It almost requires the fabulous Jack to overcome the hoary giants of prejudice and custom, or the irrepressible energy of the Gorgon. It has been helpful to remember away "down North" the stand which Archbishop Ireland took for public schools. When the Episcopal clergyman for Labrador, whom we had been influential in bringing out from England, decided to start an undenominational boarding-school on his section of the coast, we began to hope that we might yet live to see our sporadic effort become a policy. Laymen in St. John's, led by the Rev. Dr. Edgar Jones, a most progressive clergyman, sympathized in dollars, and we were able to back the effort. A splendid volunteer head teacher will arrive in the spring to begin work. The effort still needs much help; but I am persuaded that a chain of undenominational schools can be started that will react on the whole country. Already a scheme for a similar uplift for the west coast is being promulgated.
In a letter written to my wife some years ago I find that my convictions on the subject of education were no less firm than they are to-day. One came to the conclusion that "ignorance is the worst cause of suffering on our coast, and our 'religion' is fostering it. True, it has denominational schools, but these are to bolster up special ecclesiastical bodies, and are not half so good as Government schools would be. The 'goods delivered' in the schools are not educational in the best sense, and are all too often inefficiently offered. Instead of making the children ambitious to go on learning through life, they make them tired. There is no effort to stimulate the play side; and in our north end of the Colony's territory there are no trades taught, no new ideas, no manual training—it is all so-called 'arts' and Creeds."
CHAPTER XVI[ToC]
"WHO HATH DESIRED THE SEA?"
We are somewhat superstitious down here still, and not a few believe that shoals and submerged rocks are like sirens which charm vessels to their doom.
On one occasion, as late in the fall we were creeping up the Straits of Belle Isle in the only motor boat then in use there, our new toy broke down, and with a strong onshore wind we gradually drifted in toward the high cliffs. It was a heavy boat, and though we rowed our best we realized that we must soon be on the rocks, where a strong surf was breaking. So we lashed all our lines together and cast over our anchors, hoping to find bottom. Alas, the water was too deep. Darkness came on and the prospect of a long, weary night struggling for safety made us thrill with excitement. Suddenly a schooner's lights, utterly unexpected, loomed up, coming head on toward us. Like Saul and his asses, we no longer cared about our craft so long as we escaped. At once we lashed the hurricane light on the boat-hook and waved it to and fro on high to make sure of attracting attention. To our dismay the schooner, now almost in hail, incontinently tacked, and, making for the open sea, soon left us far astern. We fired our guns, we shouted in unison, we lit flares. All to no purpose. Surely it must have been a phantom vessel sent to mock us. Suddenly our amateur engineer, who had all the time been working away at the scrap-heap of parts into which he had dismembered the motor, got a faint kick out of one cylinder—a second—a third, then two, three, and then a solitary one again. It was exactly like a case of blocked heart. But it was enough with our oars to make us move slowly ahead. By much stimulating and watchful nursing we limped along on the one cylinder, and about midnight found ourselves alongside the phantom ship, which we had followed into the harbour "afar off." Angry enough at their desertion of us in distress, we went aboard just to tell them what we thought of their behaviour. But their explanation entirely disarmed us. "Them cliffs is haunted," said the skipper. "More'n one light's been seen there than ever any man lit. When us saw you'se light flashing round right in on the cliffs, us knowed it was no place for Christian men that time o' night. Us guessed it was just fairies or devils trying to toll us in."
We had no lighthouses on Labrador in those days, and though hundreds of vessels, crowded often with women and children, had to pass up and down the coast each spring and fall, still not a single island, harbour, cape, or reef had any light to mark it, and many boats were unnecessarily lost as a result.