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

columns, but also the mental progress of the people, who demand so large an amount of reading matter at the cost of so much money and mental labour.

As the country increases in wealth and population, the Press must become undoubtedly still more a profession to which men of the highest ability and learning will attach themselves permanently, instead of being too often attracted, as heretofore, by the greater pecuniary rewards offered by other pursuits in life. Horace Greeley, Dana, Curtis, Whitelaw Reid and Bryant are among the many illustrious examples that the neighbouring States afford of men to whom journalism has been a profession, valued not simply for the temporary influence and popularity it gives, but as a great and powerful organ of public education on all the live questions of the day. The journals whose conductors are known to be above the allurements of political favour, even while they consistently sustain the general policy of a party, are those which most obviously become the true exponents of a sound public opinion, and the successful competitor for public favour in this, as in all other countries enjoying a popular system of government.


CHAPTER IV.


NATIVE LITERATURE.

Lord Durham wrote, over fifty [Errata: (from final page) for _fifty_ read _forty_.] years ago, of the French Canadians: 'They are a people without a history and a literature.' He was very ignorant, assuredly, of the deep interest that attaches to the historic past of the first pioneers in Canada, and had he lived to the present day, he would have blotted out the first part of the statement. But he was right enough when he added that the French Canadians had, at that time, no literature of their own. During the two centuries and more that Canada remained a French Colony, books were neither read nor written; they were only to be seen in the educational establishments, or in a very few private houses, in the later days of the colony. [Footnote: The priests appear to have only encouraged books of devotion. La Hontan mentions an incident of a priest coming into his room and tearing up a book; but the library of that gay gentleman was hardly very select and proper.] An intellectual torpor was the prevailing feature of the French _regime_. Only now and then do we meet in the history of those early times with the name of a man residing in the colony with some reputation for his literary or scientific attainments. The genial, chatty L'Escarbot has left us a pleasant volume of the early days of Acadie, when De Monts and De Poutrincourt were struggling to establish Port Royal. The works of the Jesuits Lafitau and Charlevoix are well known to all students of the historic past of Canada. The Marquis de la Galissoniere was the only man of culture among the functionaries of the French dominion. Parkman tells us that the physician Sarrazin, whose name still clings to the pitcher-plant (_Sarracenia purpurea_) was for years the only real medical man in Canada, and was chiefly dependent for his support on the miserable pittance of three hundred francs yearly, given him by the king. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose there was no cultivated society in Canada. The navigator Bougainville tells us, that, though education was so defective, the Canadians were naturally very intelligent, and their accent was as good as that of the Parisians. Another well-informed writer says 'there was a select little society in Quebec, which wants nothing to make it agreeable. In the salons of the wives of the Governor and Intendant one finds circles as brilliant as in other countries. Science and the Fine Arts have their turn, and conversation does not flag. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty, which makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our language is nowhere more purely spoken.' But the people outside of the little coterie, of which this writer speaks so flatteringly, had no opportunities whatever of following the progress of new ideas in the parent state. What learning there was could only be found among the priests, to whom we owe 'Les Relations des Jesuites,' among other less notable productions. The Roman Catholic Church, being everywhere a democracy, the humblest _habitant_ might enter its ranks and aspire to its highest dignities. Consequently we find the pioneers of that Church, at the very outset, affording the Canadian an opportunity, irrespective of birth or wealth, of entering within its pale. But apart from this class, there was no inducement offered to Canadian intellect in those times.

The Conquest robbed the country of a large proportion of the best class of the Canadian _noblesse_, and many years elapsed before the people awoke from their mental slumber. The press alone illustrated the literary capacity of the best intellects for very many years after the fall of Quebec. We have already read how many political writers of eminence were born with the endowment of the Canadian with political rights, which aroused him from his torpor and gave his mental faculties a new impulse. The only works, however, of national importance which issued from the press, from the Conquest to the Union of 1840, were Mr. Joseph Bouchette's topographical descriptions of British North America, which had to be published in England at a great expense; but these books, creditable as they were to the ability and industry of the author, and useful as they certainly were to the whole country, could never enter into general circulation. They must always remain, however, the most creditable specimens of works of that class ever published in any country. The first volume of poetry, written by a French Canadian, was published in 1830, by M. Michel Bibaud, who was also the editor of the 'Bibliotheque Canadienne,' and 'Le Magazin du Bas Canada,' periodicals very short lived, though somewhat promising.

