When Governor Simcoe was planning the foundation of a capital for the whole province, he fixed at first upon the present site of London, struck by its many and obvious advantages. Its central position in the midst of these great lakes, being at an equal distance from Huron, Erie, and Ontario, in the finest and most fertile district of the whole province, on the bank of a beautiful stream, and at a safe distance from the frontier, all pointed it out as the most eligible site for a metropolis; but there was the want of land and water communication—a want which still remains the only drawback to its rising prosperity. A canal or railroad, running from Toronto and Hamilton to London, then branching off on the right to the harbour of Goderich on Lake Huron, and on the left to Sandwich on Lake Erie, were a glorious thing!—the one thing needful to make this fine country the granary and storehouse of the west; for here all grain, all fruits which flourish in the south of Europe, might be cultivated with success—the finest wheat and rice, and hemp and flax, and tobacco. Yet, in spite of this want, soon, I trust, to be supplied, the town of London has sprung up and become within ten years a place of great importance. In size and population it exceeds every town I have yet visited, except Toronto and Hamilton. The first house was erected in 1827; now, that is in 1837, it contains more than two hundred frame or brick houses; and there are many more building. The population may be about thirteen hundred people. The jail and court-house, comprised in one large stately edifice, seemed the glory of the townspeople. As for the style of architecture, I may not attempt to name or describe it; but a gentleman informed me, in rather equivocal phrase, that it was "somewhat Gothic." There are five places of worship, for the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Baptists. The church is handsome. There are also three or four schools, and seven taverns. The Thames is very beautiful here, and navigable for boats and barges. I saw to-day a large timber raft floating down the stream, containing many thousand feet of timber. On the whole, I have nowhere seen such evident signs of progress and prosperity.
The population consists principally of artisans—as blacksmiths, carpenters, builders, all flourishing. There is, I fear, a good deal of drunkenness and profligacy; for though the people have work and wealth, they have neither education nor amusements. Besides the seven taverns, there is a number of little grocery stores, which are, in fact, drinking houses. And though a law exists, which forbids the sale of spirituous liquors in small quantities by any but licensed publicans, they easily contrive to elude the law; as thus:—a customer enters the shop, and asks for two or three pennyworth of nuts, or cakes, and he receives a few nuts, and a large glass of whisky. The whisky, you observe, is given, not sold, and no one can swear to the contrary. In the same manner, the severe law against selling intoxicating liquors to the poor Indians is continually eluded or violated, and there is no redress for the injured, no punishment to reach the guilty. It appears to me that the Government should be more careful in the choice of the district-magistrates. While I was in London, a person who acted in this capacity was carried from the pavement dead drunk.
WOMEN IN CANADA.
Here, as everywhere else, I find the women of the better class lamenting over the want of all society, except of the lowest grade in manners and morals. For those who have recently emigrated, and are settled more in the interior, there is absolutely no social intercourse whatever; it is quite out of the question. They seem to me perishing of ennui, or from the want of sympathy which they cannot obtain, and, what is worse, which they cannot feel: for being in general unfitted for out-door occupations, unable to comprehend or enter into the interests around them, and all their earliest prejudices and ideas of the fitness of things continually outraged in a manner exceedingly unpleasant, they may be said to live in a perpetual state of inward passive discord and fretful endurance—
"All too timid and reserved For onset, for resistance too inert— Too weak for suffering, and for hope too tame."
In women, as now educated, there is a strength of local habits and attachments, a want of cheerful self-dependence, a cherished physical delicacy, a weakness of temperament,—deemed, and falsely deemed, in deference to the pride of man, essential to feminine grace and refinement,—altogether unfitting them for a life which were otherwise delightful:—the active out-of-door life in which she must share and sympathise, and the inn-door occupations which in England are considered servile; for a woman who cannot perform for herself and others all household offices, has no business here. But when I hear some men declare that they cannot endure to see women eat, and others speak of brilliant health and strength in young girls as being rude and vulgar, with various notions of the same kind too grossly absurd and perverted even for ridicule, I cannot wonder at any nonsensical affectations I meet with in my own sex; nor can I do otherwise than pity the mistakes and deficiencies of those who are sagely brought up with the one end and aim—to get married.
A woman, blessed with good health, a cheerful spirit, larger sympathies, larger capabilities of reflection and action, some knowledge of herself, her own nature, and the common lot of humanity, with a plain understanding, which has been allowed to throw itself out unwarped by sickly fancies and prejudices,—such a woman would be as happy in Canada as anywhere in the world. A weak, frivolous, half-educated, or ill-educated woman may be as miserable in the heart of London as in the heart of the forest. But there her deficiencies are not so injurious, and are supplied to herself and others by the circumstances and advantages around her.
I have heard it laid down as a principle, that the purpose of education is to fit us for the circumstances in which we are likely to be placed. I deny it absolutely. Even if it could be exactly known (which it cannot) what those circumstances may be, I should still deny it. Education has a far higher object. I remember to have read of some Russian prince (was it not Potemkin?), who, when he travelled, was preceded by a gardener, who around his marquee scattered an artificial soil, and stuck into it shrubs and bouquets of flowers, which, while assiduously watered, looked pretty for twenty-four hours perhaps, then withered or were plucked up. What shallow barbarism to take pleasure in such a mockery of a garden! better the wilderness—better the waste! that forest, that rock yonder, with creeping weeds around it! An education that is to fit us for circumstances, seems to me like that Russian garden. No; the true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develope, to their fullest extent, the capacities of every kind with which God who made us has endowed us. Then we shall be fitted for all circumstances, or know how to fit circumstances to ourselves. Fit us for circumstances! Base and mechanical! Why not set up at once a "fabrique d'education," and educate us by steam? The human soul, be it man's or woman's, is not, I suppose, an empty bottle, into which you shall pour and cram just what you like, and as you like; nor a plot of waste soil, in which you shall sow what you like; but a divine, a living germ planted by an almighty hand, which you may indeed render more or less productive, or train to this or that form—no more. And when you have taken the oak sapling, and dwarfed it, and pruned it, and twisted it, into an ornament for the jardinière in your drawing-room, much have you gained truly; and a pretty figure your specimen is like to make in the broad plain and under the free air of heaven!