At time of writing—with only three exceptions—Canada imports the presidents of her great universities; though she exports some of the greatest presidents and deans who have ever graced Princeton, Cornell, Oxford. She thinks she can not afford to keep these men. Is it a matter of money, at all; or of appreciative intelligence? No matter what the cost, can Canada afford to lose them from her young nationals?
It is a truism that to my knowledge has not a single exception that Canada has never given the imprimatur of her approval to a writer, to an inventor, to a scholar, to an artist, till he has gone abroad and received the stamp of approval outside his own land. By the time Paul Peel was acclaimed in Paris and Horatio Walker in New York each was lost to his own land. It is an even wager nine Canadians out of ten do not know who these men were or for what they were acclaimed. Try it as an experiment on your first train acquaintance.
You can not read early records of Congress without the most astounding realization that Washington, Monroe, Jefferson, Adams, big statesmen and little politicians, voicing solemn convictions or playing to the gallery—all were deadly in earnest and serious about the business of building up a nation. They never lost sight of the idea of conserving, up-building, protecting, extending their country. The national idea is in Canada so recent that most men have not grasped it. "Build a navy?" Canada hooted and made the vote a party football. "Canada should have her own shipyards?" Men look at you! What for? "Panama will reverse the world conduits of trade." Bah! Hot-air! I have heard these and similar comments not once but a thousand times.
Americans say of opportunity—"How much can we make of it?" Canadians say—"How little can we pay for it?" And each takes out of opportunity exactly the amount of optimism put into it.
So one could go down the list enumerating symptoms, but beneath them all, it is plain, lies a cause psychological, not physical. It may be a psychology of discouragement and disparagement from long years of hardship, but whatever it is, if Canada is to be as big nationally as she is latitudinally, as great in soul as in area, she must get rid of this negative thing in her attitude to herself and life. It makes for solidity, but it also makes for stolidity. Nations do not grow great by what they leave undone. Psychologists say all mentality divides itself into two great classes: those giving off negative response to stimulus; those giving off positive. One class of people stands for carping criticism; the other, for constructive attempts. One is safe, to be sure, and sane; and the other is distinctively rash and dangerous; but of rashness and danger is valor made. "I know thy works," said the Voice to the Laodiceans, "that thou art neither hot nor cold: I would thou wert hot or cold . . . because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
And the Voice is the verdict of destiny to every nation that has taken its place at the world's council board.
CHAPTER XVI
DEFENSE
Having spent a hundred years working out a system of government almost perfect in its democracy, and having spent fifty more years working out a system of trade and transportation that gives Canada sixth rank in the gross foreign trade of the world nations—one would think the Dominion entitled to lie back resting on her laurels reaping the reward that is undoubtedly hers.
But nations can no more rest in their development than men. To stop means to go back. To rest means to rust, and Canada to-day must face one of the most serious problems in her national history. What is worth having is worth holding, and what is worth holding must always be defended. The strong man does not go out challenging a fight. The very fact that he is strong prevents other men challenging him to a fight, and Canada must face the need of national defense.