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The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People

J >> John George Bourinot >> The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People




The public schools, collegiate institutes, and universities, apart from
the learned professions, must also every year make larger demands on the
intellectual funds of the Dominion, and as the remuneration of the
masters and professors in the educational institutions of this country
should in the nature of things improve in the future, our young men must
be necessarily stimulated to consider such positions more worthy of a
life's devotion. Under such circumstances, it should be the great object
of all true friends of the sound intellectual development of Canada to
place our system of higher education on a basis equal to the exigencies
of a practical, prescient age, and no longer cling to worn out ideas of
the past. In order to do this, let the people of Ontario determine to
establish a national University which will be worthy of their great
province and of the whole Dominion. Toronto University seems to have in
some measure around it that aroma of learning, that dignity of age, and
that prestige of historic association which are necessary to the
successful establishment of a national seat of learning, and will give
the fullest scope to Canadian talent.




CHAPTER III.

JOURNALISM.


In the development of Canadian intellect the newspaper press has had a
very large influence during the past half-century and more. What the
pulpit has done for the moral education of the people, the press has
accomplished for their general culture when schools were few and very
inferior, and books were rarely seen throughout the country. When the
political rights of the people were the subject of earnest controversy
in the Legislatures of the Provinces the press enabled all classes to
discuss public questions with more or less knowledge, and gave a decided
intellectual stimulus, which had a valuable effect in a young isolated
country like Canada. In the days of the French _regime_ there was not a
single printing press in Canada, though the _News Letter_ was published
in Boston as early as 1704. [Footnote: The first printing press in
America wag set up at Cambridge, in the ninth year of the Charter
Government (1639); the first document printed was the 'Freeman's Oath,'
then an almanack, and next the Psalms.--2 Palgrave, 45. In 1740, there
were no less than eleven journals--only of foolscap size,
however--published in the English Colonies.] It is generally claimed
that the first newspaper in Canada, was the Quebec _Gazette_, which was
published in 1764, by Brown & Gilmour, formerly Philadelphia printers,
with a subscription list of only one hundred and fifty names. The first
issue appeared on the 21st June, printed on four folio pages of 18 by 12
inches, each containing two columns of small type. The first article was
the prospectus in larger type, in which the promoters promised to pay
particular attention 'to the refined amusements of literature and the
pleasant veins of well-pointed wit; interspersed with chosen pieces of
curious essays, extracted from the most celebrated authors, blending
philosophy with politics, history, &c.' The conductors also pledged
themselves to give no place in the paper to 'party prejudices and
private scandal'--a pledge better kept than such promises are generally.
There was a very slender allowance of news from Riga, St. Petersburg,
London, New York and Philadelphia; but there was one ominous item, that
Parliament was about imposing taxes on the Colonies, though they were
without representation in that Parliament. The latest English news was
to the 11th April; the latest American to the 7th May. Only two
advertisements appeared--one of a general store, of dry goods,
groceries, hardware, all the _olla podrida_ necessary in those days; the
other from the Honourable Commissioner of Customs, warning the public
against making compositions for duties under the Imperial Act. This
sheet, for some years, had no influence on public opinion; for it
continued to be a mere bald summary of news, without comment on
political events. Indeed, when it was first issued, the time was
unfavourable for political discussion, as Quebec had only just become an
English possession, and the whole country was lying torpid under the
military administration of General Murray. It is, however, a fact not
very generally known even yet, except to a few antiquarians, that there
was a small sheet published in British America, called the Halifax
_Gazette_ [Footnote: In a letter of Secretary Cotterell, written in
1754, to Captain Floyer, at Piziquid (Windsor), he refers to M. Dandin,
a priest in one of the Acadian settlements: 'If he chooses to play _bel
esprit_ in the Halifax _Gazette_, he may communicate his matter to the
printer as soon as he pleases, as he will not print it without showing
it to me.--See Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia, vol. 2, p. 234] just
twelve years before the appearance of the Quebec paper. From 1769 we
commence to find regular mention of the Nova Scotia _Gazette and Weekly
Chronicle_, published on Sackville Street by A. Fleury, who also printed
the first Almanac in Canada, in 1774. One of the first newspapers
published in the Maritime Provinces was the _Royal Gazette and New
Brunswick Advertiser_, which appeared in 1785 in St. John, just founded
by the American Loyalists. The first paper appeared in Upper Canada on
the establishment of Parliamentary Government, and was published by
Louis Roy, at Newark, on the 18th April, 1793, under the title of _The
Upper Canada Gazette, or the American Oracle_. The sheet was in folio,
15 by 9-1/2 inches, of coarse, but durable paper--not a characteristic,
certainly, of our great newspapers now-a-days, of which the material is
very flimsy; the impression was fairly executed; the price was three
dollars a year. In 1794, the form was changed to a quarto, and one
Tiffany had become the proprietor. When the _Gazette_ was removed to
York, in 1800, with all the Government offices, the Messrs. Tiffany
started the _Constellation_, which, Dr. Scadding tells us, illustrated
the jealousy which the people of the Niagara district felt at seeing
York suddenly assume so much importance; for one of the writers
ironically proposes a 'Stump Act' for the ambitious, though muddy,
unkempt little town, 'so that the people in the space of a few months,
may relapse into intoxication with impunity, and stagger home at any
hour of the night without encountering the dreadful apprehension of
broken necks.'

