Newfoundland Culture:
Art, Education, Literature, Journalism and Music
in Newfoundland, 1497-1949

 

Art in Newfoundland

 

St. John's has had two art societies, one of them still active. There are dozens of dabblers and hundreds go to see their exhibitions; but the lack of an art school, of commercial studios and of a public gallery or any proper place to hang pictures has hindered the development of painting beyond the dabbling stage.

The same generalization may be drawn concerning sculpture. The national war memorial on King's Beach, where Sir Humphrey Gilbert is supposed to have taken possession of the island for Britain in 1583, is the work of two Englishmen, F. V. Blunderstone and Gilbert Bayes. The statue of "The Fighting Newfoundlander" in Bowring park is the work of another outsider, Basil Gotto, and the "Peter Pan" is of course the Peter Pan of Kensington Gardens. The bronze profile on the memorial shaft to Capt. "Bob" Bartlett at Brigus was modelled by J. R. Ewing, a St. John's furrier who was the last president of the Newfoundland Society of Art. Mr. Ewing disclaims any right to call himself a sculptor, though the relief is recognized as a good likeness of the famous mariner and the monument is impressive in its native simplicity and dignity.

Fifty years ago, the Ladies' Reading Room and Current Events Club, later called the Old Colony Club, came into existence. At the end of the first war, its energies spent on campaigning for women's suffrage and on war work, it languished. In order to revive interest and raise funds, its president, Mrs. McNeil, organized an art exhibition, the first to be held in St. John's since the annual shows given by the pupils of a teacher named Nicholls twenty years before. The exhibitors were amateur painters: Mrs. McNeil herself, Mrs. William Gilbert Gosling, whose husband was at one time mayor of the city and whose monument is the Gosling Memorial Library, and A. E. Harris, manager of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company at Grand Falls. A painter of more than ordinary interest was Miss Gwen Mewx (now Mrs. Waldrop of Colorado) who introduced the public to cubism.

With .the formation of the Newfoundland Society of Art, there was a spurt of activity. Exhibitions were sent to eastern Canada, through the co-operation of Elizabeth Nutt, and a group of pictures was shipped to the Imperial Institute at Kensington. After some years of usefulness, the society over-reached itself in an ambitious project having more to do with patriotism than art, and collapsed. It commissioned a Newfoundland painter named John Vincent, living abroad, to paint a portrait of His Majesty King George V. The portrait was exhibited and reproductions were sold throughout the island, but the society could not meet its obligations. There is a move to revive the Newfoundland Society of Art. Meanwhile, it has been succeeded by the St. John's Art Club, founded in 1940 by Mrs. A. C. Hunter. The club, which is a loosely knit organization, without a constitution, has forty active members and eighty associates. Monthly meetings in the homes of members are given over to illustrated talks and discussions. Mrs. Hunter conducts an art appreciation group and Miss Sadie Organ is president. The club has a circulating library of art books, and pictures are lent to the members without payment of rent. Two exhibitions are sponsored by the club each year: one is of reproductions, from Mrs. Hunter's private collection; the other is of original painting by native Newfoundlanders and visiting painters who are always invited to become members. During World War II the club organized an exhibition of the work of men in the armed services, and the annual shows usually contain contributions from the American bases still in Newfoundland. The public exhibitions are held in the Memorial University College, in the Queen's College Library and in the Memorial College Annex. One of the most successful was hung in the windows of a departmental store on Water Street. Due to the war and to lack of facilities and funds, exhibitions from outside the province have been infrequent.

Teachers in training at the Memorial University College are given instruction in methods of teaching drawing and painting in the public schools, and lectures in art appreciation are given regularly, the College's Carnegie art reference set being drawn upon for the purpose. Memorial College has not attempted to go further, and while St. John's has had a few private teachers, themselves amateurs, the lack of an art school has been a serious disability. In the fall of 1949, however, Reginald Shepherd and his wife Helen Parsons, both accomplished artists, opened a school known as the Newfoundland Academy of Art.
 
