[purwasH] INAUGURAL INTRODUCTION TO SECTION II 13 
study of a living process. A Canadian literature is not only growing 
up under our observation, but at the present its buds are opening into 
blossoms, marking a stage in the process of the deepest interest to the 
student. Sue 
In every way then we think we may confidently say that our 
Canadian literature should receive distinct attention in the educational 
programmes, both of our elementary schools and of our higher seats 
of learning. To one other aspect of our subject we would ask a 
moments consideration. Literature is not merely an effect, it is also 
a cause. It is the outcome, the ripe fruitage of national character 
and life, but it is also the seed of harvests yet to be. It springs from 
character and it creates character. From the very beginnings of 
civilization the most important forms of literature have spoken to the 
hearts of all the people, and have left their impress on national life 
and character. In the olden time it was done by the bard, then fol- 
lowed the ballad and the song, then came the orator and the poet. 
To-day, perhaps, the most widely influential worker in literature is 
the writer of fiction. It cannot be claimed that this is the highest 
form of literature. In fact, it very rarely attains to the highest 
quality of even prose style, and at its best it lacks the felicitous com- 
bination of beautiful and melodious works with thought which makes 
it continue to be prized and remembered through the centuries. There 
are thus placed before the literary man two distinct goals for his 
ambition. One is to be read by tens of thousands and to give them 
pleasure and profit for the passing year. The other is so to weave 
the very form of his best thought, the very words in which it has been 
embodied, into the higher spiritual life and culture of a nation that 
they will go on repeating it from generation to generation in the self- 
same words in which it was born from his own soul. This seems to 
me the summit of literary achievement. It is like the force of gravita- 
tion, it works for ever. An earthquake is but for a moment. 
- May I venture to hope that upon our literary artists there may fall 
the prophetic mantle of weighty responsibility, and that the goal of 
their ambition may be the best — the eternal. 
