‘The Song of a People’: Sir Robert Falconer on Empire

'The Song ofa People': Sir Robert Falconer on Empire JAMES G. GREENLEE As the result of a decade or more of intense historiographical revision, the complexity of Canadian imperial thought is now more fully appreciated. We have been liberated from the tendency to envisage a simple clash between nationalistic sentiment on the one hand and imperial loyalty on the other. Instead, a variety of new and more flexible models have been suggested in place of an older and less sophisticated framework of thought. Thus, some have alleged that imperialism was merely a subtle form of emerging Canadian nationalism. 1 Accentuating the imperial side of this equation, others have maintained that a larger "Britannic" nationalism was the dominant strain in Canadian thinking.2 More recently, it has been argued that, for some Canadians at least, the Empire was never viewed as an end in itself, but merely as a vehicle for the promotion of certain moral and spiritual ideals closely identified with Anglo-Saxon culture and summed up in the term "Britannic Idealism."3 As the process of re-definition and re-classification goes on, a growing number of individuals, who in the past contributed to Canadian imperial thought, are being re-evaluated in the light of these new conceptions. In view of this growth of general interest in the subject, it is curious to note the lack of attention devoted to Sir Robert Falconer, who in his own generation was recognized as one of the foremost Canadian exponents of the imperial idea. Wellconnected in imperial circles at home and abroad, Falconer was a man of considerable influence in the academic world. Throughout his long career as president of the University of Toronto from 1907 to 1932, he found time to foster his vision of empire by means of both words and deeds. 80 He assumed an active role in the promotion of the Round Table and scores of other movements designed to bolster the imperial tie. Falconer also engaged in a number of schemes aimed at utilizing education as a means of preserving Canada's imperial heritage. Beyond all this, he recorded his thoughts concerning the nature and meaning of the British Empire in a series of books, articles, and public addresses which established him as an important contributor to Canadian imperial theory in his own day and age. Surely, therefore, the time has come to identify and examine Falconer more carefully; to take stock of his ideas and to assign him a more definite place on the historiographical spectrum. In this regard, it might be suggested that he be viewed as a major exponent of the moral, idealistic concept of empire and as one who extended that vision well beyond the First World War. Falconer was of Scottish Presbyterian descent but throughout his life he tended to view himself as a member of a global British community. He was born on Prince Edward Island in 1867, the son and grandson of Presbyterian clergymen whose roots lay in Scotland. His grandfather had married into an old Loyalist family, but it was the Scottish rather than the Loyalist element which captured Falconer's imagination. In later life he wrote that ''I am afraid that I cannot call myself a Loyalist, as the only Loyalist blood I had was on my grandmother's side and threefourths of me are Scotch."4 It was not, however, his ethnic sense but his unwavering faith in the relevance and adaptability of the Christian message which came to be the central fact of Falconer's long and active life. This message he received from his father, the Rev. Alexander Falconer D.D., who also imparted to him a sense of spiritual self-assurance, emotional stability, a love of learning and a warm if somewhat reserved nature. In 1938 Falconer reminisced about his early years and recalled that he was undisturbed by doubts as Christianity was revealed to him more as a way of life than as a body of abstract dogma. "We went regularly to church," he wrote, and for years I listened to the sermons of my father, who happily for me was Revue d'etudes canadiennes Vol. 15, No. I (Printemps 1980 Spring) an...