CHAPTER XXVI.
THE IDEAL STATE.
The air, meanwhile, had been losing its dampness and the mist disappearing, when Haviland drew up his rod and threw it into the boat, and called upon his friend to turn and look at the sunrise.
American sunsets and sunrises, owing to the atmosphere, are famous for their gorgeousness; but some varieties are especially noble. Mountain ones charm by floods of lights and coloring over the heights and ravines, to whose character indeed the sky effects make but a clothing robe, and it is the mountains, or the combination, that speaks. But looking along this glassy avenue of water, flushed with the reflection, it was the great sunrise itself, in its own unobstructed fullness, spreading higher and broader than ever less level country had permitted the Ontarian to behold it, that towered above them over the reedy landscape, in grand suffusions and surges of color.
"It is in Nature," said Chamilly, comprehending that Chrysler felt the scene, "that I can love Canada most, and become renewed into efforts for the good of her human sons. I feel in the presence of this,"—he waved his hand upward, "that I could speak of my ideas."
"You would please me. You said a nation must have a reason for existing and that Canada should have a clear ideal of hers. What is the raison d'être of Canada?"
"To do pre-eminently well a part of the highest work of all the world! If by being a nation we can advance mankind; if by being a nation we can make a better community for ourselves; our aims are founded on the highest raison d'être,—the ethical spirit. We must deliberately mark out our work on this principle; and if we do not work upon it we had better not exist."
Then Haviland related to Chrysler freely and fully the comprehensive plan which he had worked out for the building of the nation.
"First of all," he said, "as to ourselves, there are certain things we must clearly take to mind before we begin:"
"That we cannot do good work without making ourselves a good people;"
"That we cannot do the best work without being also a strong and intellectual people;"
"And that we cannot attain to anything of value at haphazard; but must deliberately choose and train for it."
"Labors worthy of Hercules!" ejaculated the old gentleman.
"Worthy of God," the young one replied. The difference of age between himself and the Ontarian seemed to disappear, and he proceeded confidently:
"The foundation must be the Ideal Physical Man. We must never stop short of working until,—now, do not doubt me, sir,—every Canadian is the strongest and most beautiful man that can be thought. No matter how utterly chimerical this seems to the parlor skeptic who insists on our seeing only the common-place, it cannot be so to the true thinker who knows the promises of science and reflects that a nation can turn its face to endeavours which are impossible for a person. Physical culture must be placed on a more reasonable basis, and made a requisite of all education. We need a Physical Inspector in every School. We need to regularly encourage the sports of the country. We require a military term of training, compulsory on all young men, for its effect in straightening the person and strengthening the will. We must have a nation of stern, strong men—a careless people can never rise; no deep impression, no fixed resolve, will ever originate from easy-going natures."
"Next, the most crying requirement is True Education. The source of all our political errors and sufferings is an ignorant electorate, who do not know how to measure either the men or the doctrines that come before them. There is necessity in the doctrine of the State's right over secular education. Democracy, gives you and me an inalienable interest, social and political, in the education of each voter, because its very principle is the right to choose our rulers. As to religious education, that of course is sacred, where it does not encroach on the State's right, and the arrangement I favor is that secular studies be enforced during certain hours, and the use of the school buildings granted to religious instructors at others."
"I notice you say true education."
"A man is being truly educated when his training is exactly levelled at what he ought to be:—first of all a high type of man in general, and next, a good performer of his calling. Let him have a scheme of facts that will give him an idea of the ALL: then show him his part in it."
"Let him be taught in a simple way the logic of facts."
"Let him be taught to seek the best sources only of information."
"Let him be taught in school the falsity of the chief political sophisms."
"Let him be branded with a few business principles of life in general: such as how much to save, and where to put it, and the wisdom of insurance."
"Let him learn these three maxims of experience:"
"Gain experience."
"Gain experience at the lowest possible price."
"Never risk gaining the same experience twice."
"Seek for him, in fine, not learning so much as wisdom, the essence of learning."
"But especially, let every Canadian be educated to see The National
Work, and how to do it."
"In short, educate for what you require and educate most for the greatest things you require, and in manner such that everyone may be equipped to stand anywhere without help, and fight a good battle."
"It is an Ideal Character, however, a character perfectly harmonized with his destinies as a soul, and his condition as a citizen, that is the most important armour in the panoply of the Canadian. Purity and elevation of the national character must be held sacred as the snowy peaks of Olympus to the Greek. And as those celestial summits could never have risen to their majesty without foundations of more humble rocks and earth; so we must lay foundations for our finer aspirations by the acquirement of certain basal habits:"
"The Habit of Industry."
"The Habit of Economy."
"The Habit of Progress."
"The Habit of Seriousness."
"In other words the habits of honestly acquiring, keeping and improving, all good things, material, intellectual and moral, and of dealing with the realities of things."
"The Habit of Seriousness may seem strange to insist upon, but one has only to mark the injury to everything noble, of an atmosphere of flippancy and constant strain after smart language. There is nothing in flippancy to have awe of—any one can learn the knack of it—but it is foolish and degrading, while seriousness is the color of truth itself."
"As to the Habit of Industry, there is no other way that can be depended upon for becoming wealthy in goods, or learning, or in good deeds. Materially, if we can learn to employ all our available time at something, we shall be the richest of nations. Why have we so many men idling about the villages? Why do so many women simply live on a relative? How different the country would look if the man spent his waste moments in building a gallery, an oriel window, or an awning, to his house, and the idle girl practised some home manufacture. The prosperity of certain Annapolis valley farmers once struck me. 'Do you know why it is?' said a gentleman who was born there. 'The forefathers of these people were a colony of weavers, and there is a loom in every house.'"