 

Education in Newfoundland

In an attempt to establish higher education, in the autumn of 1798 a plan was formed in St. John's to institute there a grammar school for children of both sexes, on a liberal scale. About twenty-five of the principal merchants and inhabitants agreed to contribute certain sums to make up a salary for the principal, and the various branches to be taught were specified. In June 1799, the Rev. Lewis Amadeus Anspach, clergyman of the Church of England, was engaged as principal, together with a female assistant for girls and a male assistant for boys. He arrived from England with his family and assistants on October 13, 1799, and found himself involved immediately in local dissensions, even court proceedings. He won his case, however, put in his three years, and was transferred in 1802 to Harbour Grace by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.Thus far did educational effort go in the eighteenth century.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century the church and education were not far advanced. Methodism in Newfoundland was represented by one lone clergyman stationed at Carbonear, while in 1807, on his first Episcopal visit to the island, Bishop Stanser of Nova Scotia found that a total of five clergymen and seven schoolmasters formed the Church of England missionary staff. The island's population at this time was 26,500. At the same time in St. John's there was St. John's Charity School and another such school opened by the North American School Society. To these institutions the Protestant minister subscribed as did the Roman Catholic priest; and the Catholic merchant, as did the Anglican governor. The Rev. James Louis O'Donel, appointed prefect-apostolic in 1784, was succeeded by the Right Rev. Patrick Lambert in 1807, the year after the formation of the Benevolent Irish Society with which both were associated. Though nondenominational in character at its inception, the Society soon became Catholic in practice. Its object was two-fold: charity and education. Under its auspices  schools were opened, notably the Orphan Asylum in 1827, and the children in attendance, numbering 400-600, were instructed in the three R's. These schools were open to all denominations and enjoyed public confidence because they were based on non-denominational principles.

The schools of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel were succeeded by those of the Colonial and Continental Church Society, which took its rise from an interesting incident. Samuel Codner, whose connection with the colony of Newfoundland began in 1788 and continued till 1844, was returning to his Devonshire home in the autumn of 1821 when a great storm arose which threatened to engulf his vessel. In his extremity he registered a vow that if his life were spared he would do something to help the country in which he had made his fortune. Later in the same year, at a meeting in Margate, he heard a speech by Lord Liverpool, then prime minister of England, which dwelt upon Great Britain's responsibility for the religious education of her colonies. Deeply impressed with a sense of his responsibility, and moreover recalling his vow, Mr. Codner determined to found a society for educating the poor in the country to which he himself owed so much.

On June 30, 1823, therefore, at a meeting held in the London Coffee House, a "Society for educating the poor of Newfoundland" was formed and was the beginning of a common school education for the children of Newfoundland. The population of the island now numbered 75,000. Mr. Codner canvassed all places in Great Britain and Ireland connected with the Newfoundland trade, and enlisted the sympathy of the religious and benevolent. The Liverpool branch had, as its chairman, Sir John Gladstone, father of the great statesman. The imperial government, through Lord Liverpool's influence, contributed £500 for building a central school in St. John's, £100 annually for its first master, free passage for all its teachers, and grants of land for schools in all parts of the island. The first teachers arrived in August 1824, and on September 20 a school was opened in St. John's, to which the poor of all denominations were invited to send their children. These teachers had received their training at the National Society's training school, Baldwin's Gardens, London. The system was monitorial, after the model of Dr. Bell of Madras fame. By 1842 the Society had sixty schools in operation and an attendance of about 3,500 scholars, and since 1824 some 12,000 scholars had passed through the schools.

By 1842 these schools had begun to decline, but they were reorganized by the venerable Aubrey George Spencer, the first Anglican bishop of Newfoundland (1839-44). Also, with the aid of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the bishop established a theological institution in St. John's, originated and revived Sunday schools, increased the number of clergymen to twenty-five with lay readers, with school masters under them. His successor, the Right Rev. Edward Field who carried on the work with great zeal and devotion, had the central school in St. John's reorganized in 1855 as a teacher-training school, under the principalship of J. W. Marriott, formerly master of a model school at Halifax, Yorkshire, and in 1882 there were sixty teachers in training. He enlarged the theological institution, established seminaries for boys and for girls, and founded orphanages and many other institutions. Bishop Field was a strong denominationalist. His contemporary, John Mullock, the Roman Catholic bishop, was also an outspoken advocate of denominational education, and the two powerful prelates contributed at this point to the rising tide of denominationalism.

