owing crews, a millionaire merchant was the
acting captain of the crew and among his men were a printer, an
insurance canvasser, a bank clerk, a clerk in a dry goods store. In
one of the most famous hockey teams was a bicycle repairer. Sport in
Canada, as in the United States, is the most absolute democracy. I can
think of no man in Canada who has attained a permanently good place in
social life through catering to women's favor with dandified
mannerisms, though not a few have got a leg up to come most terrible
croppers; but I do think of many men to whom all doors are permanently
open because they are such clean first-rate sportsmen. Until the last
ten years of opulent fevered prosperity came to the Dominion, Canada
might have been described as a nation of athletes. This does not mean
that Canada neglected work for play. It means that she worked so
robustly because she had developed strength on the field of play.
Three truths are almost axiomatic about nations and sport. It is said
that a nation is as it spends its leisure; that nations only win
battles as their boys have played in their youth; that man's work is
only boy's sport full grown. The religious little catechist may win
prizes in the parochial school; but if he doesn't learn to take kicks
and give them good and hard, in play, he will not win life's prizes.
Fair play, nerve, poise, agility, act that jumps with thought, the
robust fronting of life's challenge--these are learned far more on the
toboggan slide where you may break your neck, in a snowshoe scamper,
than poring over books, or in a parlor. I do not know that Canada has
analyzed it out, but she lives it. Young Canada may be bumptious, raw,
crude. Time tones these things down; but she is not tired before she
has begun the race. She is not nerve-collapsed and peeved and
insincere.

V

As to why Canada has no distinctive and great literature--I confess
frankly I do not know. England had only Canada's population when a
Shakespeare and a Milton rose like stars above the world. Scotland and
Ireland both have a smaller population than Canada, and their ballads
are sung all over the world. Canada has had a multitude of sweet
singers pipe the joys of youth, but as life broadened and deepened
their songs did not reach to the deeps and the heights. Something
arrested development. They did not go on. Why? It may be that
literature rises only as high as its fountain springs--the people; and