Let me now ask you to follow me for a short time whilst I review some
of the most salient features of our intellectual progress since the
days Canada entered on its career of competition in the civilization
of this continent. So far there have been three well defined eras of
development in the country now known as the Dominion of Canada. First,
there was the era of French Canadian occupation which in many respects
had its heroic and picturesque features. Then, after the cession of
Canada to England, came that era of political and constitutional
struggle for a larger measure of public liberty which ended in the
establishment of responsible government about half a century ago.
Then we come to that era which dates from the confederation of the
provinces--an era of which the first quarter of a century only has
passed, of which the signs are still full of promise, despite the
prediction of gloomy thinkers, if Canadians remain true to themselves
and face the future with the same courage and confidence that have
distinguished the past.
As I have just said, the days of the French regime were in a sense days
of heroic endeavour, since we see in the vista of the past a small
colony whose total population at no period exceeded eighty thousand
souls, chiefly living on the banks of the St. Lawrence, between Quebec
and Montreal, and contending against great odds for the supremacy on
the continent of America. The pen of Francis Parkman has given a vivid
picture of those days when bold adventurers unlocked the secrets of
this Canadian Dominion, pushed into the western wilderness, followed
unknown rivers, and at last found a way to the waters of that southern
gulf where Spain had long before, in the days of Grijalva, Cortez and
Pineda, planted her flag and won treasures of gold and silver from an
unhappy people who soon learned to curse the day when the white men
came to the fair islands of the south and the rich country of Mexico.
In these days the world, with universal acclaim has paid its tribute of
admiration to the memory of a great Discoverer who had the courage of
his convictions and led the way to the unknown lands beyond the Azores
and the Canaries. This present generation has forgiven him much in view
of his heroism in facing the dangers of unknown seas and piercing their
mysteries. His purpose was so great, and his success so conspicuous,
that both have obscured his human weakness. In some respects he was
wiser than the age in which he lived; in others he was the product of
the greed and the superstition of that age; but we who owe him so much
forget the frailty of the man in the sagacity of the Discoverer. As
Canadians, however, now review the character of the great Genoese, and
of his compeers and successors in the opening up of this continent,
they must, with pride, come to the conclusion that none of these men
can compare in nobility of purpose, in sincere devotion to God, King
and Country, with Champlain, the sailor of Brouage, who became the
founder of Quebec and the father of New France.
In the daring ventures of Marquette, Jolliet, La Salle and Tonty,
in the stern purpose of Frontenac, in the far-reaching plans of La
Galissonière, in the military genius of Montcalm, the historian of the
present time has at his command the most attractive materials for his
pen. 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.
Yet that memorable period--days of struggle in many ways--was the
origin of a large amount of literature which we, in these times, find
of the deepest interest and value from a historic point of view. The
English colonies of America cannot present us with any books which,
for faithful narrative and simplicity of style, bear comparison with
the admirable works of Champlain, explorer and historian,[3] or with
those of the genial and witty advocate, Marc Lescarbot,[4] names that
can never be forgotten on the picturesque heights of Quebec, or on
the banks of the beautiful basin of Annapolis. Is there a Canadian
or American writer who is not under a deep debt of obligation to the
clear-headed and industrious Jesuit traveller, Charlevoix,[5] the
Nestor of French Canadian history? The only historical writer that can
at all surpass him in New England was the loyalist Governor Hutchinson,
and he published his books at a later time when the French dominion had
disappeared with the fall of Quebec.[6] To the works just mentioned we
may add the books of Gabriel Sagard,[7] and of Boucher, the governor of
Three Rivers and founder of a still eminent French Canadian family;[8]
that remarkable collection of authentic historic narrative, known as
the Jesuit Relations;[9] even that tedious Latin compilation by Père
du Creux,[10] the useful narrative by La Potherie,[11] the admirable
account of Indian life and customs by the Jesuit Lafitau,[11_a_]
and that now very rare historical account of the French colony, the
"Etablissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France," written by the
Recollet le Clercq,[12] probably aided by Frontenac. In these and other
works, despite their diffuseness in some cases, we have a library of
historical literature, which, when supplemented by the great stores
of official documents still preserved in the French archives, is of
priceless value as a true and minute record of the times in which the
authors lived, or which they described from the materials to which
they alone had access. It may be said with truth that none of these
writers were Canadians in the sense that they were born or educated
in Canada, but still they were the product of the life, the hardships
and the realities of New France--it was from this country they drew
the inspiration that gave vigour and colour to their writings. New
England, as I have already said, never originated a class of writers
who produced work of equal value, or indeed of equal literary merit.
