CANADA TO-DAY

Evening Star, Issue 20998, 12 January 1932, Page 7

CANADA TO-DAY

— TREND IN EDUCATION AND RELIGION RETURN OF REV. THOMAS TAIT A brief review of life in Canada today, including a comment on the union of churches recently achieved there, was given to the Christchurch ‘ Press ’ by the Rev, Thomas Tait, M.A., 8.D., lately minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Edmonton, Alberta. Mr Tait, who was minister of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Christchurch, from 1904 until 1914, has returned to his old charge for a month or longer before he proceeds to Sydney. Except for a brief trip some eighteen months ago, Mr Tait has not been in New Zealand since 1914. In many ways Canadian life was not unlike that of Now Zealand or Australia he began. This was the natural consequence of the simple fact that the foundations of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were laid by similar human types from Britain, and types tended to persist in their salient characteristics under different skies. Indeed, it had been frequently remarked that the Scots of Nova Scotia were more Scottish there than in Scotland. _ Two factors affected the Canadian distinctively: the admixture of foreign elements in the population, and the influence of proximity to the United States. West of the Great Lakes, the life and ways of the people were less conventional and restrained than in Ontario, Western Canada bubbled with vitality and enterprise, and offered much to attract men who were not afraid of hard work and sometimes hard conditions. Cities like Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary were throbbing with eager and alert vitality. “ Edmonton—the city in which I have worked for several years—is the capital of Alberta, and is a city of over 75,000 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Provincial Government with its farmer Parliament. It has a university which in point of equipment, particularly in the medical school and in research laboratories, is the envy of visiting professors from the East and also from the Old Land. Its primary and secondary schools also are quite up to date in structure and arrangements. Although cultural values are not neglected, the tendency in education is to accentuate the technical and vocational side of training. “ Like other nations,” continued Mr Tait, “ Canada is feeling keenly the pressure of the problem of unemployment, but she is meeting the situation with an alert adaptability to changing conditions which is characteristic of her people. The spirit of hope prevails everywhere. If a Canadian fails in one line, ho is quick and ready to adopt and pursue another, He does not let the grass grow under his feet. This enterprising attitude affects the very youngest. Independence and self-expression are encouraged by educational methods and stimulated by the environment. Initiative and ambition to rise and succeed are much in evidence; and this is more reassuring for the future of labour than the calculating habit of working merely by the clock,”

UNION OF THE CHURCHES. Tho spirit of enterprise belonged also to tho church. Everything was thought out and wonderfully well organised. There was, of course, a danger in this, for church activities were apt to suffer on the spiritual side by an excessive tendency to mechanise life, But so long as vital interest in the real mission or the church predominated, business methods helped rather than hindered its work and progress. The American habit of trying out fresh suggestions belonged also to Canada. There was less rigidity and considerable resilience and adaptability. Despite the union of churches, consummated in 1925, the Presbyterian Church was growing _by leaps and bounds. Behind its numerical and financial progress there was spiritual vision and vitality made only more intensely real and operative by virtue of the sacrifices entailed by the conditions laid down in connection with union. Instead of the number of church buildings being decreased or held in check by union, many new structures had perforce been erected. Thus union had not been an unqualified economic success, whatever else might be said for it.