CANADA 



1113 



CANADA 



carried in British bottoms. Both on the At- 

 lantic and on the Pacific the Dominion has 

 many ports from which ocean liners plough 

 their way across the seas to Europe, Asia, 

 Australia and Africa. Halifax and Sydney, 

 N. S., Saint John, N. B., Quebec and Montreal 

 are the chief ports on the Atlantic side; Van- 

 couver, Victoria and Prince Rupert on the 

 Pacific. Each of these ports is a great railway 

 terminal. 



Most of Canada's trade is with Great Britain 

 and the United States. Canada in normal 

 years exports more goods to Great Britain 

 than to the United States, but it imports 

 nearly twice as much from its neighbor as from 

 the mother country. Practically the entire 

 export trade is in raw materials, the products 



of farms, fisheries and mines. Farm products 

 make up about one-third of the total value, 

 and wheat alone is more than one-fifth. Of 

 the imports nearly three-fourths are manufac- 

 tured goods, including farm implements and 

 machinery, automobiles, various iron and steel 

 products, cotton and woolen goods, sugar and 

 coal. Canada exports a small quantity of coal 

 to districts near the mining regions, but im- 

 ports six times as much in other sections. The 

 total foreign trade amounts approximately to 

 $700,000,000 a year, of which imports constitute 

 $400,000,000 and exports the remainder. These 

 figures are exclusive of the vastly-increased 

 volume of exports of munitions of war to the 

 allies during the War of the Nations, of which 

 no exact statistics are obtainable. 



Education 



By the British North America Act of 1867 

 (which see), the entire control of education 

 is left to the individual provinces. All legisla- 

 tion on educational matters is within the juris- 

 diction of the provincial legislatures. The 

 constitution makes only a single condition, that 

 the privileges of denominational and separate 

 schools in Ontario and Quebec shall not be 

 denied. These had existed for so long at the 

 passing of the Act that it was felt that any 

 change would be an injustice. 



Broadly considered, the educational systems 

 of the provinces are double ones; there are, 

 first, the non-denominational public schools in 

 Protestant communities, and second, the Ro- 

 man Catholic schools, chiefly in the French and 

 Irish communities, in which the teachings of 

 the Roman Catholic Church form the basis 

 of education. The question of "separate 

 schools" has long been perplexing and has 

 caused much bitterness in politics. The entire 

 question, while it occasionally figures in na- 

 tional politics, is essentially provincial, and is 

 treated more at length in the articles on the 

 separate provinces in these volumes, under the 

 subhead Education. 



In all the provinces the expenses of the 

 educational system are paid from the public 

 revenues. Each province usually contributes 

 liberally to all its schools, but the local districts 

 bear the chief burden. Public elementary edu- 

 cation is free throughout the Dominion, except 

 in parts of Quebec, where parents or guardians 

 pay certain small fees. All the provinces ex- 

 cept Quebec have laws making education com- 

 pulsory. Each province has a department, 



or ministry, of education, which enforces 

 throughout the province the laws for uniform 

 training of teachers, uniform text-books and 

 uniform examinations and grading of pupils. 

 There are secondary schools, high schools, or 

 collegiate institutes, colleges and universities 

 in all of the provinces, and in all of them ad- 

 vanced methods are employed. 



In the application of modern educational 

 theories to its school problems, Canada has not 

 been backward. Nature study, domestic 

 science, manual training, agriculture and tech- 

 nical or vocational training of all kinds are 

 receiving much attention. Much of the work 

 done is due to Sir William C. Macdonald, 

 whose liberality provided several large endow- 

 ment funds for these new branches of school 

 work (see MACDONALD, SIR WILLIAM C.). In 

 1899 he provided funds to establish manual 

 training centers in connection with the regular 

 work of the public schools. The popularity of 

 the new system led the local authorities in 

 nearly every case to adopt manual training 

 as a regular part of the curriculum. Later he 

 provided a fund for a school garden at each 

 of five rural schools in each of five provinces. 

 The garden and the nature study with it were 

 treated as a part of the regular school work. 

 School gardens are no longer experiments, but 

 an integral part of public school work. Prog- 

 ress along these lines has been made in all 

 the provinces, but more especially in Ontario 

 (which see, subhead Education), the most pop- 

 ulous of the provinces. 



For statistics of illiteracy in Canada, see IL- 

 LITERACY. 



