The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People - Sir John George Bourinot (best book recommendations TXT) 📗

the whole well executed, and were it possible to print them on the superior tinted paper of the _Graphic_, and it would be possible if the people were willing to pay the expense, they would compare more favourably than they do with the impressions of the older papers published in New York and London. In its prints of native scenery, and portraits of deceased Canadians of merit, the _News_ is a valuable and interesting addition to journalism in this country, and will be found most useful to the future generations who will people the Dominion. Nor does Canada now lack an imitator of _Punch_, in the humorous line. It is noteworthy that whilst America has produced humorists like 'Sam Slick,' Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and others, no American rival to _Punch_ has yet appeared in Boston or New York. The attempts that have heretofore been made have been generally coarse caricatures--for example, the political cartoons in _Harper's Weekly_, which are never characterized by those keen artistic touches that make _Punch_ so famous. Previous efforts in this field of political and social satire in Canada have always failed for want of support, as well as from the absence of legitimate humour. The oldest satirical sheet was _Le Fantastique_, published at Quebec by N. Aubin, who was a very bitter partisan, and was sent to gaol in 1838 for the expression of his opinions. The _Grumbler_ was a more creditable effort made in Toronto some quarter of a century ago, to illustrate and hit off the political and social foibles of the day in Canada. But it has been left for Mr. Bengough in these times to rise in _Grip_ far above all previous attempts in the same direction, and 'to show up' very successfully, and generally with much humour, certain salient features of our contemporary history.

The influence of the press, during the century, must be measured by the political intelligence and activity of the people. Only in the United States are the masses as well informed on the public questions of the day as are the majority of Canadians, and this fact must be attributed, in a large measure, to the efforts of journalists to educate the people and stimulate their mental faculties. When education was at a low ebb indeed, when the leading and wealthier class was by no means too anxious to increase the knowledge of the people, the press was the best vehicle of public instruction. No doubt it often abused its trust, and forgot the responsibilities devolving on it; no doubt its conductors were too frequently animated by purely selfish motives, yet, taking the good with the evil, the former was predominant as a rule. It is only necessary to consider the number of journalists who have played an important part in Parliament, to estimate the influence journalism must have exerted on the political fortunes of Canada. The names of Neilson, Bedard, W. L. Mackenzie, Hincks, Howe, Brown, and Macdougall, will recall remarkable epochs in our history. But it is not only as a political engine that the press has had a decided beneficial effect upon the public intelligence; it has generally been alive to the social and moral questions of the hour, and exposed religions charlatanry, and arrested the progress of dangerous social innovations, with the same fearlessness and vigour which it has shown in the case of political abuses. Political controversy, no doubt, has too often degenerated into licentiousness, and public men have been too often maligned, simply because they were political opponents--an evil which weakens the influence of journalism to an incalculable degree, because the people begin at last to attach little or no importance to charges levelled recklessly against public men. But it is not too much to say that the press of all parties is commencing to recognise its responsibilities to a degree that would not have been possible a few years ago. It is true the ineffable meanness of old times of partisan controversy will crop out constantly in certain quarters, and political writers are not always the safest guides in times of party excitement. But there is a healthier tone in public discussion, and the people are better able to eliminate the truth and come to a correct conclusion. Personalities are being gradually discouraged, and appeals more frequently made to the reason rather than to the passion and prejudice of party--a fact in itself some evidence of the progress of the readers in culture. The great change in the business basis on which the leading newspapers are now-a-days conducted, of itself must tend to modify political acrimony, and make them safer public guides. A great newspaper now-a-days must be conducted on the same principles on which any other business is carried on. The expenses of a daily journal are now so great that it requires the outlay of large capital to keep it up to the requirements of the time; in fact, it can best be done by joint-stock companies, rather than by individual effort. Slavish dependence on a Government or party, as in the old times of journalism, can never make a newspaper successful as a financial speculation, nor give it that circulation on which its influence in a large measure depends. The journal of the present day is a compilation of telegraphic despatches from all parts of the world, and of reports of all matters of local and provincial importance, with one or more columns of concise editorial comment on public topics of general interest: and the success with which this is done is the measure of its circulation and influence. Both the _Globe_ and _Mail_ illustrate this fact very forcibly; both journals being good _newspapers_, in every sense of the term, read by Conservatives and Liberals, irrespective of political opinions, although naturally depending for their chief support on a particular party. In no better way can we illustrate the great change that has taken place within less than half a century in the newspaper enterprise of this country than by comparing a copy of a journal of 1839 with one of 1880. Taking, in the first place, the issue of the Toronto _British Colonist_, for the 23rd October, 1839, we have before us a sheet, as previously stated, of twenty-four columns, twelve of which are advertisements and eight of extracts, chiefly from New York papers. Not a single editorial appeared in this number, though prominence was given to a communication describing certain riotous proceedings, in which prominent 'blues' took part, on the occasion of a public meeting attempted to be held at a Mr. Davis's house on Yonge Street, for the purpose of considering important changes about to take place in the political Constitution of the Canadas. Mr. Poulett Thompson had arrived in the St. Lawrence on the 16th, but the _Colonist_ was only able to announce the fact on the 23rd of the month. New York papers took four days to reach Toronto--a decided improvement, however, on old times--and these afforded Canadian editors the most convenient means of culling foreign news. Only five lawyers advertised their places of business; Mr. and Mrs. Crombie announced the opening of their well-known schools. McGill College, at last, advertised that it was open to students--an important event in the educational history of Canada, which, however, received no editorial comment in the paper. We come upon a brief advertisement from Messrs. Armour & Ramsay, the well-known booksellers; but the only book they announced was that work so familiar to old-time students, 'Walkinghame's Arithmetic.' Another literary announcement was the publication of a work, by the Rev. R. Murray, of Oakville, on the 'Tendency and Errors of Temperance Societies'--then in the infancy of their progress in Upper Canada. One of the most encouraging notices was that of the Montreal Type Foundry, which was beginning to compete with American establishments, also advertised in the same issue--an evidence of the rapid progress of printing in Canada. Only one steamer was advertised, the _Gore_, which ran between Toronto and Hamilton; she was described as 'new, splendid, fast-sailing, and elegantly fitted up,' and no doubt she was, compared with the old batteaux and schooners which, not long before, had kept up communication with other parts of the Province. On the whole, this issue illustrated the fact that Toronto was making steady progress, and Upper Canada was no longer a mere wilderness. Many of my readers will recall those days, for I am writing of times within the memory of many Upper Canadians.

