The history of the past is valuable chiefly for the opportunities it gives to be stirred to deep, true enthusiasm for heroism, for honour, for patriotism, for love of freedom, for devotion to duty, and for sublime self-sacrifice for high ideals. Whatever else we may neglect in the training of the young, I trust we shall never fail to fill their hearts with profound reverence for the men and women of the past to whom they owe so much.
We should teach other lessons from the War of 1812. We should fill each child's life with a splendid courage that can never be dismayed, by telling how a few determined settlers scattered widely over a new country successfully repelled invading armies coming from a country with a population twenty-fold larger. We should teach reverence not only for manhood but for womanhood by recounting the terrible hardships endured willingly by Canadian women generally, as well as by proudly relating the noble work done by individual women, of whom Laura Secord was so conspicuous an example.
A certain class of thoughtless people call us "flag-wavers" if we strive to give our young people a true conception of the value of national life, and of their duty to have a true love for their country and for their Empire. If a flag-waver means one who is proud of a noble ancestry, and determined to prove worthy of the race from which he sprung; one who knows that his forefathers gave a wider meaning to freedom, and who intends to perpetuate liberty and aid in giving it a still broader and higher value; one who is grateful because his Empire represents the grandest revelation of unity yet made known to humanity and who accepts this revelation as a sacred trust, then I am a flag-waver, and I shall make every boy and girl whom I can ever influence a flag-waver who loves his flag and waves it because it represents freedom, and honour, and justice, and truth, and unity, and a glorious history, the most triumphantly progressive that has been achieved by any nation in the development of the world.
We do well to celebrate the great deeds of the men and women of a hundred years ago, and teach our children to give them reverence, but it is far more important for us to consider what the people a hundred years hence will think of us than to glorify the triumphs of a hundred years ago. The work of the world is not done. Evolution to higher ideals goes ever on. Each succeeding generation has greater responsibilities and higher duties than the one that preceded it. The greatest lesson we can learn from the past is that we should prove true to the opportunities of our time; that we should with unselfish motive and undaunted hearts accept the responsibilities that come to us as partners in our magnificent Empire, and share in the achievement of greater triumphs for freedom and justice than have ever been recorded in the past.
Inspired by the records of such men as Brock, at the foot of whose monument we stand to-day and look with reminiscent glance over the marvellous progress of a hundred glorious years, let us determine that we shall do our part to make the coming century more fruitful than the past.
| Chief A. G. Smith, Six Nation Indians, Grand River Reserve. | Captain Charles R. McCullough, Hamilton, Ont. SPEAKERS OF THE DAY | Warrior F. Onondeyoh Loft, Six Nation Indians, Toronto. |