"The Habit of Economy is simply making the best use of our possessions and powers."
"The Habit of Progress, or of constantly seeking to improve, is to be deeply impressed. It alone will bring us everything. It is never time to say, 'Let us remain as we are.'"
"We could attend to some minor habits with benefit. How the popular intelligence would be improved, for instance, by:—"
"A habit of asking for the facts."
"A habit of thinking before asserting."
"A mean between liberality and tenacity of conviction."
"Now one more piece of equipment, but it is the highest: The Canadian, if he is to live a life thoroughly scaled on the scale of the reasonable, must place the greatest importance on those interests which transcend all his others, his future fare beyond this make-shift existence; his relations to the unseen world; and how to lay hold on purity and righteousness. Think what he may of them, life should at any rate think. Let him set apart times to ponder over these matters: and for this, I say that to be a lofty and noble nation, we must all borrow the rational observance of the Sabbath, not as a day merely of rest and still less of flighty recreation, but a necessary period devoted to man's thought upon his more tremendous affairs."
After the equipment of the ideal Canadians, Chamilly proceeded to describe their work. They were to see its pattern above them in the skies—The Perfect Nation.
Among themselves a few great ideas were to be striven for: "We must be
One People," "Canada must be Perfectly Independent:" "There must be No
Proletariat"
The principle of government was to be "Government by the Best
Intelligence."
"We must try to amend unfair distributions of wealth. Yet not to take from the rich, but give to the poor. Fortunes should be looked upon as national, and we should seek means to bring the wealthy to apply their fortunes to patriotic uses. The surroundings of the poor should be made beautiful. No labour should be wasted. Men should learn several occupations, and Government find means of instant communication between those who would work and those who would employ. The lot of the poor must not be made hopeless from generation to generation!"
The next demand of the Ideal was, "There must be No Vice."
"The difficulties!" sighed Chrysler.
"We ought to be ashamed to complain till we have done as well as
Sweden."
"Again, we must stamp our action with the Spirit of Organization. The nation must work all together as a whole. The public plan must be clearly disseminated, and especially the aim 'To do pre-eminently well our portion of the improvement of the world.' Consecrated by our ideal also we must seek to draw together, and foster a national distinctiveness. Canada must mean to us the Sacred Country, and our young men learn to weigh truly the value of such living against foreign advantages. For there is no surety of any excellence equal to a national atmosphere of it. They have always been artists in Italy; they have always been sternly free in Scotland: for a word of glory the French rush into the smoke of battle: the Englishman is a success in courage and practicality; the German has not given his existence in vain to thoroughness; nor the American to business. Let us make to ourselves proper customs and peculiarities, like the good old New Year's call, the Winter Carnival, the snow-shoe costume, and a secular procession of St. Jean Baptiste. Tradition too! Why should we forget the virtues of our fathers; or perhaps still better their faults? Let the man who was a hero—Daulac; Brock; the twelve who sortied at Lacolle Mill; our deathless three hundred of Chateauguay,—never to be forgotten. Have them in our books, our school books, our buildings. Make a Fund for Tablets; so that the people may read everywhere: 'Here died McGee, who loved this nation.' 'Papineau spoke here.' 'In this house dwelt Heavysege.' So might all Canada be a Quebec of memories."
He held that the office of our literature and art was to express the spirit of our work. "Nor let the poet," he said, "find the keystone of our spirits dull; let him not fear he sings a vain song when he leaves that voice lingering in some vale of ours that conjures about it forever its moment of richest beauty and romance."
In dress, in manners, we should be common-sense, tasteful and fearless, and in the development of our territory energetic and full of hope. "Believe me, sir, we shall yet learn how to have bright fire-sides on the shores of the Arctic."
"And where is our world-work?" Chrysler asked, like one awakening.
"Wherever there is world-work undone that we can reach to do."
"Think," cried he, finally, "of a country that lives, as I am suggesting, on the deepest and highest principle of the seen and the unseen—what has been the aspiration of the lonely great of other nations, the clear purpose of all is this: what have been the virtues of a few in the past, determined here to be those of the whole; and every citizen ennobled by the consciousness that he is equally possessed of the common glory!"
"It can be done! Heaven and earth tell us that all is under laws of cause and effect, and that this, which has been once, can be made universal. I hear the voice of Science, 'It can be done. It can be done!' I hear the voice of Duty, 'It must be done!' Inextinguishable voices!!"
"It comes to me so vividly that I almost point you to that sunrise and say, 'See yon beautiful city whose palaces and churches tower with the grace and splendors of all known architecture; those rural plains and vales of park and garden, where every home nestles so as one could not conceive it more lovely; that race of heroes and goddesses in strength and thought; those proud tablets and monuments of national and international honor and achievement and blessing.' And if any say, 'How can we attain to that greatness?' I would write him this amulet: 'Begin at the POSSIBLE!'"
The patriot ended, and when he had finished, Chrysler exclaimed:
"Work it out, Haviland! If a convert is any use to you, take me over and send me forth. It's a noble scheme. But, for Heaven's sake, fortify yourself. How many proselytes do you expect in the first hundred years?"
"You forget," replied Haviland. "I have always this faithful little legion of Dormillière. Has not Lareau said," and he smiled half in joke, half seriously, "that we are a people of ideals."
They returned to their fishing in silence, broken by a meditative query now and then from Chrysler, but no movement of curiosity from the Bonhomme.