Now take an ordinary issue of the _Mail_, printed on the same day, in the same city, only forty-one years later. We see a handsome paper of eight closely-printed pages--each larger than a page of the _Colonist_--and fifty-six columns, sixteen of which are devoted to advertisements illustrative of the commercial growth, not only of Toronto, but of Ontario at large--advertisements of Banking, Insurance and Loan Companies, representing many millions of capital; of Railway and Steamship Lines, connecting Toronto daily with all parts of America and Europe; of various classes of manufactures, which have grown up in a quarter of a century or so. No less than five notices of theatrical and other amusements appear; these entertainments take place in spacious, elegant halls and opera houses, instead of the little, confined rooms which satisfied the citizens of Toronto only a few years ago. Some forty barristers and attorneys, physicians and surgeons--no, not all gentlemen, but one a lady--advertise their respective offices, and yet these are only representative of the large number of persons practising these professions in the same city. Leaving the advertisements and reviewing the reading matter, we find eleven columns devoted to telegraphic intelligence from all parts of the world where any event of interest has occurred a day or two before. Several columns are given up to religious news, including a lengthy report of the proceedings of the Baptist Union, meeting, for the first time, under an Act of Parliament of 1880--an Association intended for the promotion of missions, _literature_, and church work, into which famous John Bunyan would have heartily thrown himself, no longer in fear of being cast into prison. Four columns are taken up with sports and pastimes, such as lacrosse, the rifle, rowing, cricket, curling, foot-ball, hunting--illustrative of the growing taste among all classes of young men for such healthy recreation. Perhaps no feature of the paper gives more conclusive evidence of the growth of the city and province than the seven columns specially set apart to finance, commerce and marine intelligence, and giving the latest and fullest intelligence of prices in all places with which Canada has commercial transactions. Nearly one column of the smallest type is necessary to announce the arrivals and departures of the steam-tugs, propellers, schooners and other craft which make up the large inland fleet of the Western Province. We find reports of proceedings in the Courts in Toronto and elsewhere, besides many items of local interest. Five columns are made up of editorials and editorial briefs, the latter an interesting feature of modern journalism. The 'leader' is a column in length, and is a sarcastic commentary on the 'fallacious hopes' of the Opposition; the next article is an answer to one in the London _Economist_, devoted to the vexed question of protective duties in the Colonies; another refers to modern 'literary criticism,' one of the strangest literary products of this busy age of intellectual development. In all we have thirty-six columns of reading matter, remarkable for literary execution and careful editing, as well as for the moderate tone of its political criticism. It will be seen that there is only one advertisement of books in the columns of this issue, but the reason is that it is the custom only to advertise new works on Saturday, when the paper generally contains twelve pages, or eighty-four columns. On the whole, the issue of a very prominent Canadian paper illustrates not only the material development of Ontario in its commercial and advertising