The state now entered the picture. In 1832 a representative government was granted to Newfoundland and in 1836 the assembly passed its first Education Act. The committee appointed to consider the situation, and to make suggestions, recommended that "since the voluntary system works advantageously, assistance be given by the legislature to the several societies who direct the gratuitous education of the poor classes; and according as means of the country will permit, and the growing intelligence of the people require, it is their desire that grammar schools be instituted and schools even of a higher order to succeed them" (W. Pilot in appendix to London Board of Education, Special reports on . Newfoundland, 1901).

By this Act the island was divided into nine educational districts, and school boards were appointed to administer the appropriations. The first grant made in 1836 was £2,100, and out of it £300 were paid to the Newfoundland School Society, £300 to the Roman Catholics towards schools then established, and £1,500 for elementary schools under the school boards. The books prescribed for use were the Irish national school series to the exclusion of all of a distinctly denominational character, and the Bible, as a text-book, was used in all schools. This latter provision created much dissatisfaction among Roman Catholics; an agitation was set on foot for a division of the grant, and the trend towards denominationalism was accelerated.

In 1843 a further Act was passed by the assembly recognizing the principle contended for by the Roman Catholics, and a grant of £5,100 then voted was divided equally between Roman Catholics and Protestants; an inspector of schools was appointed, and fees were made compulsory for the first time. In 1844 £3,000 were appropriated by the legislature to establish a nondenominational academy. It was opened in 1846 and never had more than eighteen or twenty pupils. It proved unsatisfactory, and an amending Act was passed in 1850 providing for three academies. Section 4 of the Act reads, "There shall be granted £250 to defray salary for a Roman Catholic master, £200 to defray salary for a Church of England master, £150 to defray salary for masters, one or more, for other Protestant denominations." In his Ecclesiastical history of Newfoundland Bishop Howley comments, "In 1858 the current of denominationalism made another rush onward and we find the Protestant branch dividing and throwing out another stream, namely, the 'Wesleyan Methodists'. By this time that important and rapidly increasing denomination had so far advanced as to demand a separate academy which was accordingly granted by an Act passed 10th May 1858 by which it is enacted, 'There shall be established in St. John's a Wesleyan Academy'." By this Act the salaries ranged as follows: Roman Catholics £600, Church of England £400, Wesleyan Methodists £200, other Protestants £150. Also £750 were allocated for the training of teachers, further amounts of £200 for a Roman Catholic inspector of schools, £200 for a Protestant inspector, and £1,000 for commercial schools.

In this way the state recognized and implemented the denominational trend in education. By the Act of 1874 the system was rendered completely denominational and provided for separate denominational schools, which, however, should be public schools and restricted only by a conscience clause. This system came into practical use in 1875 and three inspectors of schools were appointed, one for each leading denomination. In 1875 Christian Brothers of Ireland came to St. John's and since that date have taken care of all Catholic boys' schools in St. John's, including St. Bonaventure's College (high school). Well-trained, zealous, and full of devotion, the Christian Brothers contributed their quota to the cause of education; the same may be said of the Presentation nuns, who were introduced in 1833 to offer elementary education, and of the Sisters of Mercy who came in 1842 to establish more advanced schools culminating in St. Bride's College.

After the Act of 1874, the next important educational event was the inception of the Council of Higher Education. For twenty years the several denominations had pursued their own several courses in their own several ways. In 1893 certain of the principal educationalists in St. John's conceived the idea of meeting to discuss and plan more uniform courses for all, and thus was the Council of Higher Education called into being by an Act of the legislature in May, 1893. In the terms of the Act its object was "To promote sound learning, and to advance the interests of higher education by holding examinations and by awarding diplomas, prizes, and scholarships to successful candidates for such examinations." The Council of Higher Education system carried on without interruption from 1894 to 1934, when it experienced some modification. That the system achieved its object cannot be denied. It generated interest, co-ordinated the work of all educational groups, and directly stimulated higher education.

Higher education 

 

A substantial advance towards the university level constituted the next step. In 1925 a junior college was organized in St. John's, known as the Memorial University College. One of the first Acts of the first provincial legislature in the July-August session of 1949 was to raise the status of the college to a degree-conferring institution.

