These changes of course took some years to accomplish, and led to others equally important.  The Provincial Exhibitions have done much to improve the agricultural interests, and have led to better and more productive methods of cultivation than were formerly practiced in the Province.  The farmer gradually became a wealthy and intelligent landowner, proud of his improved flocks and herds, of his fine horses and handsome homestead.  He was able to send his sons to college and his daughters to boarding school, and not uncommonly became an honourable member of the Legislative Council.

While the sons of poor gentlemen have generally lost caste and sunk into useless sots, the children of these honest tillers of the soil have steadily risen to the highest class, and have given to Canada some of her best and wisest legislators.

Men who rest satisfied with the mere accident of birth for their claims to distinction, without energy and industry to maintain their position in society, are sadly at discount in a country which amply rewards the worker, but leaves the indolent loafer to die in indigence and obscurity.

Honest poverty is encouraged, not despised, in Canada.  Few of her prosperous men have risen from obscurity to affluence without going through the mill, and therefore have a fellow-feeling for those who are struggling to gain the first rung on the ladder.

Men are allowed in this country a freedom enjoyed by few of the more polished countries in Europe—­freedom in religion, politics, and speech; freedom to select their own friends and to visit with whom they please without consulting the Mrs. Grundys of society—­and they can lead a more independent social life than in the mother country, because less restricted by the conventional prejudices that govern older communities.

Few people who have lived many years in Canada and return to England to spend the remainder of their days, accomplish the fact.  They almost invariably come back, and why?  They feel more independent and happier here; they have no idea what a blessed country it is to live in until they go back and realize the want of social freedom.  I have heard this from so many educated people, persons of taste and refinement, that I cannot doubt the truth of their statements.

Forty years has accomplished as great a change in the habits and tastes of the Canadian people as it has in the architecture of their fine cities and the appearance of the country.  A young Canadian gentleman is as well educated as any of his compeers across the big water, and contrasts very favourably with them.  Social and unaffected, he puts on no airs of offensive superiority, but meets a stranger with the courtesy and frankness best calculated to shorten the distance between them and to make his guest feel perfectly at home.