These eloquently suggestive words, it must be remembered, were addressed by a great American author to an audience, made up of eminent scholars and writers, in the principal academic seat of that New England which has given birth to Emerson, Longfellow, Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Hawthorne, Holmes, Parkman, and many others, representing the brightest thought and intellect of this continent. These writers were the product of the intellectual development of the many years that had passed since the pilgrims landed on the historic rock of Plymouth. Yet, while Lowell could point to such a brilliant array of historians, essayists, poets and novelists, as I have just named, as the latest results of New England culture, he felt compelled to utter a word of remonstrance against that spirit of materialism that was then as now abroad in the land, tending to stifle those generous intellectual aspirations which are best calculated to make a people truly happy and great. Let us now apply these remarks of the eminent American poet and thinker to Canada--to ourselves, whose history is even older than that of New England; contemporaneous rather with that of Virginia, since Champlain landed on the heights of Quebec and laid the foundations of the ancient capital only a year after the English adventurers of the days of King James set their feet on the banks of the river named after that sovereign and commenced the old town which has long since disappeared before the tides of the ocean that stretches away beyond the shores of the Old Dominion.[2] If we in Canada are open to the same charge of attaching too much importance to material things, are we able at the same time to point to as notable achievements in literature as results of the three centuries that have nearly passed since the foundation of New France? I do not suppose that the most patriotic Canadian, however ready to eulogize his own country, will make an effort to claim an equality with New England in this respect; but, if indeed we feel it necessary to offer any comparison that would do us justice, it would be with that Virginia whose history is contemporaneous with that of French Canada. Statesmanship rather than Letters has been the pride and ambition of the Old Dominion, its brightest and highest achievement. Virginia has been the mother of great orators and great presidents, and her men of letters sink into insignificance alongside of those of New England. It may be said, too, of Canada, that her history in the days of the French regime, during the struggle for responsible government, as well as at the birth of confederation, gives us the names of men of statesmanlike designs and of patriotic purpose. From the days of Champlain to the establishment of the confederation, Canada has had the services of men as eminent in their respective spheres, and as successful in the attainment of popular rights, in moulding the educational and political institutions of the country, and in laying