The _Constellation_ only lived a year or two, and then gave way to the
_Herald_ and other papers at subsequent dates; and it is an interesting
fact, mentioned by the learned antiquarian of Toronto, that the imposing
stone used by Mr. Tiffany, was in use up to 1870, when the old _Niagara
Mail_, long edited by Mr. W. Kirby, at last ceased publication. The
_Gazette_ and _Oracle_ continued to be published at York by different
printers, and, like other journals in America, often appeared in
variegated colours--blue being the favourite--in consequence of the
scarcity of white paper. The title, _American Oracle_, was dropped from
the heading when Dr. Horne became the publisher, in 1817; it continued
to publish official notices, besides meagre summaries of general news,
and some miscellaneous reading matter.

The second paper in Upper Canada was the _Upper Canada Guardian_ or
_Freeman's Journal_, which was edited and printed by Joseph Willcox, who
fell under the ban of the Lieutenant Governor, for his Liberal opinions.
It was printed in 1807, and exercised much influence for a time as an
organ of the struggling Liberal party. Like others, in those days of
political bitterness, its editor was imprisoned, ostensibly for a breach
of parliamentary privilege, though in reality as a punishment for
presuming to differ from the governing party; but, able man as he
undoubtedly was, he marred his career by an infamous desertion to the
Americans during the war of 1812, before the expiration of which he was
killed. The first newspaper in Kingston, the third in the province, was
the _Gazette_, founded in 1810, by Stephen Miles, who afterwards became
a minister of the Methodist denomination, and also printed the Grenville
_Gazette_, the first journal in the old town of Prescott. [Footnote:
Morgan's 'Bibliotheca Canadensis,' Art. Miles.] The first daily paper
published in British North America, appears to have been the _Daily
Advertiser_, which appeared in Montreal, in May, 1833--the _Herald_ and
_Gazette_ being tri-weekly papers at the time. The _Daily Advertiser_
was issued in the interests of the Liberals, under the management of the
Hon. H. S. Chapman, subsequently a judge in New Zealand. One of the
chief inducements held out to subscribers was the regular publication of
full prices current and other commercial information. The _British
Whig_, of Kingston, was the first newspaper that attempted the
experiment of a daily issue in Upper Canada.

It is a noteworthy fact, which can be best mentioned here, that the
first newspaper in Three Rivers was the _Gazette_, published by one
Stobbs, in 1832, more than two centuries after the settlement of that
town, which has always been in the midst of the most thickly settled
district of Lower Canada. At that time, newspapers were rapidly gaining
ground in Upper Canada--districts not so old by months or weeks even as
Three Rivers had years, and with a more scattered population, not
exceeding one-fifth of that of the Three Rivers district, could boast
of, at least, one newspaper. [Footnote: Quebec _Mercury_, 1832.]

In 1827, Mr. Jotham Blanchard, the ancestor of a well-known family of
Liberals in the Lower Provinces, established the first newspaper outside
of Halifax, the _Colonial Patriot_, at Pictou, a flourishing town on the
Straits of Northumberland, chiefly settled by the Scotch.

In 1839, Mr. G. Fenety--now 'Queen's Printer' at Fredericton
--established the _Commercial News_, at St. John, New Brunswick, the
first tri-weekly and penny paper in the Maritime Provinces, which he
conducted for a quarter of a century, until he disposed of it to Mr.
Edward Willis, under whose editorial supervision it has always exercised
considerable influence in the public affairs of the province. The first
daily paper published in the Province of Nova Scotia, was the Halifax
_Morning Post_, appearing in 1845, edited by John H. Crosskill but it
had a brief existence, and tri-weeklies continued to be published for
many years--the old _Colonist_ representing the Conservatives, and the
_Chronicle_ the Liberals, of the province. The senior of the press, in
the Lower Provinces, however, is the _Acadian Recorder_, the first
number of which appeared in 1813.

