largely, if not entirely, owing to the expansion of our common school system—admirable in ontario and nova scotia, but defective in quebec—and the influence of our universities and colleges, the average intelligence of the people of this country is much higher than it was a very few years ago; but no doubt it is with us as with our neighbours—to quote the words of an eminent public speaker whose brilliancy sometimes leads one to forget his higher criticism—i refer to dr. chauncey depew—"speed is the virtue and vice of our generation. we demand that morning-glories and century plants shall submit to the same conditions and flower with equal frequency." even some of our universities from which we naturally expect so much seem disposed from time to time to lower their standard and yield too readily to the demand for purely practical education when, after all, the great reason of all education is to draw forth the best qualities of the young man, elevate his intelligence, and stimulate his highest intellectual forces. the animating principle with the majority of people is to make a young man a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or teach him some other vocation as soon as possible, and the tendency is to consider any education that does not immediately effect that result as 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. goldwin smith very truly says, "a romantic age stands in need of science, a scientific and utilitarian age stands in need of the humanities."[62] the study of greek, above all others of the humanities, is calculated to stimulate50 the higher qualities of our nature. as matthew arnold adds in the same discourse from which i have quoted, "the instinct for beauty is set in human nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the instinct for conduct. if the instinct for beauty is served by greek literature and art as it is served by no other literature or art, we may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping greek as part of our culture." with the same great critic and thinker, i hope that in canada "greek will be increasingly studied as men feel the need in them for beauty, and how powerfully greek art and greek literature can serve this need." 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 it 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 normal and model 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 days of many cyclop?dias, historical summaries, 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 of some of our colleges may be compared to a veneer of knowledge, which easily wears off in the activities 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 has some effect in51 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 busy 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. when we consider the despatch with which a large newspaper has to be made up, how reports are caught on the wing and published without sufficient verification, how editorials have to be written currente calamo, and often after midnight when important despatches come in, we may well wonder that the daily issue of a newspaper is so well done. with the development of confederation the leading canadian papers have taken, through the influence of the new condition of things, a larger range of thought and expression, and the gross personalities which so frequently discredited the press before 1867 have now become the exception. if i might refer to an old and enterprising paper as an example of the new order of things, i should point to the toronto globe under its present editorial management and compare it with two or three decades ago. it will be seen there is a deeper deference to an intelligent public opinion by an acknowledgment of the right of a community to hear argument and reason even on matters of party politics, and to have fair reports of speeches on both sides of a question. in point of appearance, make-up, and varied literary matter—especially in its literary department, its criticisms of new books in all branches of literature—the australasian press is decidedly superior to that of canada as a rule. the melbourne argus and the sydney herald compare with the best london journals, and the reason is mainly because there is no country press in australia to limit the enterprise and energy of a newspaper publisher. perhaps it is as well for the general instruction of a community like ours that there should be a large and active country press, and the people not too much under the guidance of a few great journals in important centres of political thought and action. for one i have more faith in the good sense and reason of the community as a whole than in the motives and disinterestedness of a few leaders in one or more cities or towns. but i must also add that when we consider52 the influence a widely disseminated press like that of canada must exercise on the opinions and sentiments of the large body of persons of whom it is the principal or only literature, one must wish that there was more independence of thought and honesty of criticism as well as a greater willingness, or capacity rather, to study a high ideal on the part of the press generally. however improved the tone of the canadian press may have become of late years, however useful it may be as a daily record of passing events—of course, outside of party politics—however ably it may discuss in its editorial columns the topics of the day, it is not yet an influence always calculated to strengthen the mind and bring out the best intellectual faculties of a reader like a book which is the result of calm reflection, sound philosophic thought, originality of idea, or the elevated sentiment of the great poet or the historian. as a matter of fact a newspaper is too often in canada a reflex of the average rather than of the higher intelligence of the country, and on no other ground can we explain the space devoted to a football match, or a prize fight, or a murder trial, or degrading incidents in the criminal life of men and women. for one, i am an admirer of athletic and other sports calculated to develop health and muscle, as long as they are not pursued to extremes, do not become the end and aim of youth, or allowed to degenerate into brutality. all of us do not forget the great influence of the olympian, the pythian and other public games on the greek character when the land was "living greece" indeed; but we must also remember that art and song had a part in those contests of athletes, that they even inspired the lyric odes of pindar, that the poet there recited his drama or epic, the painter exhibited his picture, and the intellectual was made a part of the physical struggle in those palmy days of greek culture. i have not yet heard that any canadian poet or painter or historian has ever been so honoured, or asked to take part in those athletic games and sports to which our public journals devote a number of pages which have not yet been set apart for canadian or any literature. the newspaper reporter is nowadays the only representative of literature in our pythia or olympia, and he assuredly cannot be said to be a pindaric singer when he53 exalts the triumphs of lacrosse or the achievements of the baseball champion.