Previous to 1867, different communities of people existed throughout British North America, but they had no general interest or purpose, no real bond of union, except their common allegiance to one Sovereign. The Confederation of the Provinces was intended, by its very essence and operation, to stimulate, not only the industrial energy, but the mental activity as well, of the different communities that compose the Dominion. A wider field of thought has, undoubtedly, been opened up to these communities, so long dwarfed by that narrow provincialism which every now and then crops up to mar our national development and impede intellectual progress. Already the people of the Confederated Provinces are every where abroad recognised as Canadians—as a Canadian people, with a history of their own, with certain achievements to prove their industrial activity. Climatic influences, all history proves, have much to do with the progress of a people. It is an admitted fact that the highest grade of intellect has always been developed, sooner or later, in those countries which have no great diversities of climate. [Footnote: Sir A. Alison (Vol. xiii. p. 271). says on this point: 'Canada and the other British possessions in British North America, though apparently blessed with fewer physical advantages than the country to the South, contain a noble race, and are evidently destined for a lofty destination. Everything there is in proper keeping for the development of the combined physical and mental qualities of man. There are to be found at once the hardihood of character which conquers difficulty, the severity of climate which stimulates exertion, and natural advantages which reward enterprise.'] If our natural conditions are favourable to our mental growth, so, too, it may be urged that the difference of races which exists in Canada may have a useful influence upon the moral as well as the intellectual nature of the people as a whole. In all the measures calculated to develop the industrial resources and stimulate the intellectual life of the Dominion, the names of French Canadians appear along with those of British origin. The French Canadian is animated by a deep veneration for the past history of his native country, and by a very decided determination to preserve his language and institutions intact; and consequently there exists in the Province of Quebec a national French Canadian sentiment, which has produced no mean intellectual fruits. We know that all the grand efforts in the attainment of civilization have been accomplished by a combination of different peoples. The union of the races in Canada must have its effect in the way of varying and reproducing, and probably invigorating also, many of the qualities belonging to each—material, moral, and mental; an effect only perceptible after the lapse of very many years, but which is, nevertheless, being steadily accomplished all the while with the progress of social, political, and commercial intercourse. The greater impulsiveness and vivacity of the French Canadian can brighten up, so to say, the stolidity and ruggedness of the Saxon. The strong common-sense and energy of the Englishman can combine advantageously with the nervous, impetuous activity of the Gaul. Nor should it be forgotten that the French Canadian is not a descendant of the natives of the fickle, sunny South, but that his forefathers came from the more rugged Normandy and Brittany, whose people have much that is akin with the people of the British islands.
In the subsequent portions of this review, the writer will endeavour to follow the progress in culture, not merely of the British-speaking people, but of the two races now working together harmoniously as Canadians. It will not be necessary to dwell at any length on the first period of Canadian history It is quite obvious that in the first centuries of colonial history, but few intellectual fruits can be brought to maturity. In the infancy of a colony or dependency like Canada, whilst men are struggling with the forest and sea for a livelihood, the mass of the people can only find mental food in the utterances of the pulpit, the legislature, and the press. This preliminary chapter would be incomplete were we to forget to bear testimony to the fidelity with which the early Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries laboured at the great task devolving upon them among the pioneers in the Canadian wilderness. In those times of rude struggle with the difficulties of a colonial life, the religious teachers always threw a gleam of light amid the mental darkness that necessarily prevailed among the toilers of the land and sea. Bishops Laval, Lartigue, Strachan, and Mountain; Sister Bourgeois, Dr. Burns, Dr. Jas. McGregor, Dr. Anson Green, are conspicuous names among the many religious teachers who did good service in the early times of colonial development. During the first periods of Canadian history, the priest or clergyman was, as often as not, a guide in things temporal as well as spiritual. Dr. Strachan was not simply the instructor in knowledge of many of the Upper Canadian youth who, in after times, were among the foremost men of their day, but was as potent and obstinate in the Council as he was vigorous and decided in the