VOL. 43, NO. 9 HEAD OFFICE: MONTREAL, OCTOBER 1962

Culture for Everybody

SCIENCE is not the be-all and end-all of life. You mayknow all about the sun and all about the atmosphereand all about the rotation of the earth, and yet missthe radiance of the sunset.

Culture has to do with the less material aspects oflife, like intellectual proficiency and the love ofbeautiful things. It includes knowledge, belief, art,morals, and other attributes acquired by man in theshared existence we call society.

It is false to think of culture as something we seekmerely as a distraction from the workaday world.Neither is it a craving for sensation, a fastidioussearch for strange refinement, or a jealous cultivationof art as a thing preserved for the elite.

Walter Herbert, Director of the Canada Founda-tion, wrote in his essay on "The Cultural Pattern"which he contributed to the United Nations Seriesbook Canada (University of Toronto Press 1950):"The cultural pattern of a nation is a mosaic of manyintricately adjusted parts, touching almost every aspectof the national life." It is, collectively, the sum ofspecial knowledge that accumulates in any largeunited family and is the common property of allits members.

Culture is also an individual thing. Man does notlive by bread alone. He turns from labour to lookinward, examining himself, and outward, speculatingon life and what is beyond life. These thoughts heexpresses through speech and drama, music andballet, painting and sculpture, poetry and literature.These are the things which give us our status ashuman beings.

As has been said before in these Letters, Canadais a country in which 11o one need live meanly exceptby choice.

We had a stock-taking in 1949 to 1951, when theRoyal Commission on National Development in theArts, Letters and Sciences (the Massey Commission)examined us in depth from coast to coast, its reportwent a long way toward convincing us that culture isworth while in both national and individual life. Itssequel, the setting up of a Canada Council for the

Encouragement of the Arts, Humanities and SocialSciences in 1957 gave practical form to the Com-mission’s recommendations.

Culture, as interpreted by these media, is a meansto help people to appreciate the first rate and seek itinstinctively.

Not all things culturally good in other parts of theworld are acceptable in Canada. Lapis lazuli, the deepblue stone which is so beautiful against the sun andthe sand of Egypt, may be a dull, darkish bead underour northern sky.

But we have assembled the vivid and adventurousspirits of many races in an environment favourable tothe creation of a great Canadian culture. There is, asthe Massey Commission said: "an earnest and wide-spread will of our people to enrich and quicken thecultural and intellectual life" of Canada.

Some forms of culture

MUSIC. Darwin claimed that the power of produc-ing and appreciating music existed among

the human race long before the power of speech wasarrived at. Shakespeare, when he had to express theinexpressible, laid down his pen and called for music.And Friedrich Nietzsche, author of the creed of thesuperman, wrote in 1910: "Without music, life wouldbe a mistake."

During one season alone, eight Canadian singerssang leading roles at Covent Garden, one of the greatopera houses of the world. Canadian composers arereceiving the attention they deserve at home andabroad. Young men and women participate in theNational Youth Orchestra of Canada, which madeits debut at the end of 1960. There were seventeensummer festivals of opera productions and musicalsscheduled in 1962.

Many organizations are helping in the developmentof music in Canada. The Canadian Music Centre wasformed in 1959 to make Canadian music better known.It acts as a library and promoting agency, and dis-tributes scores by Canadian composers to conductors,performers and programme builders. It listed 318composers in 1962, of whom ninety were active.

Music is not alone an instrument of entertainment,but also one of personal development. The CanadianBureau for the Advancement of Music stated itspurpose in 1919: "to develop the study and apprecia-tion of music for its educational and stimulating valuein life."

DRAMA. There is in this country a large and untilrecent years unsuspected audience for

good theatre. This is evidenced by the success of theDominion Drama Festival, which saw sixty-threegroups entered in the fourteen Regional Festivalsheld across Canada. Since it was formed in 1933, theDominion Drama Festival has come to mean "thestage" for most Canadians.

It is significant that the Departments of Educationof the provinces are providing the majority of thehalls for performance of the theatrical arts. In thisway they are providing a good opportunity forcultural enrichment to young people.

The freshly imaginative work, the thoughtful dramaof a new playwright, need such help if they are toreach the large number of people who are interestedin ideas as well as in entertainment.

BALLET. Ballet is a going concern in Canada. Itmight be argued that a country like this,

with a population of eighteen million dispersed overan enormous area, would be lucky to have and supportone ballet company adequately. But in Canada wehave three: the National Ballet, the Royal WinnipegBallet, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Theircombined budget tops a million dollars a year.

Ballet is one of the most demanding of all theperforming arts. They say that behind every littleballerina there is a dedicated mother. She has to be,what with practices and the making of costumes.There is also a devoted father, who must foot the billand attend performances. There are also enthusiasticperformers: to see the eagerness with which studentsa~ the Banff School of Fine Arts hurry to classesevery day for six weeks and linger at practice lateinto the night is an experience not soon forgotten.

