must, in the end, evolve the truth, and necessarily give additional stimulus to intellectual thought in this country, where, so far, there has been a great dearth of original thinkers to elevate us above purely selfish, material interests.

In the natural order of things, the next half century ought to witness a far larger development of the intellect of this country. We have already seen that, with the progress of the Dominion in population and wealth, education has been stimulated to a remarkable degree, journalism has become more of a profession, and not only have several books, of more than ordinary value and merit, been produced in various departments of knowledge, but there are already signs of a spirit of intellectual emulation which must, sooner or later, have its full fruition. If Canada makes the material progress within the next few decades that her people hope, and her statesmen are endeavouring to accomplish, in the face, no doubt, of many difficulties, we may confidently look forward to a corresponding intellectual development. So much practical work of immediate importance has to be performed in a comparatively new country like this, that native talent has naturally found chief expression in politics, the professions, and the press; but with greater wealth, and an older condition of society, literature, science, and art, will be cultivated to a far larger extent. 'It was amid the ruins of the Capitol,' says Gibbon, 'that I first conceived the idea of writing the "History of the Roman Empire."' Such a work could not have been written among the forests of Canada, while men were labouring with the many difficulties of a pioneer existence. But with the greater opportunities of leisure and culture necessarily opening up to us in the future, Canadians may yet have a literature, not merely imitative, as at present, but creative and original. It is stated somewhere in an old English review of American literature, that on this new continent we can hardly expect the rich fruition which springs from that deep, humanized soil of the old world, which has for ages been enriched by the ripe droppings of a fertile national life, where, in the words of an American poet,--

One half the soil has walked the rest, In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages.

It is certainly true that the beauty and grandeur of external nature alone will never inspire the highest and deepest writings; but human life with its manifold experiences, its glooms and glories, sorrows and rejoicings, pains, pleasures and aspirations. Every rood of ground in the old communities of Europe has its historic a.s.sociations to point many a moral and adorn many a tale. Yet if this America of ours has a history only of yesterday, it, too, has its memories and a.s.sociations to stimulate the genius of history, poetry and romance. Already in the first century of American literature have poets and historians and artists appeared to rival those of the older civilization of the world.

The works of Parkman and Longfellow ill.u.s.trate that there is, even in the early history and traditions of Canada, much to evoke the interest of the great world beyond us, when a writer brings to the task the genius of a true poet or the brilliancy of an accomplished historian. 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 ill.u.s.trate 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. We, too, may enjoy its bounteous gifts and gather inspiration from its treasures of 'English undefiled,' although we live in another land whose history dawned but yesterday, and where the soil is almost virgin.

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 const.i.tution is not alienated from the intellect of the country, but its successful working depends entirely on the public intelligence. As our political horizon widens, and a more expansive national existence opens before us, so must our intellectual life become not only more vigorous, but more replete with evidences of graceful culture:

'For through all the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.'