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House of Commons Committee Room 34
Ottawa, Wednesday, April 3, 1907
Robertson speech about Movement for Rural Education.
"Some of the problems we Canadians have to face and solve for ourselves are common to all self-governing nations, but others of them are peculiar to us. For instance, there are special problems due to our youth; to our size; to the character, vastness and potential values of our undeveloped resources; and to the large amount of foreign blood pouring into our citizenship. The large inflow of foreigners who come to mix with our people adds difficulties to the ordinary problems of agriculture and education. These people bring in not merely different methods of doing things but different social standards and ideals. The traditions they have inherited, the conditions under which they have been brought up, their outlook on life, these are all different from ours. For our safety and their welfare it is necessary that these people should be educated, so led and so guided by competent leaders that they will be inclined to live on the land and not to herd to the cities; that they will be able to live on the land with profit and contentment to themselves and thus join our own people in making our civilization progressive and wholesome for the whole of us.
CIHM Document
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