Teacher-trainingdates from 1851, when Wesleyans formed the Newfoundland School Society and opened, in 1852, the Wesleyan Normal Day School in St. John's. For teachers of the Church of England schools there was available after 1855 the central school in St. John's, reorganized in that year as a teacher-training centre under Mr. J. W. Marriott. This institution continued until 1901. In 1858 the government grant of £750 for the training of teachers, and in 1874 the appointment of denominational inspectors, further promoted this important aspect of education. In 1910 a normal school was established in St. John's by the Church of England, under the principalship of Arthur Barnes, and continued for some years. Summer schools for teachers were held in St. John's at irregular intervals from 1917 onwards. In 1921 the first non-denominational normal school was initiated with S. P. Whiteway as principal. It was discontinued in 1932 because of the general economic dislocation affecting educational grants, and was reorganized in 1934 as a department of the Memorial University College. Summer schools in which both teachers and academic students may continue their professional training are now a regular annual feature of the College, and are well attended.

More recent movements within the larger educational scheme are the introduction of kindergarten, adult education including visual education, and vocational education. The Kindergarten School was introduced by a lady teacher from Truro Normal School in 1894, and the first manual training school was opened in St. John's by a teacher from the same school in 1903. These branches of education are functioning today in St. John's, and in a few other centres. The adult education movement dates from 1929; Dr. Albert Mansbridge visited Newfoundland under the authority of the department of education, and as a result of his visit the Adult Education Association was then formed. Visual education, yet in its infancy, is associated with adult education, and while many settlements are visited by Film Board units, progress here is slow because of geographical difficulties. Vocational training had its beginning with ex-service men after World War I, and continued for two or three years. After World War II, the Vocational Institute in St. John's was set up again in the interests of ex-service men, and appears to be developing into a permanent vocational school. A northern outpost of education deserves at least passing mention: the achievements of the institutions initiated by Dr. Wilder Greenfly in arts, crafts, manual training, gardening, cattle and hog raising, and much else, carried on at St. Anthony in northern Newfoundland, for the past forty years, are unique.

From time to time education in Newfoundland has taken stock of itself deliberately towards effecting desirable change. In the summer of 1933 one of the last Acts of the then responsible government was to invite C. A. Richard­son, inspector for Lancastershire, England, to come to St. John's and make an investigation of the system of education. He reported his findings and made his recommendations on October 18, 1933, in Certain aspects of the educational system of Newfoundland. It was his opinion that Newfoundland education centred in its examination system rather than in the individual child and he outlined a workable, individualized, more freely expressive curriculum.

On the same date that Mr. Richardson's report was issued, the governor-in-council appointed principals of St. John's high schools, along with other educators and laymen "to consider the present curriculum of the public schools in Newfoundland and to make recommendations in connection therewith."

The committee held sixty-four meetings during seven months and reported on May 19, 1934, in The report of the commission of enquiry into the present curriculum of the colleges and schools in Newfoundland. The report advocated eliminating examinations in grades six to ten inclusive, and following the lines of the then newly issued curriculum of Nova Scotia. This policy has since been pursued, and a board of examiners common to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia sets and marks the papers of grades eleven and twelve.

Much has been written concerning education in Newfoundland. The histories of D. W. Prowse [See his History of Newfoundland], M. F. Howley, L. A. Anspach, and others, deal with various aspects of the subject. Material of primary importance may be found in the annual reports of the Newfoundland Department of Education, Council of Higher Education, and Memorial University College. Additional information may be found in G. Bolt, The Codner centenary (c. 1923); Newfoundland and British North American Soc., Proceedings (23rd report, London, 1846); Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary volume (Cork, c. 1906); V. P. Burke, Education in Newfoundland in J R. Smallwood (ed.), Book of Newfoundland (St. John's, 1937); W. F. Grenfell, Forty years for Labrador (Boston, c. 1910) and A Labrador doctor (London, 1924); T. Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland (London, 1939); C. M. Coleman, School in Newfoundland (Empire Rev., 1941); Canada and Newfoundland education association, Trends in education, 1944, a survey;R. A. MacKay (ed.), Newfoundland: economic, diplomatic, and strategic studies (Toronto, 1946); G. A. Frecker, Education in Newfoundland (Atlantic Guardian, 1945).