The only mention I have been able to find of a newspaper in the brief
histories of Prince Edward Island, is of the appearance, in 1823, of the
_Register_, printed and edited by J. D. Haszard, who distinguished
himself at the outset of his career by a libel on one of the Courts
before which he was summoned with legal promptitude--just as printers
are now-a-days in Manitoba--and dismissed with a solemn reprimand, on
condition of revealing the authors of the libel. The remarks of the
Chancellor (who appears to have been also the Governor of the Island),
in dismissing the culprit, are quite unique in their way. 'I
compassionate your youth and inexperience; did I not do so, I would lay
you by the heels long enough for you to remember it. You have delivered
your evidence fairly, plainly and clearly, and as became a man; but I
caution you, when you publish anything again, keep clear, Sir, of a
Chancellor. Beware, Sir, of a Chancellor.' [Footnote: Campbell's Hist,
of P. E. I.] Many other papers were published in later years; the most
prominent being the _Islander_, which appeared in 1842, and continued in
existence for forty-two years. This paper along with the _Examiner_,
edited by the Hon. Edward Whelan, a man of brilliant parts, now dead,
had much influence over political affairs in the little colony.

The history of the newspaper press of British Columbia does not go
beyond twenty-two years. The first attempt at journalistic enterprise
was the Victoria _Gazette_, a daily published in 1858, by two Americans,
who, however, stopped the issue in the following year. The next paper
was the _Courrier de la Nouvelle Caledonie_ printed by one Thornton, an
Anglo-Frenchman, who had travelled all over the world. The somewhat
notorious Marriott, of the San Francisco _News-Letter_, also, in 1859,
published the Vancouver Island _Gazette_, but only for a while. It is a
noteworthy fact, that the Cariboo _Sentinel_--now no longer in
existence--was printed on a press sent out to Mgr. Demers, by the Roman
Catholics of Paris. Even the little settlement of Emory has had its
newspaper, the _Inland Sentinel_. The best known newspaper in the
Pacific Province has always been, since 1858, the _British Colonist_,
owned and edited originally by Hon. Amor de Cosmos, for some time
Premier, and now a well-known member of the House of Commons, who made
his paper a power in the little colony by his enterprise and forcible
expression of opinion. The _Standard_ is also another paper of political
influence, and is published daily, like the _Colonist_. Two papers are
printed in New Westminster, and one in Nanaimo; the total number in the
province being five.

