1763 And All That (A Creative Interpretation of Canadian History)

1763 AndAll That (A Creative Interpretation ofCanadian History) A. I. SILVER Just imagine! There really are people who complain that today's students are dull and uninteresting . They can't seem to find any spark of life in them at all. Tedious, career-obsessed pluggers , they call them, who (to make mattters worse) don't even know how to read and write properly. Why, it's enough to make some professors long for the sixties, when the sit-ins may have been noisy and disruptive but the students at least showed signs of life. Were ever teachers so badly mistaken in their judgements? Were ever students so badly under-valued? My tenure to a beggarly assistantship , our students today have more wit in their pensthan ever a class showed in the past. And how could it be otherwise? Remember the sixties, remember: the greatest age in the history of school reform, when all the confining, restraining, stifling influences of grammar, spelling and multiplication tables were done away with, and pupils were made to breathe freely the pure air of creativity and self-expression. And now- now as we receive the graduates of the open classroom, the reformed, non-competitive, geared-to-the-individual, innovative , teach-'em-how-to-think school system - is it really possible that our students have become duller than in the past? Pish tush! The fault, dear colleagues, is not in our students, but in ourselves that we are unable to appreciate them. It must be; for after all, we have seen it reported in black and white that 2,550 professors are to be fired from Ontario universities in. the next few years, but no one has suggested the firing of 2,550 students. It is evident, therefore, that the students have virtues which we have not rightly valued. And I am going to suggest that it is precisely the virtues of originality, novelty, creativity and spontaneity 118 that shine most brightly in students' work, though markers' eyes seem strangely blind to them. To demonstrate the truth of this contention, and therein the great success of the new reformed school system in instilling the very talents which have been its aim, I propose to put before you a history of Canada created by students over the past several years. Here it is, in the students' own words. I have merely put together the various passages which I and some of my colleagues have found in the essays and exams of many young people on many occasions. And I am convinced that anyone with an eye to see and an unprejudiced mind to judge will acknowledge and appreciate the innovative character, the extraordinary originality, the bold and exciting creativity of the interpretation which emerges. * * * History bears witness that in the early days of this country, New France was owned by the French. It was populated by a strong breed of individuals who, even though paternally ruptured, were able to further develop and defend their entire socio-cultural background. Life was not easy for the habitants of New France. They were forced to pay heavy taxes into the coiffures of Louis XIV. Seigneurs secured large tracts of land and paid scant or no wages to the pheasants who worked them. Nevertheless, they could get up and head into the woods any time for a sense of adventure and voyeurism as the coeurs de boisdid. New France was a very religious society. In the convents, nuns were kept up so late with their work that they were late for matings. Eventually came attacks of militia men from Massetussets who were a surplus from the American war situation. This led to the British conquest of Canada and the decapitation of the merchants. Governor Murray was instructed to assimilate the French Canadians, but he developed a profound likeness of them. After that, Murray concentrated on leaving well enough alone. Nevertheless , Brunet believes in the decapitulation of the upper class elite due to massive emigration after the Conquest. This flight of elites was the Revue d'etudes canadiennes Vol. 15, No. I (Printemps 1980Spring) most damnating result of the conquest. The habitants, 1760-63, were happy with the British military occupation, since...