Journalism in Newfoundland

The circumstances in which Mr. Ryan desired to launch his newspaper are well described in an article by J. W. Withers, its editor in 1907 when its centenary was celebrated: "At that time neither house nor chimney nor barn was allowed to be erected, nor any business other than fishing business permitted without the sanction of the governor, and a newspaper was looked upon as a sort of dangerous innovation, a nidus of explosiveness, and a possible menace to the good order of the community or worse still, even to the peace of the world." The governor was monarch of all he surveyed and, while graciously willing to permit Mr. Ryan to start his paper, was careful to impose upon him restrictions of a kind that today would be found wholly intolerable. In an imposing official document, issued under the hand and seal of Sir Erasmus Gower, permission was granted John Ryan, who had been recommended as a person of good and respectable character, "to establish a printing office in St. John's and publish a weekly paper to be entitled The Royal Gazette and Newfoundland Advertiser, provided that he will give bond in the court of sessions for two hundred pounds sterling, with good securities, that previous to the printing of each number of the said paper he shall submit the perusal of the proposed contents thereof to the Magistrates in the said court of sessions and not insert in the said paper any matter which in the opinion of the governor for the time being may tend to disturb the peace of His Majesty's subjects. But in order to avoid as much as possible the crowding of the Lower Path (one of the two streets of St. John's at that time) with persons not immediately concerned in the fishery or trade, I cannot allow him to occupy any house below the Upper Path for his intended purposes:"

Undaunted by the circumscriptions imposed in this warrant, Mr. Ryan brought his type, press, and paper stock from New Brunswick and, on August 27, 1807, supplied the 6,000 residents of St. John's with copies of the first newspaper ever to be printed and published in the colony. The present Royal Gazette is issued from the office of the king's printer and has long ceased to be a newspaper in the broad sense of that term.

Although the first newspaper ever to be printed and published in Newfoundland has had a continuous existence for more than 140 years, the history of journalism in the island is chiefly the story of many failures. Weekly newspapers were issued from time to time either to serve the interests of political groups or to constitute a platform for articulate men with ideas and opinions which other journals of the time would not print. News was of less importance to them than opinion and they were published in times of bitter controversy involving such issues as the grant of representative government, the exaltation of Newfoundland to the ranks of the self-governing colonies, the dispute over French fishing rights which persisted into the twentieth century, the construction of the trans-nsular railway, and many other matters intimately related with the story of a struggling populace in a sparsely-settled and relatively poor country. The conflicts of the early nineteenth century found reflection in violent opinions in the newspapers and one of the most celebrated of Newfoundland journalists in the middle of the last century, Henry Winton, was set upon by a masked gang and suffered the loss of his ears. In format these weekly newspapers which flourished briefly on the Newfoundland scene were comparable to the London papers of the time, and much space was devoted to poetry in the classical style and to articles of considerable erudition. News came by mail and the dateline bore the name of the vessel which brought it to St. John's.

Daily journalism began in Newfoundland with the founding of the Evening Telegram in 1879 by W. J. Herder. This newspaper, like the Daily News, a morning paper, founded in 1894 by J. Alexander Robinson, has had a progressive history. These two are the only daily newspapers now [that is in 1949; for a brief description of the newspapers of Newfoundland, consult this page.] published in Newfoundland. Their mechanical equipment is completely modern, including photo-engraving departments, and they are now equipped with teletypes which take the service of the Canadian Press. They are the sole survivors of many experiments in daily journalism and as recently as thirty years ago St. John's supported no fewer than four evening and three morning papers, five of them becoming casualties of the 1930 depression.

Besides the two daily newspapers published in St. John's, Newfoundland has a number of weekly newspapers, two printed in the capital and others serving local areas, among them the two paper-making centres of Grand Falls and Corner Brook.

The promotion of circulation in Newfoundland has been impeded by the dispersal of the population and the lack of means of rapid communication. Since the development of highroad networks in the peninsula of Avalon, which has about one-third of the total population, the St. John's daily newspapers have been distributed by motor van over long distances, and there is a daily service by truck and ferry to Bell island. With the establishment of daily railway service across the country, circulation of both newspapers has been increased also in the industrial towns of the interior and the west coast. Both newspapers in St. John's have many mail subscribers, some of whom live no more than 154 miles from the capital as the plane flies but receive mail only once a week and sometimes not so often. The completion of the Newfoundland section of the trans-Canada highway is expected to facilitate the distribution of the daily newspapers from coast to coast.