pulpit. When communications were wretched, and churches were the exception, the clergyman was a constant guest in the humble homes of the settlers, who welcomed him as one who not only gave them religious instruction, but on many a winter or autumn evening charmed the listeners in front of the blazing maple logs with anecdotes of the great world of which they too rarely heard. In those early days, the Church of England clergyman was a man generally trained in one of the Universities of the parent state, bringing to the discharge of his duties a conscientious conviction of his great responsibilities, possessing at the same time varied knowledge, and necessarily exercising through his profession and acquirements no inconsiderable influence, not only in a religious but in an intellectual sense as well—an influence which he has never ceased to exercise in this country. It is true as the country became more thickly settled and the people began to claim larger political rights, the influence of many leading minds among the Anglican clergy, who believed in an intimate connection between Church and State, even in a colony, was somewhat antagonistic to the promotion of popular education and the extension of popular government. The Church was too often the Church of the aristocratic and wealthier classes; some of its clergy were sadly wanting in missionary efforts; its magnificent liturgy was too cold and intellectual, perhaps, for the mass: and consequently, in the course of time, the Methodists made rapid progress in Upper Canada. Large numbers of Scotch Presbyterians also settled in the provinces, and exercised a powerful influence on the social, moral and political progress of the country. These pioneers came from a country where parish schools existed long before popular education was dreamed of across the border. Their clergy came from colleges whose course of study cultivated minds of rare analytical and argumentative power. The sermon in the Presbyterian Church is the test of the intellectual calibre of the preacher, whose efforts are followed by his long-headed congregation in a spirit of the keenest criticism, ever ready to detect a want of logic. It is obvious then that the Presbyterian clergyman, from the earliest time he appeared in the history of this country, has always been a considerable force in the mental development of a large section of the people, which has given us, as it will be seen hereafter, many eminent statesmen, journalists, and litterateurs.
From the time the people began to have a voice in public affairs, the politician and the journalist commenced naturally to have much influence on the minds of the masses. The labours of the journalist, in connection with the mental development of the country, will be treated at some length in a subsequent part of the review. At present it is sufficient to say that of the different influences that have operated on the minds of the people generally, none has been more important than the Press, notwithstanding the many discouraging circumstances under which it long laboured, in a thinly populated and poor country. The influence of political discussion on the intellect of Canada has been, on the whole, in the direction of expanding the public intelligence, although at times an extreme spirit of partisanship has had the effect of evoking much prejudice and ill-feeling, not calculated to develop the higher attributes of our nature. But whatever may have been the injurious effects of extreme partisanship, the people as a rule have found in the discussion of public matters an excitement which has prevented them from falling into that mental torpor so likely to arise amid the isolation and rude conditions of early times. If the New England States have always been foremost in intellectual movement, it may be attributed in a great measure to the fact that from the first days of their settlement they thought and acted for themselves in all matters of local interest. It was only late in the day when Canadians had an opportunity given them of stimulating their mental faculties by public discussion, but when they were enabled to act for themselves they rapidly improved in mental strength. It is very interesting to Canadians of the present generation to go back to those years when the first Legislatures were opened in the old Bishop's Palace, on the heights of Quebec, and in the more humble structure on the banks of the Niagara River, and study the record of their initiation into parliamentary procedure. It is a noteworthy fact that the French Canadian Legislatures showed from the first an earnest desire to follow, as closely as their circumstances would permit, those admirable rules and principles of procedure which the experience of centuries in England has shown to be necessary to the preservation of decorum, to freedom of speech, and to the protection of the minority. The speeches of the leading men in the two Houses were characterized by evidences of large constitutional knowledge, remarkable for men who had no practical training in parliamentary life. Of course there were in these small Assemblies many men rough in speech and manner, with hardly any education whatever but the writers who refer to them in no very complimentary terms [Footnote: For