In the previous paragraphs, I have contained myself to the mention of a
few facts in the early history of journalism in each of the Provinces of
Canada. Proceeding now to a more extended review, we find that a few
papers exercised from the outset a very decided influence in political
affairs, and it is to these I propose now to refer, especially, before
coming down to later times of extended political rights and consequent
expansion of newspaper enterprise. The oldest newspaper now in Canada is
the Montreal _Gazette_, which was first published as far back as 1787,
by one Mesplet, in the French language. It ceased publication for a
time, but reappeared about 1794, with Lewis Roy as printer. On the death
of the latter, the establishment was assumed by E. Edwards, at No. 135
St. Paul Street, then the fashionable thoroughfare of the town. It was
only a little affair, about the size of a large foolscap sheet, printed
in small type in the two languages, and containing eight broad columns.
In 1805, the Quebec _Mercury_ was founded by Thomas Gary, a Nova Scotian
lawyer, as an organ of the British inhabitants, who, at that time,
formed a small but comparatively wealthy and influential section of the
community. Mr. Gary was a man of scholarly attainments and a writer of
considerable force. The _Mercury_ had hardly been a year in existence,
when its editor experienced the difficulty of writing freely in those
troublous times, as he had to apologize for a too bold censure of the
action of the dominant party in the Legislature. But this _contretemps_
did not prevent him continuing in that vein of sarcasm of which he was a
master, and evoking, consequently, the ire of the leading Liberals of
those days--Stuart, Vanfelson, Papineau, Viger, and others. One of the
results of his excessive freedom of speech was an attempt to punish him
for a breach of privilege; but he remained concealed in his own house,
where, like the conspirators of old times, he had a secret recess made
for such purposes, and where he continued hurling his philippics against
his adversaries with all that power of invective which would be used by
a conscientious though uncompromising old Tory of those days, when party
excitement ran so high. The Quebec _Gazette_ was at that time, as in its
first years, hardly more than a mere resume of news. [Footnote: From
1783 to 1792, the paper scarcely published a political 'leader,' and so
fearful were printers of offending men in power, that the Montreal
_Gazette_, so late as 1790, would not even indicate the locality in
which a famous political banquet was held, on the occasion of the
formation of a Constitutional Club, the principal object of which was to
spread political knowledge throughout the country. See Garneau II. 197
and 206.] Hon. John Neilson assumed its editorship in 1796, and
continued more or less to influence its columns whilst he remained in
the Lower Canada Legislature. In 1808, Mr. Neilson enlarged the size of
his paper, and published it twice a week, in order to meet the growing
demand for political intelligence. The _Gazette_ was trammelled for
years by the fact that it was semi-official, and the vehicle of public
notifications, but when, subsequently, [Footnote: In 1823, an Official
Gazette was published by Dr. Fisher, Queen's Printer. Canadian
Magazine,' p. 470.] this difficulty no longer existed, the paper, either
under his own or his son's management, was independent, and, on the
whole, moderate in tone whenever it expressed opinions on leading public
questions. Mr. Neilson, from 1818, when he became a member of the
Legislature, exercised a marked influence on the political discussions
of his time, and any review of his career as journalist and politician
would be necessarily a review of the political history of half a
century. A constant friend of the French Canadians, a firm defender of
British connection, never a violent, uncompromising partisan, but a man
of cool judgment, he was generally able to perform good service to his
party and country. As a public writer he was concise and argumentative,
and influential, through the belief that men had in his sincerity and
honesty of purpose.

In 1806, there appeared in Quebec a new organ of public opinion, which
has continued to the present day to exercise much influence on the
politics of Lower Canada. This was the _Canadien_, which was established
in the fall of that year, chiefly through the exertions of Pierre
Bedard, who was for a long while the leader of the French party in the
Legislature, and at the same time chief editor of the new journal, which
at once assumed a strong position as the exponent of the principles with
which its French Canadian conductors were so long identified. It waged a
bitter war against its adversaries, and no doubt had an important share
in shaping the opinions and educating the public mind of the majority in
the province. If it too frequently appealed to national prejudices, and
assumed an uncompromising attitude when counsels of conciliation and
moderation would have been wiser, we must make allowance for the hot
temper of those times, and the hostile antagonism of races and parties,
which the leaders on both sides were too often ready to foment, The
editor of the _Canadien_ was also punished by imprisonment for months,
and the issue of the paper was stopped for a while on the order of Chief
Justice Sewell, in the exciting times of that most arbitrary of military
governors, Sir James Craig. The action of the authorities in this matter
is now admitted to have been tyrannical and unconstitutional, and it is
certainly an illustration of human frailty that this same M. Bedard, who
suffered not a little from the injustice of his political enemies,
should have shown such weakness--or, shall we say, Christian
forbearance--in accepting, not long afterwards, a judgeship from the
same Government which he had always so violently opposed, and from which
he had suffered so much.

Whilst the _Canadien_, _Gazette_, and _Mercury_ were, in Lower Canada,
ably advocating their respective views on the questions of the day, the
Press of Upper Canada was also exhibiting evidences of new vigour. The
_Observer_ was established at York, in 1820, and the _Canadian freeman_
in 1825, the latter, an Opposition paper, well printed, and edited by
Francis Collins who had also suffered at the hands of the ruling powers.
An anecdote is related of the commencement of the journalistic career of
this newspaper man of old times, which is somewhat characteristic of the
feelings which animated the ruling powers of the day with respect to the
mass of people who were not within the sacred pale. When Dr. Home gave
up the publication of the _Gazette_, in whose office Collins had been
for some time a compositor, the latter applied for the position, and was
informed that 'the office would be given to none but a _gentleman_.'

This little incident recalls the quiet satire which Goldsmith levels in
'The Good-natured Man,' against just such absurd sensitiveness as
Collins had to submit to:--

FIRST FELLOW--The Squire has got spunk in him.

SECOND FELLOW--I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us
nothing that's low.

THIRD FELLOW--O, damn anything that's low; I cannot bear it.

