Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarianHaight, Canniff
History
Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian
Haight, Canniff
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Ontario -- Social life and customs
Clarkson's works, 1 Buchan's Domestic Medicine, 1 Elliot's Medical
Pocket Book, 1 Lewis's Dispensatory, 1 Franklin's Sermons, 1
Stackhouse's History of the Bible, 2 Brown's Union Gazetteer, 1 16th
Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1 History United
States, 1 Elias Hicks's Sermons, 2 Newton's Letters, 1 Ricketson on
Health, 1 Jessy Kerzey, 1 Memorials of a Deceased Friend, 1 Hervey's
Meditations, 1 Reply to Hibard, 1 Job's Scot's Journal, 1 Barclay on
Church Government, 1 M. Liver on Shakerism, 1 Works of Dr. Franklin, 1
Journal of Richard Davis, 1 Lessons from Scripture, 1 Picket's Lessons,
1 Pownal, 1 Sequel to English Reader, Maps of United States, State of
New York, England, Ireland and Scotland, and Holland Purchase.] Some
years had to pass away before the need of them began to be felt. In a
country, as we have already said, where intelligence commanded respect
but did not give priority; where the best accomplishment was to get on
in the world; where the standard of education seldom rose higher than to
be able to read, write, and solve a simple sum in arithmetic, the
absence of entertaining and instructive books was not felt to be a
serious loss. But with the rapidly increasing facilities for moving
about, and the growth of trade and commerce, the people were brought
more frequently into contact with the intelligence and the progress of
the world outside. And with the increase of wealth came the desire to
take a higher stand in the social scale. The development of men's minds
under the political and social changes of the day, and the advance in
culture and refinement which accompanies worldly prosperity, quickened
the general intelligence of the people, and created a demand for books
to read. This demand has gone on increasing from year to year, until we
have reached a time when we may say with the Ecclesiast: "Of making of
books there is no end." If there was an excuse for the absence of books
in our Canadian homes half a century ago, and if the slight draughts
that were obtainable at the only fountains of knowledge that then
existed were not sufficient to create a thirst for more, there is none
now. Even the wealth that was to a certain extent necessary to gratify
any desire to cultivate the mind is no longer required, for the one can
be obtained free, and a few cents will procure the works of some of the
best authors who have ever lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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