The perpetuation of a double language within a state, an enclave, undoubtedly carries with it an element of inconvenience and possibly of danger. Yet Belgium is bilingual and Switzerland is quadrilingual. If any tongue other than that of the central government is to be admitted, what could be better than French—the language of culture, which has spoken the large words, liberte, egalite, fraternite? The native dialect of French Canada is a quaint and delightful thing—an eighteenth-century vocabulary with pepper and salt from the speech of the woodsmen and hunters. I should be sorry if it had to fade out. But evidently that is a question for Canada to decide. She has been a bilingual country for a long time. I see no reason why the experiment should not be carried on.
Quebec has been rather slow in waking up to the meaning of this war for world-freedom. But she has been very little slower than some of the United States, after all.
The Church? Well, the influence of the Church always has depended and always must depend upon the quality of her ministers. In France, in Belgium, they have not fallen short of their high duty. The Archbishop of Saskatchewan, who came to Quebec, preached a clear gospel of self-sacrifice for a righteous cause.
But the plain people of Quebec—the voyageurs, the habitants, my old friends in the back districts—that is what I am thinking about. I am sure they are all right. They are very simple, old-fashioned, childish, if you like; but there is no pacifist or pro-German virus among them. If their parochial politicians will let them alone, if their priests will speak to them as prophets of the God of Righteousness, they will show their mettle. They will prove their right to be counted among the free peoples of the world who are willing to defend peace with arms.
That is what I expect to find if I ever get back to my canoemen on the Sainte Marguerite again.
SYLVANORA, July 10, 1918.
A CLASSIC INSTANCE
“Latin and Greek are dead,” said Hardman, lean, eager, absolute, a fanatic of modernity. “They have been a long while dying, and this war has finished them. We see now that they are useless in the modern world. Nobody is going to waste time in studying them. Education must be direct and scientific. Train men for efficiency and prepare them for defense. Otherwise they will have no chance of making a living or of keeping what they make. Your classics are musty and rusty and fusty. Heraus mit——”
He checked himself suddenly, with as near a blush as his sallow skin could show.