Religious and polemic controversy had the chief attraction for the
gloomy, disputatious puritan native of Massachusetts and the adjoining
colonies. Cotton Mather was essentially a New England creation, and
if quantity were the criterion of literary merit then he was the most
distinguished author of his century; for it is said that indefatigable
antiquarians have counted up the titles of nearly four hundred books
and pamphlets by this industrious writer. His principal work, however,
was the "Magnalia Christi Americana, or Ecclesiastical History of New
England from 1620 to 1698,"[13] a large folio, remarkable as a curious
collection of strange conceits, forced witticisms, and prolixity
of narrative, in which the venturesome reader soon finds himself
so irretrievably mystified and lost that he rises from the perusal
with wonderment that so much learning, as was evidently possessed
by the author, could be so used to bewilder the world of letters.
The historical knowledge is literally choked up with verbiage and
mannerisms. Even prosy du Creux becomes tolerable at times compared
with the garrulous Puritan author.
Though books were rarely seen, and secular education was extremely
defective as a rule throughout the French colony, yet at a very early
period in its history remarkable opportunities were afforded for the
education of a priesthood and the cult of the principles of the Roman
Catholic religion among those classes who were able to avail themselves
of the facilities offered by the Jesuit College, which was founded
at Quebec before even Harvard at Cambridge, or by the famous Great
and Lesser Seminaries in the same place, in connection with which, in
later times, rose the University with which is directly associated the
name of the most famous Bishop of the French regime. The influence
of such institutions was not simply in making Canada a most devoted
daughter of that great Church, which has ever exercised a paternal and
even absolute care of its people, but also in discouraging a purely
materialistic spirit and probably keeping alive a taste for letters
among a very small class, especially the priests, who, in politics
as in society, have been always a controlling element in the French
province. Evidences of some culture and intellectual aspirations in
the social circles of the ancient capital attracted the surprise of
travellers who visited the country before the close of the French
dominion. "Science and the fine arts," wrote Charlevoix, "have their
turn, and conversation does not fail. The Canadians breathe from
their birth an air of liberty, which makes them very pleasant in the
intercourse of life, and our language is nowhere more purely spoken."
La Galissonière, who was an associate member of the French Academy of
Science, and the most highly cultured governor ever sent out by France,
spared no effort to encourage a systematic study of scientific pursuits
in Canada. Dr. Michel Sarrazin,[13_a_] who was a practising physician
in Quebec for nearly half a century, devoted himself most assiduously
to the natural history of the colony, and made some valuable
contributions to the French Academy, of which he was a correspondent.
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."
Strange to say, he ignores in this passage the scientific labours
of Franklin, Bartram and others he had met in Pennsylvania.[13_b_]
As a fact such evidences of intellectual enlightenment as Kalm and
Charlevoix mentioned were entirely exceptional in the colony, and
never showed themselves beyond the walls of Quebec or Montreal. The
province, as a whole, was in a state of mental sluggishness. The germs
of intellectual life were necessarily dormant among the mass of the
people, for they never could produce any rich fruition until they
were freed from the spirit of absolutism which distinguished French
supremacy, and were able to give full expression to the natural genius
of their race under the inspiration of the liberal government of
England in these later times.