The Dominion of Canada possesses a noble heritage which has descended
to us as the result of the achievement of Frenchmen, Englishmen,
Scotchmen, and Irishmen, who through centuries of trial and privation,
showed an indomitable courage, patience and industry which it is our
duty to imitate with the far greater opportunities we now enjoy of
developing the latent material and intellectual resources of this fair
land. Possessing a country rich in natural treasures and a population
inheriting the institutions, the traditions and qualities of their
ancestors, having a remarkable capacity for self-government, enjoying
exceptional facilities for the acquisition of knowledge, having before
us always the record of difficulties overcome against great odds in
endeavouring to establish ourselves on this continent, we may well in
the present be animated by the spirit of hope, rather than by that
feeling of despair which some despondent thinkers and writers have
too frequently on their lips when it is a question of the destiny
in store for Canada. In the course of the coming decades--perhaps
in four or five, or less--Canada will probably have determined her
destiny--her position among the communities of the world; and, for
one, I have no doubt the results will be far more gratifying to our
national pride than the results of even the past thirty years, when we
have been laying broad and deep the foundations of our present system
of government. We have reason to believe that the material success of
this confederation will be fully equalled by the intellectual efforts
of a people who have sprung from nations whose not least enduring
fame has been the fact that they have given to the world of letters a
Shakespeare, a Molière, a Montesquieu, a Balzac, a Dickens, a Dudevant,
a Tennyson, a Victor Hugo, a Longfellow, a Hawthorne, a Théophile
Gauthier, and many other names that represent the best literary genius
of the English and French races. All the evidence before us now goes
to prove that the French language will continue into an indefinite
future to be the language of a large and influential section of the
population of Canada, and that it must consequently exercise a decided
influence on the culture and intellect of the Dominion. It has been
within the last four decades that the best intellectual work--both in
literature and statesmanship--has been produced in French and English
Canada, and the signs of intellectual activity in the same direction do
not lessen with the expansion of the Dominion. The history of England
from the day the Norman came into the island until he was absorbed
in the original Saxon element, is not likely to be soon repeated in
Canada, but in all probability the two nationalities will remain side
by side for an unknown period to illustrate on the northern half of
the continent of America the culture and genius of the two strongest
and brightest powers of civilization. As both of these nationalities
have vied with each other in the past to build up this confederation
on a large and generous basis of national strength and greatness, and
have risen time and again superior to those racial antagonisms created
by differences of opinion at great crises of our history--antagonisms
happily dispelled by the common sense, reason and patriotism of men of
both races--so we should in the future hope for that friendly rivalry
on the part of the best minds among French and English Canadians which
will best stimulate the genius of their people in art, history, poetry
and romance. In the meantime, while this confederation is fighting
its way out of its political difficulties, and resolving wealth and
refinement from the original and rugged elements of a new country,
it is for the respective nationalities not to stand aloof from one
another, but to unite in every way possible for common intellectual
improvement, and give sympathetic encouragement to the study of the
two languages and to the mental efforts of each other. It was on this
enlightened principle of sympathetic interest that the Royal Society
was founded and on which alone it can expect to obtain any permanent
measure of success. If the English and French always endeavour to
meet each other on this friendly basis in all the communities where
they live side by side as well as on all occasions that demand
common thought and action and cultivate that social and intellectual
intercourse which may at all events weld them both as one in spirit
and aspiration, however different they may continue in language and
temperament, many prejudices must be removed, social life must gain
in charm, and intellect must be developed by finding strength where
it is weak, and grace where it is needed in the mental efforts of the
two races. If in addition to this widening of the sympathies of our
two national elements, we can see in the Dominion generally less of
that provincialism which means a narrowness of mental vision on the
part of our literary aspirants, and prevents Canadian authors reaching
a larger audience in other countries, then we shall rise superior to
those weaknesses of our intellectual character which now impede our
mental development, and shall be able to give larger scope to what
original and imaginative genius may exist among our people. So with
the expansion of our mental horizon, with the growth of experience
and knowledge, with the creation of a wider sympathy for native
talent, with the disappearance of that tendency to self-depreciation
which is so essentially colonial, and with the encouragement of more
self-reliance and confidence in our own intellectual resources, we may
look forward with some degree of hopefulness to conditions of higher
development, and to the influence on our national character of what can
best elevate Canadians and make them even happier and wiser,
"The love of country, soaring far above all party strife;
The love of learning, art and song,--the crowning grace of
life."[65]