The student of newspaper history in Newfoundland is sadly handicapped by the fact that two great fires in St. John's destroyed official files of many of the journals published in the nineteenth century. Few bound volumes of any of the many weeklies printed in the most stirring period of the island's development are to be found, and people with personal recollections of the most colourful days of Newfoundland journalism left no written records from which a connected history could be derived.

Literature of Newfoundland

 

The voyages of Cabot, several centuries after those of Lief Ericsson, Thorfinn Karlsefne and others, produced another spate of romantic history. Merchants and ambassadors like Pasqualigo and Raimondo di Soncino in England wrote home to Italian courts that wonderful discoveries had been made. The Portuguese soon came on the scene, and Joao Fernandes, a husbandman (lavrador, from which the name of Labrador may have been derived), and Gaspar Cortereal returned with chronicles for the king's account books. Quickening French interest sent Jacques Cartier in 1534 to a landfall at Cape Bonavista, a partial circumnavigation of the island, and a voyage of discovery in the St. Lawrence.

In the meantime the first account of John Cabot's discovery was published (1515) in the Decades of Peter Martyr, and from the pens of adventurers came a stream of correspondence about the potentialities of the new found land and the results of expeditions along its unknown coasts. Notable among accounts of this kind were Anthony Parkhurst's voyage and description of the country in 1578, and the account of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's ill-fated expedition, as related by his chronicler Hayes, in 1583.

To this point, the literature of the island amounted only to the observations of transients. The dawn of the new century, the seventeenth, lit the pages of the first creative literature in Newfoundland, as patentees and colonizers became their own press-agents in an effort to attract investors and settlers. Thus appeared the Golden fleece of William Vaughan, an idealized tourist brochure (1626), and Sir Richard Whitbourne's Discourse of Newfoundland (1620), a more hard-headed approach to the subject, though it is celebrated for a description of an encounter with a mermaid! In 1628, Robert Hayman, who succeeded Mason as governor of the colony which included Harbour Grace where Hayman resided, published the first poetry composed in the island, Quodlibets, lately come over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland.

This rather happy state of letters and colonies soon ended. After 1650 the literature to encourage settlement was replaced by its very opposite.

Literary production during a long period, 1650 to 1800, consisted of a series of documents by naval officers who agreed with the view, held in higher circles, that Newfoundland should exist not as a colony, but only as a summer fishing-station. Still, the colony survived and grew, restrictions on settlement were gradually removed, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the era of the political pamphleteer and the scholarly churchman had arrived.

In 1807 the first newspaper, the Royal Gazette and Newfoundland Advertiser, was issued. From 1800 to 1830 agitation grew and demands were increased for representative government which had been enjoyed by other colonies for a half-century; chief amongst agitators were Dr. William Carson, a Scot, and Patrick Morris, an Irishman, whose pamphlets were classics of their kind.

Bishops, priests, and ministers made their own contributions to Newfoundland letters: personal diaries, narratives of visitations, histories, sermons, poems. Archdeacon Wix, Bishop Fleming, Bishop Field, and Bishop Mullock, left records of early missionary endeavours on the island. The Rev. Charles Pedley, Rev. Moses Harvey, Rev. Louis Anspach, Rev. Philip Tocque, and Archbishop Howley, delved into the history and folklore of Newfoundland. Tocque's Wandering thoughts and Howley's Newfoundland namelore (Newfoundland Quarterly, 1901-14), are repositories of Newfoundlandiana. Archbishop Howley, poet and historian, the first native prelate of any denomination in Newfoundland, ranks high on the roster of Newfoundland authors; his Poems and other verses (New York, 1903) and Ecclesiastical history (Boston, 1888) are literary landmarks.

