or teach him some other vocation as soon as possible, and the tendency is to consider any education that does not immediately effect this result superfluous. Whilst every institution of learning must necessarily yield something to this pervading spirit of immediate utility, it would be a mistake to sacrifice all the methods and traditions of the past, when sound scholars at least were made, and the world had so many men famous in learning, in poetry, in romance, and in history. For one I range myself among those who, like James Russell Lowell and Matthew Arnold, still consider the conscientious and intelligent study of the ancient classics-the "humanities" as they are called-as best adapted to create cultured men and women, and as the noblest basis on which to build up even a practical education with which to earn bread and capture the world.

We are, as respects the higher education of this country, in that very period which Arnold saw ahead for America-a period of unsettlement and confusion and false tendency-a tendency to crowd into education too many matters; and it is for this reason I venture to hope that letters will not be allowed to yield entirely to the necessity for practical science, the importance of which I fully admit, while deprecating its being made the dominant principle in our universities. If we are to come down to the lower grades of our educational system, I might also doubt whether, despite all its decided advantages for the masses, its admirable machinery and apparatus, its comfortable school-houses, its varied systematic studies from form to form and year to year, its well-managed model and normal schools, its excellent teachers, there are not also signs of superficiality. The tendency of the age is to become rich fast, to get as much knowledge as possible within a short time, and the consequence of this is to spread far too much knowledge over a limited

ground to give a child too many subjects, and to teach him a little of everything. These are the days of many cyclopædias, historical, scientific digests, reviews of reviews, French in a few lessons, and interest tables. All is digested and made easy to the student, consequently not a little of the production of our schools, and some of our colleges, may be compared to a veneer of knowledge, which easily wears off in the activity of life and leaves the roughness of the original and cheaper material very perceptible. One may well believe that the largely mechanical system and materialistic tendency of our education have some effect in checking the development of a really original and imaginative literature among us. Much of our daily literature-indeed the chief literary aliment of large classes of our best population-is the newspaper press, which illustrates in many ways the haste and pressure of this life of ours in a country of practical needs like Canada. Canadian journals, however, have not yet descended to those depths of degraded sensationalism for which some New York papers have become so notorious.

In the course of a few decades Canada will probably have determined her position among the communities of the world, and, for one, I have no doubt the results will be far more gratifying to our national pride than the results of even the past thirty years, during which we have been laying broad and deep the foundations of our present system of government. We have reason to believe that the material success of the confederation will be fully equalled by the intellectual efforts of a people who have sprung from nations whose not least enduring fame has been the fact that they have given to the world of letters so many famous names that represent the best literary genius of the English and French races. All the evidence before us now goes to prove that the French language will continue into an

indefinite future to be the language of a large and influential section of the population of Canada, and that it must consequently exercise a decided influence on the culture and intellect of the Dominion. It has been within the last four decades that the best intellectual work, both in literature and statesmanship, has been produced both in French and English Canada, and the signs of intellectual activity in the same direction do not lessen with the expansion of the Dominion. In all probability the two nationalities will remain side by side for an unknown period, to illustrate on the northern half of the Continent of America the culture and genius of the two strongest and brightest powers of civilisation. As both of these nationalities have vied with each other in the past to build up this confederation on a large and generous basis of national strength and greatness, and have risen, time and again, superior to those racial antagonisms created by differences of opinion at great crises of our history-antagonisms happily dispelled by the common sense, reason, and patriotism of men of both races-so we should in the future hope for that friendly rivalry on the part of the best minds among French and English Canadians which will best stimulate the genius of their people in art, history, poetry, and romance. In the meantime, while the confederation is fighting its way out of its political difficulties, and resolving wealth and refinement from the original and rugged elements of a new country, it is for the respective nationalities not to stand aloof from one another, but to unite in every way possible for common intellectual improvement, and give sympathetic encouragement to the study of the two languages, and to the mental efforts of each other. It was on this enlightened principle of sympathetic interest that the Royal Society was founded by the Marquis of Lorne, and on which alone it can expect to obtain any permanent measure of success. If the

English and French always endeavour to meet each other on this friendly basis in all the communities where they live side by side, as well as on all occasions that demand common thought and action, and cultivate that social and intellectual intercourse which may, at all events, weld them both as one in spirit and aspiration, however different they may continue in language and temperament, many prejudices must be removed, social life must gain in charm, and intellect must be developed by finding strength where it is weak, and grace where it is needed, in the mental efforts of the two races. If, in addition to this widening of the sympathies of our two national elements, we can see in the Dominion generally less of that provincialism which means a narrowness of mental vision on the part of our literary aspirants, and prevents Canadian authors reaching a larger audience in other countries, then we shall rise superior to those weaknesses of our intellectual character which now impede our mental development, and shall be able to give larger scope to whatever original and imaginative genius may exist among our people.

NEWFOUNDLAND

By T. B. BROWNING, M.A.

(Of the Canadian Bar)

I

NEWFOUNDLAND is an island situate on the northeast coast of the American Continent, between the degrees of latitude 46 and 52, and those of longitude 53 and 60 west of Greenwich. Her area is 42,000 square miles in round numbers. She is therefore somewhat smaller than England, somewhat larger than Ireland.

But though an island, Newfoundland is essentially one with her continent. The geological formation which gives the region of Labrador and Northern Quebec a distinct place in scientific classification stretches over a considerable portion of North-West Newfoundland. A narrow chasm separates the two, now known as the Strait of Belle Isle, somewhat abrupt in form and only nine miles in width. On the other hand, the great mass of the island is, in its main features, identical with that part of North America which is confined between the Alleghanies and the sea, and comprehends New England, with the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Here the line of separation is forty-six miles wide; a gap which is in itself substantial, but is almost negligible when regarded in connection with the continent. Take a point in the United States as Cape Hatteras, or the old Spanish settlement of Saint Augustine's,