instance, Talbot, I, chap. 23. He acknowledges, at the same time, the great ability of the leading men, 'who would do credit to the British Parliament.'] always ignore the hardships of their pioneer life, and forget to do justice to their possession, at all events, of good common-sense and much natural acuteness, which enabled them to be of use in their humble way, under the guidance of the few who were in those days the leaders of public opinion. These leaders were generally men drawn from the Bar, who naturally turned to the legislative arena to satisfy their ambition and to cultivate on a larger scale those powers of persuasion and argument in which their professional training naturally made them adepts. With many of these men legislative success was only considered a means of more rapidly attaining the highest honours of their profession, and consequently they were not always the most disinterested guides in the political controversies of the day; but, nevertheless, it must be admitted that, on the whole, the Bar of Canada, then as now, gave the country not a few men who forgot mere selfish considerations, and brought to the discussion of public affairs a wide knowledge and disinterested zeal which showed how men of fine intellect can rise above the narrower range of thought peculiar to continuous practice in the Courts. As public questions became of larger import, the minds of politicians expanded, and enabled them to bring to their discussion a breadth of knowledge and argumentative force which attracted the attention of English statesmen, who were so constantly referred to in those times of our political pupilage, and were by no means too ready to place a high estimate on colonial statesmanship. In the earlier days of our political history some men played so important a part in educating the people to a full comprehension of their political rights that their names must be always gratefully remembered in Canada. Papineau, Bedard, DeValliere, Stuart, Neilson, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Howe, Wilmot, Johnstone, Uniacke, were men of fine intellects—natural-born teachers of the people. Their successors in later times have ably continued the work of perfecting the political structure. All party prejudice aside, every allowance made for political errors in times of violent controversy, the result of their efforts has been not only eminently favourable to the material development of the country but also to the mental vigour of the people. The statesmen who met in council in the ancient city of Quebec during the October of 1864 gave a memorable illustration of their constitutional knowledge and their practical acumen in the famous Resolutions which form the basis of the present Constitution of Canada.
But it is not within the limits of this review to dwell on the political progress of Canada, except so far as it may influence the intellectual development of the people. It will be seen, as we proceed, that the extension of political rights had a remarkable effect in stimulating the public intelligence and especially in improving the mental outfit of the people. The press increased in influence and ability; but, more than all, with the concession of responsible government, education became the great question of the day in the legislatures of the larger provinces. But to so important and interesting a subject it will be necessary to devote a separate chapter.
CHAPTER II.
EDUCATION.
The great educational advantages that the people of Canada now enjoy, and more especially in the premier Province of Ontario—as the splendid exhibit recently made at Paris and Philadelphia has proved to the world—are the results of the legislation of a very few years. A review of the first two periods of our political history affords abundant evidence that there existed in Canada as in Europe much indifference in all matters affecting the general education of the country. Whatever was accomplished during these early times was owing, in a great measure, to the meritorious efforts of ecclesiastical bodies or private individuals. As long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other religious male and female Orders, at an early date, commenced the establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so important a share in the education of Lower Canada. The first school in that province was opened in 1616 at Three Rivers, by Brother Pacifique Duplessis, a Franciscan. The Jesuits founded a College at Quebec in 1831, or three years before the establishment of Harvard and the Ursulines opened their convent in the same city four years later. Sister Bourgeoys, of Troyes, founded at Montreal in 1659 the Congregation de Notre Dame for the education of girls of humble rank, the commencement of an institution which has now its buildings in many parts of Canada. In the latter part of the seventeenth century Mgr. Francois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, a member of one of the proudest families in Europe, carried out a project of providing education for Canadian priests drawn from the people of the country. Consequently, in addition to the Great Seminary at Quebec, there was the Lesser Seminary where boys were taught in the hope that they would one day take orders. In this project the