In 1822 W. E. Cormack, anxious to explore the interior and to locate the remnants of the Beothuks, the aboriginal Indian tribe of Newfoundland, walked from the east coast to the west, and the narrative of his journey is a monument to the man's vigour, determination, and scholarship. Its sequel and complement came about twenty years later, written by J. B. Jukes, first geological surveyor for the government. Jukes's two-volume Excursions in Newfoundland does for the coast what Cormack's narrative did for the interior, and the chapters on his trip to the seal-fishery in 1840 are the earliest eye-witness account of that industry set down with erudition and discernment. Successors to Cormack and Jukes were geologists Alexander Murray and James P. Howley who performed the greatest labour of love in Newfoundland literary history and after forty years published, in 1914, his definitive work on the hapless Beothuks.

Outside interest in Newfoundland was quickened when the laying of the Atlantic cable focused world attention on the western terminus of the celebrated attempts of 1858 and 1866. Newspaper correspondents and officials of the venturepublished volumes on the accomplishment, amongst them History of the Atlantic telegraph, 1866 by H. M. Field; and early telegraph and cable history in the island even resulted in a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The dean of Newfoundland historians, judge D. W. Prowse, published his History of Newfoundland in 1895. It was more than history: it was a compendium of fact, anecdote, document, legend, and strong opinion, with voluminous appendices which included bibliographies and census returns. The second edition was considerably trimmed, but still, despite its obvious defects as a history, Prowse's work remains the definitive history. One of the most concise and sympathetic surveys is Newfoundland (1911) by J. D. Rogers, in the fifth volume of the Historical geography of the British colonies. More recent histories of the island are mostly text-books for junior grades. An exception is Newfoundland: economic, diplomatic, and strategic studies (Toronto, 1946), edited by R. A. MacKay. Other volumes dealing with special periods or aspects of special note are The cod fisheries (1940) by H. A. Innis, and The establishment of constitutional government in Newfoundland, 1783-I832(1941), by A. H. McLintock.

Beginning about 1870, there grew up a body of literature in which Newfoundland was presented as a sportsman's playground. A few names and titles will give the necessary clues to those who wish to investigate further: A. Radclyffe Dugmore, J. C. Millais, and H. H. Pritchard were hunters, artists, and explorers whose books, sketches, and photographs could have been used to advantage by the colonizers of the early seventeenth century. Dugmore's Romance of the Newfoundland caribou (1913), and Newfoundland and its untrodden ways (1907), by Millais, are books of distinction, hills amongst an almost unbroken series of literary knolls.

In the meantime, newspapers had increased in number and size, and a succession of short-lived periodicals began to stimulate the literary talents of citizens who had a literary flair. These periodicals were as numerous as the leaves of summer and faded as quickly; more often than not their existence paralleled the seasonal cycle: they blossomed forth in spring and withered in the autumn or the winter. However, extant copies show what impetus they gave to writing generally, and the connoisseur and the researcher find them a veritable treasure-house. Hardiest of this fragile family is the Newfoundland Quarterly, now in its forty-ninth year; anyone interested in Newfoundland literature cannot ignore its almost two hundred numbers.

Archbishop Howley was the first native Newfoundland poet, and Dr. E. J. Pratt is certainly the greatest. His work and his career are now a part of the Canadian scene, and with the exception of Newfoundland verse, his work is not related specifically to his native province. Several volumes of poetry by other Newfoundland writers have been published. Authors who deserve more than a passing share of attention are Florence Miller, Jack Turner, R. G. MacDonald, and Dan Carroll, though the poems of Dan Carroll have never been published outside of the little magazines. The only literary award offered in Newfoundland, the "O'Leary Newfoundland Poetry Award", now in its sixth year, has generated much interest and a great amount of writing, and is serving to introduce the work of younger poets.

Fiction is only in its birth-pangs, as far as the native writers are concerned, and the short story has barely been conceived as a form for Newfoundland expression. Until quite recently, the only fiction produced came from the pens of outsiders such as Norman Duncan, Dillon Wallace, and Theodore Roberts. Roberts' The harbour master is as good a portrayal as there has been of the elemental life of Newfoundland fisherman of a century ago. For a study in erudition, poorly mingled with a tale of adventure, Ogygia, by Arthur English, a native, may be singled out.The most successful native writer of fiction is the contemporary Margaret Duley whose Cold pastoral and Highway to valour are first-class examples of what can be done and are a portent of greater heights yet to be scaled.