From the year 1840, commenced a new era in French Canadian letters, as we can see by reference to the pages of several periodical publications, which were issued subsequently. 'Le Repertoire National,' published from 1848 to 1850, contained the first efforts of those writers who could fairly lay claim to be the pioneers of French Canadian Literature. This useful publication was followed by the 'Soirees Canadiennes,' and 'Le Foyer Canadien,' which also gave a new impulse to native talent, and those who wish to study the productions of the early days of French Canadian literature will find much interest and profit in the pages of these characteristic publications, as well as in the 'Revue Canadienne,' of these later times. From the moment the intellect of the French Canadian was stimulated by a patriotic love for the past history and traditions of his country, volumes of prose and poetry of more or less merit commenced to flow regularly from the press. Two histories of undoubted value have been written by French Canadians, and these are the works of Garneau and Ferland. The former is the history of the French Canadian race, from its earliest days to the Union of 1840. It is written with much fervour, from the point of view of a French Canadian, imbued with a strong sense of patriotism, and is the best monument ever raised to Papineau; for that brilliant man is M. Garneau's hero, to whose political virtues he is always kind, and to whose political follies he is too often insensible. Old France, too, is to him something more than a memory; he would fix her history and traditions deep in the hearts of his countrymen; but great as is his love for her, he does not fail to show, even while pointing out the blunders of British Ministries, that Canada, after all, must be happier under the new, than under the old, _regime_. The 'Cours d'Histoire du Canada' was unfortunately never completed by the Abbe Ferland, who was Professor of the Faculty of Arts in the Laval University. Yet the portion that he was able to finish before his death displays much patient research and narrative skill, and justly entitles him to a first place among French Canadian historians.

In romance, several attempts have been made by French Canadians, but without any marked success, except in two instances. M. de Gaspe, when in his seventieth year, described in simple, natural language, in 'Les Anciens Canadiens,' the old life of his compatriots. M. Gerin Lajoie attempted, in 'Jean Rivard,' to portray the trials and difficulties of the Canadian pioneer in the backwoods. M. Lajoie is a pleasing writer, and discharged his task with much fidelity to nature. It is somewhat noteworthy that the author, for many years assistant librarian of the library of Parliament, should have selected for his theme the struggles of a man of action in a new country; for no subject could apparently be more foreign to the tastes of the genial, scholarly man of letters, who, seemingly overcome by the torpor of official life in a small city, or the slight encouragement given to Canadian books, never brought to full fruition the intellectual powers which his early efforts so clearly showed him to possess.

In poetry, the French Canadian has won a more brilliant success than in the sister art of romance. Four names are best known in Quebec for the smoothness of the versification, the purity of style, and the poetic genius which some of their works illustrate. These are, MM. Le May, Cremazie, Sulte, and Frechette. M. Cremazie's elegy on 'Les Morts' is worthy of even Victor Hugo. M. Frechette was recognised long ago in Paris as a young man of undoubted promise 'on account of the genius which reflects on his fatherland a gleam of his own fame.' Since M. Frechette has been removed from the excitement of politics, he has gone back to his first mistress, and has won for himself and native province the high distinction of being crowned the poet of the year by the French Academy. M. Frechette has been fortunate in more than one respect,--in having an Academy to recognise his poetic talent, and again, in being a citizen of a nationality more ready than the English section of our population to acknowledge that literary success is a matter of national pride.

The French Canadians have devoted much time and attention to that fruitful field of research which the study of the customs and antiquities of their ancestors opens up to them. The names of Jacques Viger and Faribault, Sir Louis Lafontaine, the Abbes Laverdiere, and Verrault are well known as those of men who devoted themselves to the accumulation of valuable materials illustrative of the historic past, as the library of Laval University can testify. The edition of Champlain's works, by the Abbe Laverdiere for some years librarian of Laval, is a most creditable example of critical acumen and typographical skill. In the same field there is much yet to be explored by the zealous antiquarian who has the patience to delve among the accumulations of matter that are hidden in Canadian and European archives. This is a work, however, which can be best done by the State; and it is satisfactory to know that something has been attempted of late years in this direction by the Canadian Government--the collection of the Haldimand papers, for instance. But we are still far behind our American neighbours in this respect, as their State libraries abundantly prove.

The Canadian ballad was only known for years by the favourite verses written by the poet Moore, which, however musical, have no real semblance to the veritable ballads with which the voyageurs have for centuries kept time as they pushed over the lakes and rivers of Canada and the North-west. Dr. Larue and M. Ernest Gagnon have given us a compilation of this interesting feature of French Canadian literature, which is hardly yet familiar to the English population of Canada.

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