The Dominion of Canada possesses a noble heritage which has descended to us as the result of the achievement of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen, who through centuries of trial and privation, showed an indomitable courage, patience and industry which it is our duty to imitate with the far greater opportunities we now enjoy of developing the latent material and intellectual resources of this fair land. Possessing a country rich in natural treasures and a population inheriting the institutions, the traditions and qualities of their ancestors, having a remarkable capacity for self-government, enjoying exceptional facilities for the acquisition of knowledge, having before us always the record of difficulties overcome against great odds in endeavouring to establish ourselves on this continent, we may well in the present be animated by the spirit of hope, rather than by that feeling of despair which some despondent thinkers and writers have too frequently on their lips when it is a question of the destiny in store for Canada. In the course of the coming decades—perhaps in four or five, or less—Canada will probably have determined her destiny—her position among the communities of the world; and, for one, I have no doubt the results will be far more gratifying to our national pride than the results of even the past thirty years, when we have been laying broad and deep the foundations of our present system of government. We have reason to believe that the material success of this confederation will be fully equalled by the intellectual efforts of a people who have sprung from nations whose not least enduring fame has been the fact that they have given to the world of letters a Shakespeare, a Molière, a Montesquieu, a Balzac, a Dickens, a Dudevant, a Tennyson, a Victor Hugo, a Longfellow,59 a Hawthorne, a Théophile Gauthier, and many other names that represent the best literary genius of the English and French races. All the evidence before us now goes to prove that the French language will continue into an indefinite future to be the language of a large and influential section of the population of Canada, and that it must consequently exercise a decided influence on the culture and intellect of the Dominion. It has been within the last four decades that the best intellectual work—both in literature and statesmanship—has been produced in French and English Canada, and the signs of intellectual activity in the same direction do not lessen with the expansion of the Dominion. The history of England from the day the Norman came into the island until he was absorbed in the original Saxon element, is not likely to be soon repeated in Canada, but in all probability the two nationalities will remain side by side for an unknown period to illustrate on the northern half of the continent of America the culture and genius of the two strongest and brightest powers of civilization. As both of these nationalities have vied with each other in the past ............