Besides those anecdotes and bits of folklore which are basic ingredients of poetry and fiction, are some which have been published in collections: P. K. Devine's Ye olde St. John's; Old King's Cove,and his collections of Newfoundland words and phrases are priceless deposits of a contemporary nonagenerian's recollections. Students of folk-songs and music are indebted to two American women, Elizabeth Greenleaf and Grace Mansfield, whose Ballads and sea-songs of Newfoundland (1933) is a result of their painstaking and sympathetic recording of old Newfoundland airs and lyrics sung for them during their travels.

The Gosling Memorial Library in St. John's has, in one section, nearly 500 volumes dealing with Newfoundland and Labrador, many of them out of print, some of them centuries old. There are perhaps 100 more that the librarian would like to have. [Consult the excellent discussion entitled Towards a History of the Book in Newfoundland written by William Barker and Sandra Hannaford] 

Labrador literature 

Inevitably this followed the general pattern of Newfoundland literature: first came the explorers, then the missionaries; then the sportsmen, and finally the professional writers. The early explorers who wrote of Newfoundland wrote also of Labrador, which they could not help visiting. The first missionaries were the Moravians in the mid-eighteenth century, and The fall of Yorngak (1905) by J. W. Davy, and the History of the Moravian Church (London, 1901) by J. T. Hamilton, include something of what these pioneers had to sayof the "land that God gave Cain". Then, in 1770, came Capt. George Cartwright, an English army officer, whose name is perpetuated in the settlement of Cartwright and whose Journal of transactions and events during a residence of nearly sixteen years on the coast of Labrador was published in 1792.

Some keen explorers followed the missionaries of the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist churches in the early part of the last century; literature was not produced by them, but by their biographers and successors, half a century later. Thus we have Father Browne's Where the fishers go (1909), and Through trackless Labrador, by H. H. Prichard, (1911). About this time, Americans seeking new worlds to discover went "down North", and Elbert Hubbard and others added to the store of Labradoriana.

Norman Duncan and Dillon Wallace found plenty of exciting action here for their books for boys, and "Doctor Luke" and "Billy Topsail" and the "Ragged Inlet Guards" became household characters. On the scene too was the real-life "Doctor Luke", Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell, who in addition to performing his ministrations, found time to add a dozen or more volumes to the growing library on the Labrador peninsula. The most recent addition to the list is V. Tanner's Outlines of the geography, life and customs of Newfoundland-Labrador (1947), which contains an extensive bibliography.

Music in Newfoundland

 

The tunes of some of these folk songs are original, but some are borrowed from the folk music of the British Isles, with the words changed to fit the occasion. At weddings and social functions, songs belonging to the locality are sung by the guests, or by one special guest. Often the words of these songs are extemporary and allude to incidents in the life of that particular outport. An important collection is that made by E. B. Greenleaf, Ballads and sea songs of Newfoundland (Cambridge, 1933), with music recorded by G. Y. Mansfield. A modern song writer who has caught the spirit of the old Newfoundland folk song is A. R. Scammell, with his "Squidjiggin' Ground."

In many outports the old square dances are still much in favour; these are often of a difficult and intricate pattern, and great agility is necessary if one is to dance them well. In the early days, if there were a violinist in the community, he would play the tunes for these dances, or setts, as they were called; but if no fiddler was available the melody was sung by one of the party, who would often improvise words to fit the tune. This was called "chin music", and it still exists in the isolated settlements. Often the tune singer accompanies the song by stamping out the time with his feet. In some settlements, at Christmas, the practice of mumming still exists; young people in masks and costumes go from house to house singing, dancing, and making fun in all kinds of ways, and a tune singer accompanies the mummers in order to supply the dance music.

At one time the concertina and the accordion, and later the guitar, had to some extent taken the place of the fiddle and the "chin music", but at present the fiddle seems to be returning to favour. Radio has played its part in introducing modern dance tunes to the outports. In the larger centres, community concerts are promoting an interest in classical music.

Source: Robert AYRE, "Art", Solomon P. WHITEWAY, "Education", A. B. PERLIN, "Journalism", Michael F. HARRINGTON, "Literature", and Marguerite JENNINGS, "Music", in W. Stewart WALLACE, The Encyclopedia of Canada. Newfoundland Supplement, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1949, 104p., pp. 3-4, 17-22, 57-59, 69-72, 81.