186

THE TEACHING NOT ADAPTED TO THE

college and university with fifteen students and large endowments ! “ The funds are sufficient,” said a leading member of council to me,“ to send all the students home to Oxford, and educate them as gentlemen-commoners." One cannot wonder that, where money-incomes are so small, this great cost of an education given only to a small number of young persons of one denominationfor few but members of the Church of England yet avail themselves of its advantages, should add to the other causes of its unpopularity.

Yet the establishment of this university on its present restricted basis was a natural, and, as very many will consider, a commendable act on the part of its first founders. The early settlers—at least such of them as had anything to say in the management of provincial affairs—were nearly all gentlemen, men of education, merchants, and others, whom loyalty brought from the United States at the close of the War of Independence, or whom large grants or public appointments induced to come from home. These men, seeing their sons growing up, and the sons of others, who had already grown up, roughening and becoming rude in the absence of the educational advantages they had themselves enjoyed, naturally availed themselves of the earliest opportunity of supplying in the province what they could not send their sons to England to procure; and it was just as natural that the institution they founded should be framed after the model of those famed seats of learning at which they and their fathers for generations had studied, and where they themselves had spent so many happy days.

Nothing was more natural than all this. But the circumstances were not favourable to the growth of an institution such as in an old country may still flourish. People who are battling with nature in the clearing of a new country require material and positive knowledge to aid them. They have no time to spare from the

MATERIAL WANTS OF THE PROVINCE.

187

pressing business of material life for the refinements of classical learning, or the beautiful subtleties of pure mathematics. Besides, the fathers of the growing provincials had already become ruder men themselves, and the system of Oxford, when transplanted to Fredericton, never secured either their sympathy or their support. It is just possible that, under the direction of very prudent heads, the kind and mode of instruction might have been so moulded to the special wants of such a community as to have attained the ends its founders had in view; but it must have been a delicate and arduous task in even the most liberal and enlightened hands.

At present, it is objected that the expense to the province is too great; that the habits which the students acquire in the society of Fredericton unfit them for the ruder life of the rural districts; that the education is not sufficiently positive; and that, with a bishop at its head having a known Tractarian bias, it is still of a sectarian character. If any university is to be supported at the expense of the province, it must, I think, be so framed that the government shall be vested equally in all Protestant sects, in some proportion to their respective numbers; and that the instruction and degrees given shall be only in arts and philosophy, leaving to each sect to establish and maintain schools or lectureships in theology for the students of its own body, if it shall see fit to do so. To something like this, from what I have seen of the growing public sentiment in the province, the organisation of King's College and University must come, if it is to continue to obtain a larger share of support from the public revenues than other schools of learning in the province.

Looking at a still young and undeveloped province like this, it must appear of great importance that its inhabitants should entertain a correct idea of its true and permanent natural resources—those which must be regarded

188

SOILS OF THE PROVINCE, AND

as the main source of wealth when the lumberage-that of cutting down and selling the ancient forests—shall have in a measure passed away. I have already mentioned an idea as being very prevalent that the mineral resources, especially the supplies of fossil fuel, in the colony, were inexhaustible, though all the research hitherto made had failed to discover a single workable seam of coal of good quality, or of great extent. On the other hand, it was supposed or asserted by many that the surface or soil of the province was not fitted to produce large supplies of human food, that it was not an agricultural country, and could not support a greatly increased population.

My earliest attention was directed to this latter opinion, and, by personal observation and inquiry, and by carefully collating the numerous documents in the Surveyorgeneral's office, I was enabled to classify the soils in the several districts of the province, and to ascertain, approximately, the relative proportions and absolute quantities of each quality of soil which it contains. In this way I estimated the province to contain a surface in imperial acres, in round numbers, of,

Acres.
Soil No. 1, or 1st class,

50,000
Soil No. 2, or 2d class,

1,000,000 Soil No. 3, or 3d class,

6,950,000 Soil No. 4, or 4th class,

5,000,000 Soil No. 5, or 5th class,

5,000,000

Total area of the province, 18,000,000 I have already stated that wheat has, for many years, been an uncertain crop in the province; that, of all the grain-crops, oats may be considered the surest and safest in the colony, taken as a whole; and that, for the support of stock, this grain and hay are the main reliance. I therefore classified the above soils according to their capability to produce hay and oats, supposing that land

THEIR FOOD-PRODUCING CAPABILITIES.

189

Bushels of Oats.

...

Bushels of Oats. or

which will yield one ton of hay per acre will produce, in arable culture, twenty bushels of oats; a ton and a half of hay, thirty bushels; two tons, forty bushels, and so on. Thus, I reckon that the several qualities of soil are such that

Tons of

Hay.
No. 1 will produce 2 or 50 per imperial acre.
No. 2

2

40 No. 3

1 30 No. 4

1

20
No. 5 is supposed at present to be incapable of

cultivation. The whole available area of the province, therefore, will produce, on its several soils :

Tons of Hay.
First class,

125,000 2,500,000
Second class,

2,000,000 40,000,000 Third class,

10,425,000 208,500,000 Fourth class, 5,000,000 100,000,000

Total produce 17,550,000 or 351,000,000

of the province, This is equal to an average produce, over the whole available part of the province, of 1} tons of hay, or 27 bushels of oats, per acre.

Of course, the reader will understand that I only speak of the natural food-producing capability of the province, not implying that, at any time, it is likely ever to be devoted solely and entirely to the growth of hay and oats, but that the whole surface is capable of yielding on an average 1} tons of hay, 27 bushels of oats, or their equivalent in some other species of food.

Now, allowing for the food of each human being, big and little, 40 bushels, or 5 quarters of oats, such as this colony produces; for each horse, 4 tons of hay; for neat cattle, 2 tons; and for sheep and pigs a quarter of a ton each; and supposing the relative proportions of human beings and of various kinds of stock in the colony to.

180

EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

cial Legislature.—Bounty to agriculture. — Improvement of the St John River.—Construction of railways. Their desirableness.—Evil done by agitators.-European and North American Railway.—Emigration steamers.—Timber-duty grievance.—Mr Brown's address to the Legislature. -- Fiscal protection not required by New Brunswick.Common school education.-Improvement of the criminal code.

I REMAINED at Fredericton for upwards of six weeks, occupied in putting together my notes and impressions of the province, into the form of a report to be presented to the Provincial Legislature. I shall therefore devote the present chapter to a few observations regarding New Brunswick, which will not be unacceptable to those who desire to obtain an accurate general knowledge of its character and capabilities.

Among the early impressions made upon my mind, on mingling with the provincials, and which was not by any means dispelled when I came among the people of New England, was the want of English frankness and openness of speech, which marks their mutual intercourse, as much even as their conversation with foreigners. There was manifestly a species of reticence, as if, in what he said, the speaker reserved an arrière pensée, in regard to which he did not wish to commit himself, or as if he thought some eaves-dropper were listening to catch his words.

Another thing which soon arrested my attention was the extensive state and departmental machinery established and sustained among a population of two hundred thousand souls—a Governor, Executive Council, Legislative Council, Assembly, Higher and Lower courts of Justice; Bishop, Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, Provincial Secretary, Attorney and Solicitor Generals, a Surveyor-General's Department, Colleges, Schools, Roads, Customs Department, &c., &c.—a whole host of men and departments, all sustained by this small community. Men with high names I saw which, in England, command