Section IL, 1884. [ 4S ] Trans. Eoy. Soc. Canada. 



IV. — A Plea for a CanatUan Camden Society. 

 By GrEORGK Beyce, LL.D., Professor of Literature, Manitoba College, "Winnipeg. 



(Head May 24, 1884.) 



The task of gathering the materials for a history of our Dominion is one of the 

 greatest difficulty. Leaving out of account the work of minute investigation, and the 

 additional labour of classification reqviired by the historian in order to gain the true 

 perspective of events, the mere physical labour of collecting facts from so wide an area, 

 and from such a variety of sources as our Canadian history embraces, is overwhelmin"-. 

 Mr. Parkman, excelled by few in his truthful appreciation of the scenes he describes, in 

 laborious investigation of the sources whence he draws his information, and in the clear and 

 beautiful diction employed by him, finds it possible, in his most successful works, merely 

 to select here and there a " coigne of vantage," and to give a study of some picturesque 

 combination of events in the early day's of Canada's military régime. His works, absorbino- 

 as they are, are rather monographs than histories. It is true, as belonging to a foreign 

 country, Mr. Parkman can scarcely be expected to have the sympatliy and patient apprecia- 

 tion necessary to gather up the elements of our social, intellectual, and material life. 



That life has originated at many different points in the northern half of this continent, 

 and has grown into ever stronger vital currents ; while these have increased and deepened, 

 have come together, and are now beginning to assume something like a unity of flow. 

 The historian who would seek to follow this growing, though yet feeble, stream of national 

 life, be he never so earnest, so able, or so willing, will encounter a task of almost unex- 

 ampled difficulty. The nomadic life of our aborigines implies a state of things of which 

 there is scarcely a trace remaining ; the early life of the new settler, struggling for exist- 

 ence, is proverbially uninteresting and unlikely to attract the attention of any one likely 

 to record it ; the scattered character of the settlements places obstacles in the way of a pre- 

 sentation of the facts. Of the conflicting statements made in letters, pamphlets, and 

 newspapers, the want of a public opinion of any force at the time makes it impossible to 

 find a criterion of correct judgment ; while, owing to the recent period of many of the 

 events, it is difficult to give them a faithful treatment without creating animosity on the 

 part of friends of the actors still living. Moreover, the strong political bias, apparently 

 indigenous to our Canadian soil, renders it most difficult for the historian to treat his 

 siibject dispassionately, without arousing the susceptibilities of the philosophers who go 

 about subjecting everything in art, science, sociology, and history to the minute inspec- 

 tion of their party microscope. 



"Wide and difficult of comprehensive treatment as the subject of Canadian his- 

 tory is, the clue to the earliest history of Canada, in almost all the points where 

 Europeans first approached it, lies in its being in northern latitudes. The fur trade 

 was the first attraction that induced Old World peoples to undertake settlement in 



