These distinctions thus determine the scope of the present work as a Synoptic History of Canadian Literature. The literature considered or treated comprises—(I) Pre-Confederation Literature (1760-1887); and (II) Post-Confederation Literature (1887——?). The Pre-Confederation Literature, which, for purposes of exposition or treatment, is viewed as running over into two decades beyond 1867, will be considered under three rubrics—(1) Incidental Pioneer Literature; (2) Emigré Literature and (3) Nativistic Literature. Post-Confederation Literature will be treated under a single rubric—Native and National Literature of Canada; and this indigenous Canadian literature will, for expository and pedagogical purposes, be considered under five Schools (or Periods)—(1) the Systematic School and Period (First Renaissance); (2) the Vaudeville School and Period (Decadent Interim); (3) the Restoration School and Period (Second Renaissance); (4) the Realistic School and Period of Fiction; and (5) the Rise of Realistic Native or National Drama. But these formal divisions cannot be kept mathematically rigid and there will necessarily be overlappings and special consideration of both imaginative and aesthetic Canadian literature, such as poetic drama, _belles-lettres_, hymnody and literary criticism, journalism, and the literature of travel, exploration, history, and biography. The method of treatment and criticism employed in the present work is also Synoptic or Philosophical. The synoptic method adopts the point of view of Canadian literary history and literature as a spiritual Whole. It has distinct and desirable advantages over the other critical and pedagogical methods. For the synoptic method assists the imagination to view Canadian authors and their literature in an inclusive historical perspective, and thus to discover in Canadian Literature the evolution of a people’s social and spiritual ideals, their national and world conceptions, and how and what each individual poet or prose writer, or each group or school of poets and prose writers, has contributed to the vision of the people’s social and spiritual ideals and to the evolution of them in the people’s social conscience. Further: the synoptic method disengages and discriminates the essential excellences of the poetry and prose of particular individuals and groups, and enables the critic or historian rightly to estimate the social and spiritual significance and value of Canadian authors ideas on Nature, Society, human Existence, and Endeavor. Part I Pre-Confederation Literature 1760-1887. CHAPTER I Social _and_ Spiritual Bases