Indians were included, and several attended when the school was opened in 1668, in the humble dwelling owned by Mme. Couillard, though it was not long before they showed their impatience of scholastic bondage. It is also interesting to learn that, in the inception of education, the French endeavoured in more than one of their institutions to combine industrial pursuits with the ordinary branches of an elementary education. For instance, attached to the Seminary was a sort of farm-school, established in the parish of St. Joachim, below Quebec, the object of which was to train the humbler class of pupils in agricultural as well as certain mechanical pursuits. The manual arts were also taught in the institutions under the charge of the Ursulines and Congregation. We find, for example, a French King giving a thousand francs to a sisterhood of Montreal to buy wool, and the same sum to teach young girls to knit. We also read of the same Sovereign maintaining a teacher of navigation and surveying at Quebec on the modest salary of four hundred francs a-year. But all accounts of the days of the French regime go to show that, despite the zealous efforts of the religious bodies to improve the education of the colonists, secular instruction was at a very low ebb. One writer tells us that 'even the children of officers and gentlemen scarcely knew how to read and write; they were ignorant of the first elements of geography and history.' These were, in fact, days of darkness everywhere, so far as the masses were concerned. Neither England nor France had a system of popular education. Yet it is undoubted that on the whole the inhabitants of Canada had far superior moral and educational advantages than were enjoyed during those times by the mass of people in England and France. Even in the days of Walpole and Hannah More the ignorance of the English peasantry was only equalled by their poverty and moral depravity. [Footnote: Green in his 'History of the English People' says:—Purity and fidelity to the marriage vow were sneered out of fashion; and Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, instructed him in the art of seduction as part of a polite education. At the other end of the social scale lay the masses of the poor. They were ignorant and brutal to a degree which it is hard to conceive, for the vast increase of population which followed on the growth of towns and the development of manufactures had been met by no effort for religious or educational improvement. Not a new parish had been created. Hardly a single new church had been built. Schools there were none save the grammar schools of Edward and Elizabeth. The rural peasantry, who were fast being reduced to pauperism by the poor-laws, were left without moral or religious training of any sort. 'We saw but one bible in the parish of Chedda,' said Hannah More, at a far later time, 'and that was used to prop a flower pot.' p. 707, Harpers' ed. 1870. Parkman also admits that 'towards the end of the French regime the Canadian habitant was probably better taught, so far as concerned religion, than the mass of French peasants.'—The Old Regime in Canada.]
Sensuality was not encouraged in Canada by the leaders of society, as was notoriously the case in the best circles of England and of France. Dull and devoid of intellectual light as was the life of the Canadian, he had his places of worship, where he had a moral training which elevated him immeasurably above the peasantry of England as well as of his old home. The clergy of Lower Canada confessedly did their best to relieve the ignorance of the people, but they were naturally unable to accomplish, by themselves, a task which properly devolved on the governing class. But under the French regime in Canada, the civil authorities were as little anxious to enlighten the people by the establishment of schools as they were to give them a voice in the government of the country. In remarkable contrast with the conduct of the French Government in this particular were the efforts of the Puritan pioneers then engaged in the work of civilization among the rocks of New England. Learning, after religion and social order, was the object nearest to the hearts of the New England fathers; or rather it may be said that they were convinced that social order and a religious character could not subsist in the absence of mental culture. As early as 1647, Governor Winthrop sanctioned a measure [Footnote: This measure provided that 'every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them to the number of 50 householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town, to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read, whose wages shall be paid, either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply.' And it was further ordered that 'when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University.'] which was the first school law ever passed in America, and outlined just such a system as we now enjoy on an extended scale in Canada. Wise men those stern Puritans of the early colonial times! It is not surprising that intellectual food, so early provided for all classes, should have nurtured at last an Emerson, an Everett, a Hawthorne, a Wendell Philips, a Longfellow, a Lowell, a Howells, and a Parkman.