FOURTH FELLOW--The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if so
be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

THIRD FELLOW--I likes the maxum of it. Master Muggins. What,
though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all
that. May this be my poison, if my bear ever dances but to the very
genteelest of tunes--'Water Parted,' or 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'


No doubt this little episode made the disappointed applicant inveterate
against the Government, for he commenced, soon afterwards, the
publication of an Opposition paper, in which be exhibited the rude
ability of an unpolished and half-educated man. [Footnote: C. Lindsey's
'Life of W. Lyon Mackenzie,' Vol. I., p. 112, note.]

Mr. W. Lyon Mackenzie appeared as a journalist for the first time in
1824, at Queenston, where he published the Colonial _Advocate_, on the
model of Cobbett's _Register_, containing 32 pages, a form afterwards
changed to the broad sheet. From the first it illustrated the original
and eccentric talent of its independent founder. Italics and capitals,
index hands and other typographic symbols, were scattered about with
remarkable profusion, to give additional force and notoriety to the
editorial remarks which were found on every page, according as the whim
and inspiration of the editor dictated. The establishment of the paper
was undoubtedly a bold attempt at a time when the province was but
sparsely settled, and the circulation necessarily limited by the rarity
of post-offices even in the more thickly-populated districts, and by the
exorbitant rates of postage which amounted to eight hundred dollars
a-year on a thousand copies. More than that, any independent expression
of opinion was sure to evoke the ire of the orthodox in politics and
religion, which in those days were somewhat closely connected. The
_Advocate_ was soon removed to York, and became from that time a
political power, which ever and anon excited the wrath of the leaders of
the opposite party, who induced some of their followers at last to throw
the press and type of the obnoxious journal into the Bay, while they
themselves, following the famous Wilkes' precedent, expelled Mackenzie
from the legislature, and in defiance of constitutional law, declared
him time and again ineligible to sit in the Assembly. The despotic acts
of the reigning party, however, had the effect of awakening the masses
to the necessity of supporting Mr. Mackenzie, and made him eventually a
prominent figure in the politics of those disturbed times. The
_Advocate_ changed its name, a short time previous to 1837, to the
_Constitution_, and then disappeared in the troublous days that ended
with the flight of its indiscreet though honest editor. Contemporaneous
with the _Advocate_ were the _Loyalist_, the _Courier_, and the
_Patriot_--the latter having first appeared at York in 1833. These three
journals were Conservative, or rather Tory organs, and were controlled
by Mr. Fothergill, Mr. Gurnett, and Mr. Dalton. Mr. Gurnett was for
years after the Union the Police Magistrate of Toronto, while his old
antagonist was a member of the Legislature, and the editor of the
_Message_, a curiosity in political literature. Mr. Thomas Dalton was a
very zealous advocate of British connection, and was one of the first
Colonial writers to urge a Confederation of the Provinces; and if his
zeal frequently carried him into the intemperate discussion of public
questions the ardour of the times must be for him, as for his able,
unselfish opponent, Mr. Mackenzie, the best apology.

Mrs. Jameson, who was by no means inclined to view Canadian affairs with
a favourable eye, informs us that in 1836 there were some forty papers
published in Upper Canada; of these, three were religious, namely, the
_Christian Guardian_, the _Wesleyan Advocate_, and the _Church_. A paper
in the German language was published at Berlin, in the Gore Settlement,
for the use of the German settlers. Lower Canadian and American
newspapers were also circulated in great numbers. She deprecates the
abusive, narrow tone of the local papers, but at the same time admits--a
valuable admission from one far from prepossessed in favour of
Canadians--that, on the whole, the press did good in the absence and
scarcity of books. In some of the provincial papers she 'had seen
articles written with considerable talent;' among other things, 'a
series of letters, signed Evans, on the subject of an education fitted
for an agricultural people, and written with infinite good sense and
kindly feeling.' At this time the number of newspapers circulated
through the post-office in Upper Canada, and paying postage, was:
Provincial papers, 178,065; United States and other foreign papers,
149,502. Adding 100,000 papers stamped, or free, there were some 427,567
papers circulated yearly among a population of 370,000, 'of whom perhaps
one in fifty could read.' The narrow-mindedness of the country journals
generally would probably strike an English _litterateur_ like Mrs.
Jameson with much force; little else was to be expected in a country,
situated as Canada was then, with a small population, no generally
diffused education, and imperfect facilities of communication with the
great world beyond. In this comparatively isolated position, journalists
might too often mistake

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