Highways of Canadian Literature

by J. D. Logan; Donald G. French

CANADIAN JOURNALISM IN RELATION TO PERMANENT CANADIAN LITERATURE; A SUMMARY CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHIEF CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.

The question: Are Newspapers and Magazines literature? has various answers, negative and affirmative. There cannot be any doubt that Newspapers and Magazines can be literature, because they have been literature; or that Newspapers and Magazines promote literature, because they have done this. The fact is that the first journalism in English was at the very outset literature. The Tatter and The Spectator were founded in the years 1709 and 1711, respectively. The Rambler was founded later. These periodicals, whose pages were the popular reading of the times, and whose pages were made ‘living epistles’ by the pens of Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith—four of the greatest prose writers of the 18th century—were the predecessors of the modern Newspaper. Their pages, especially those of The Spectator, combined the functions of a newspaper, a literary miscellany and a review of society, life, and world happenings. In particular, Joseph Addison was ‘the father’ of the modern newspaper ‘leader’ and ‘editorial’ and of the special article in theatrical and art criticism. Samuel Johnson was the inventor of the modern ‘society page’ and ‘woman’s page’ as we know them in our day. In short, Steele, Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith, Defoe and others of considerable literary reputation in the 18th century were the creators of England’s first ‘people’s literature’—a journalistic literature.

Journalism and Magazine writing in Canada began with the same ideals of scope and literary dignity as obtained in the days of Addison and Johnson in England. The first newspaper to be established in any of the Provinces which later became confederated in the Canadian Union was The Halifax Gazette which was established at Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1752; that is, 43 years after the founding of The Tatler. The first magazine to be established in Canada was published at Halifax in 1789 and was named The Nova Scotia Magazine. As a newspaper, however, The Halifax Gazette was devoted chiefly to the publication of military and governmental intelligence. It was not till Joseph Howe purchased The Novascotian, at Halifax, in 1828, that journalism in Canada harked back to the ideals of The Tatler and The Spectator. Joseph Howe must be regarded as the first and foremost literary, as well as practical, journalist in the history of Canada.

It is sufficient here to remark Howe’s strict literary ideals, even as a journalist, and to observe not only that in his own journalistic writing he strove after literary form and color, but also that in the writings of his contributors he saw to it that there was a very considerable literary flavor. His ideals were emulated by other Canadian journalists, as for instance Etienne Parent, in Quebec, and George Brown of the Toronto Globe and Charles Lindsey, in Ontario, and by later journalists in Canada. Yet we must here emphasize, for our own times, the inclusiveness of the ideals which inspired Howe and which resulted in his producing newspapers whose influence abides to this day.

By some sort of intuition, Howe knew, as Addison and Steele before him knew, that the secrets of successful journalism are two: Variety of interests in reading matter, and Readableness or the power to hold the attention by the manner or style of what is written. Howe also had aesthetic and moral ideals. He aimed to produce journalism that would entertain and at the same time improve literary taste and educate the sensibilities and moral imagination. Howe saw that the unpardonable sins of all newspapers are the lack of humanized matter, and dullness in style; and that, therefore, no matter how high and worthy the moral aims of journalism may be, unless a newspaper possesses variety and readableness, it is doomed to fail both as a newspaper that otherwise might have endured and as a newspaper that might have been perennially the voice and the educator of the spirit. In other words, Joseph Howe saw that the supreme virtues of first rate journalism, the virtues which raise journalism to the dignity of literature, are two: Humanity and Urbanity.

Five years after the fall of Quebec, that is, in 1764, when Quebec city had acquired a considerable English-speaking population, the second of the pioneer Canadian newspapers was established. This was the Quebec Gazette. For seventy-eight years this newspaper was printed in two languages—English and French. From 1848 till 1880 it was printed wholly in English. With the coming of the Loyalists, while New Brunswick was still part of Nova Scotia, there appeared at St. John, in 1783, the Royal St. John Gazette and Nova Scotia Intelligencer. In the following year, when New Brunswick had become a separate Province, this newspaper changed its name to the Royal Gazette & New Brunswick Advertiser. In 1785 the Gazette was established at Montreal. In 1791 and in 1793 newspapers were established at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and Niagara, Ontario. In 1806 and in 1810 newspapers were established at Fredericton, N.B. and Kingston, Ont. Up to 1810 the newspapers of Canada, with the notable exception of the Quebec Gazette, were not at all in the spirit of constructive journalism, but with the founding of The Herald at Montreal in 1811, The Acadian Recorder at Halifax in 1813, the Colonial Advocate at Queenston in 1824, and The Novascotian at Halifax in 1824 (purchased by Joseph Howe in 1828), journalism in Canada took on the scope and complexion of literary and constructive journalism.

The Pioneer Newspapers, as contrasted with the Pioneer and later Canadian Magazines, served very considerably as ‘the people’s’ reading and as the popular educator. They were instrumental in creating a desire for intelligence about Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The demand was chiefly for commercial and social, and political news. And so with the desire for news came into existence an ardent desire for an education in the so-called ‘three R’s.’ As to the style of the reading matter in the Pioneer Newspapers, it conformed, with notable exceptions, to the conditions, social and political, of the times. As a matter of fact, politics were paramount in pioneer days and up to the triumph of Responsible Government, or to the middle of the 19th Century. Naturally, therefore, the newspapers contained considerable satiric writing and letters on practical matters, including reforms in Government. Accordingly the general style of the newspapers was straightforward, often overpointed in vigorous vernacular, with no care for purity of diction and coherency of sentential structure. The thing to be said, the matter, must be said at all hazards—plainly, bluntly, vigorously, and unmistakably. In all these regards, which were not according to the English style of journalism under Addison and Steele, the better newspapers, such as The Montreal Gazette, and The Novascotian, were notable exceptions to the general run of the Pioneer Newspapers. Howe, for example, did see to it, with considerable solicitude, that his newspapers, especially The Novascotian, should contain genuine literary matter and that the style of the general reading matter which appeared in his newspapers should be in decent readable English.

On the whole, therefore, the Pioneer Newspapers of Canada and those which appeared up to Responsible Government and Confederation, and later, conformed to the two ideals of purveyors of intelligence and disseminators of popular culture. Except in rare instances, however, they did not foster the creative literary spirit. That function was left to the Canadian Magazines.

As, in the case of daily journalism, Nova Scotia had priority in establishing newspapers, so, in the case of Canadian magazines, Nova Scotia also was first in enterprise. The first magazine to be published in any of the Provinces of Canada was the Nova Scotia Magazine, which appeared at Halifax in 1789, and ceased publication in 1792. The second Canadian magazine to be published was the Quebec Magazine, which appeared at Quebec in 1791 (2). It also went out of existence in two or three years. The difficulty then was the same as in the present day. The Canadian editor and publisher of native magazines could not compete with the British and the United States magazines, because the foreign periodicals were more readable and cheaper. The matter, however, of the earlier Canadian magazines was, for the most part, genuinely literary and fostered culture.

The first magazine in Canada to spread culture and at the same time to foster amongst native-born or resident émigré writers the creative literary spirit, and to publish contributions in the form of essays, Nature sketches, and poems by native-born and permanently resident writers, was the Literary Garland. It flourished from 1838 to 1851, and numbered amongst its contributors such men and women of parts as William Dunlop, who may be regarded as the first émigré Canadian humorist in distinction from Haliburton, the first native-born humorist, Charles Sangster, who was the first native-born Canadian poet of significant power in original creation, Susanna Moodie who was a versatile writer of colorful prose, and the first singer of Canadian Martial Verse, and her sister Catharine Parr Traill, whose Nature studies and sketches are still eminently worth reading.