After the Conquest the education of the people made but little progress in Lower Canada. Education was confined for the most part to the Quebec Seminary, and a few other institutions under the control of religious communities, permitted to remain in the country. Lord Dorchester appointed a Commission in 1787, to enquire into the whole subject, but no practical results followed the step. In 1792 the Duke de Rochefoucauld wrote that 'the Canadian who could read was regarded as a phenomenon.' The attempt of the 'Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning' to establish schools was comparatively a failure; for after an existence of twenty years it had only 37 schools, attended by 1,048 pupils altogether. The British Government, at no time after it came into possession of the province, ever attempted anything for the promotion of general education. Indeed, the only matter in which it appeared in connection with education was one by no means creditable to it; for it applied the Jesuits' estates, which were destined for education, to a species of fund for secret service, and for a number of years maintained an obstinate struggle with the Assembly in order to continue this misappropriation. No doubt the existing antagonism of races, then so great an evil in Lower Canada, prevented anything like co-operation in this matter; but added to this was, probably, a doubt among the ruling class in Canada, as in England, as to the wisdom of educating the masses. An educational report of 1824 informs us that 'generally not above one-fourth of the entire population could read, and not above one-tenth of them could write even imperfectly.' In the presentments of the grand juries, and in the petitions on public grievances so frequently presented to Parliament, the majority of the signers were obliged to make their marks. During the year 1824, the Fabrique Act was passed with the view of relieving the public ignorance, but unhappily the political difficulties that prevailed from that time prevented any effective measures being carried out for the establishment of public schools throughout the province.
Nor was education in the western province in a much better state during the first period of Parliamentary Government, that is from 1792 to 1840. It is noteworthy, however, that high schools for the education of the wealthier classes were established at a very early date in the province. The first classical school was opened in the old town of Kingston by the Rev. Dr. Stuart. In 1807 the first Education Act was passed, establishing grammar schools in each of the eight districts in which the province was divided, and endowing them with an annual stipend of one hundred pounds each. In 1816 the first steps were taken by the Legislature in the direction of common schools—as they were then, and for some time afterwards, designated—but the Acts that were then and subsequently passed up to the time of the Union were very inadequate to accomplish the object aimed at. No general system existed; the masters were very inferior and ill paid. A very considerable portion of the province was without schools as well as churches. Of the lands which were generally appropriated to the support of the former by far the most valuable portion was diverted to the endowment of King's College. In 1838 there were 24,000 children in the common schools, out of a population of 450,000, leaving probably some 50,000 destitute of the means of education. The well-to-do classes, however, especially those living in the large towns, had good opportunities of acquiring a sound education. Toronto was well supplied with establishments, supported by large endowments: Upper Canada College, the Home District Grammar School, besides some well conducted seminaries for young ladies. For years Cornwall Grammar School, under the superintendence of the energetic Dr. Strachan was the resort of the provincial aristocracy. Among the men who received their early education in that famous establishment were Robert Baldwin, H. J. Boulton, J. B. Macaulay, Allan McNab, John Beverley Robinson, Dean Bethune, Clark Gamble, and many others afterwards famous in politics, in law and in the church. Dr. Strachan was not only a sound scholar but an astute man of the world, admirably fitted to develop the talents of his pupils and prepare them for the active duties of life in those young days of Canada. 'In conducting your education,' said he on one occasion, 'one of my principal duties has always been to fit you for discharging with credit the duties of any office to which you may hereafter be called. To accomplish this it was necessary for you to be accustomed frequently to depend upon and think for yourselves. Accordingly, I have always encouraged this disposition, which, when preserved within due bounds, is one of the greatest benefits that can possibly be acquired. To enable you to think with advantage, I not only regulated your tasks in such a manner as to exercise your judgment, but extended them for you beyond the mechanical routine of study usually adopted in schools.' [Footnote: Scadding's 'Toronto of Old,' p. 161.] None of the masters of the high schools of the present day could do as much under the very scientific system which limits their freedom of action in the educational training of their scholars. But whilst the wealthier classes in the larger centres of population could avail themselves of the services of such able teachers as the late Bishop of Toronto, the mass of people were left in a state of ignorance. The good schools were controlled by clergymen of the different denominations; in fact, the Church of England was nearly dominant in such matters in those early times, and it must be admitted that there was a spirit abroad in the province which discredited all attempts to place the education of the masses on a more liberal basis.