The difficulties multiply when one gets into thehighly exacting professional arena. A ballet companycannot be put together for a limited season and thendisbanded. It is not only a group of artists performingtogether, but also a team of athletes which mustpractise and work together for the greater part ofthe year. No city in Canada is big enough to supporta fairly long season of the kind possible in Londonand New York, and so our ballet companies musttake to the road, spreading their art across the countryto reach their potential audience. The National Balletof Canada attracts up to 14,000 persons a night onits United States tours.

OPERA. Opera has made strides in recent years. Inits third annual report the Canada Council

drew attention to the Opera Festival Association ofToronto (later named the Canadian Opera Company

because of its extended work) which had drawnaudiences totalling 65,000 in a single season.

The Canadian Opera Guild, with membership inevery province, was formed in 1959 to support andsponsor the Canadian Opera Company. The length ofthe season is second only to the Metropolitan in thishemisphere. Beginning at Toronto, the company travelsthroughout Canada, presenting opera in more than85 centres. It is handicapped in that the expensecompels it to travel without an orchestra, making useof only a single piano and thus limiting its possiblerepertoire, except in one or two centres where a localorchestra permits a full performance.

FOLK-SONGS. Folk-songs, which were once a fea-ture of the daily life of the French

Canadians, are enjoying a revival, even though thepreoccupations of the folk-song movement have tendedto be a little far out for the ordinary man. We shrugoff the rudely honest songs our forebears sang infavour of records with electric guitars and songs fromthe current shows. But these folk-songs are part ofour culture, as was recognized by the late John MurrayGibbon when he organized a series of folk-songfestivals for the Canadian Pacific Railway thirtyyears ago.

LITERATURE. Language is indispensable to cul-ture. Individuals die, but the culture

which flows through them, and which they help tocreate and to change, is all but immortal. Withoutliterature the flow would cease, the culture wouldwither. A static world has no need for new writing,but if men are to take part in a process of progressiveself-liberation, a process of culture, then an expandingliterature is a fundamental necessity.

The rise of Canadian poetry to a position ofinternational stature is one of the striking features ofCanadian letters during the past decade. It has beenestimated that there are today some fifty Canadianpoets deserving of serious reading. The vigour ofcontemporary French Canadian poetry impressed aFrench writer who was here on a France-CanadaAssociation scholarship. "Quebec," he said, "nowranks with Paris and North Africa as one of thethree most important centres of French poetry inthe world."

ARCHITECTURE. Those who wish to add mate-rially to the cultural climate of

Canada have an opportunity in the approachingcelebration of the Centenary of Canada’s Con-federation.

It is said that the Greeks began their towns bylaying the foundations of a theatre. What better wayis there of marking the Centenary than by followingthe suggestion of Hazen Sise, a Montreal architect, toerect social-cultural community centres across thenation ?

Ballet, music and drama require buildings of asize and type of construction which do not exist

outside a few of our larger cities. Design and construc-tion of these would provide our architects with theopportunity to display their imaginative skill.

Agencies of culture

THE C.B.C. First to be mentioned among the majoragencies of culture is the Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation, because of the ubiquity ofits coverage. As Mr. Herbert said in his essay: "TheCorporation performs a vital function in presentingindigenous music, drama, and literature, and instimulating public interest in cultural matters." AndHugh MacLennan, in an article for the Montreal Starwrote this: "You may say, ’What about the CBC ?’and I would of course answer ’Without the CBC therewould probably be no Canada’."

The CBC television service is within reach of 91per cent of our population. It endeavours to reflectand interpret the various parts of the nation to oneanother. It tries to portray the Canadian heritage indocumentary and dramatic form, to provide viewerswith selections from the best works of literature anddrama, and to enhance the development of Canadiantalent in all fields.

In an age of trans-solar-system pioneering, we maywonder what use it is to go back to the trans-cosmicflights of Dante and Milton. We do so simply becausethe germ of our ideas of the nature of beauty and thedrama of existence are to be found in the ancientworld. And meditation upon the great speculativequestions concerning man and the universe producesculture.

That is why CBC TV has presented programmes onserious political thought, outlining ideas presented byPlato, St. Augustine, Hume and Kant. That is whythe French network gave us "L’art, et son secret",discussing the integration of various art forms indaily life.

That is why CBC radio presents "The Conscienceof Man" and "Architects of Modern Thought" inEnglish, and "Des id6es et des hommes" in French.These special programmes on TV and radio offerfreedom to speculate and room to think. Artists andintellectual people, ground between commercial hokumand the frustrations of life, discover that here is balmand inspiration.

Music receives thorough attention. ’Compositionsand performances by Canadlans originate in everycentre across the country where talent can be tapped.The ballet "Swan Lake" alternates with the opera"Falstaff." Glenn Gould takes his turn with "l’En-lance du Christ" broadcast from the Basilica inQuebec City. "Hommage/: Debussy" and "Carmen"take their winter season place alongside the NewYork City Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.

As J. Alphonse Ouimet, President of the C.B.C.,said in a convocation address at Acadia University:"Broadcasters have a tremendous responsibility tothe public. They must not abdicate this responsibility

by relying entirely on ratings to justify a repetitiveand unvarying diet of the kind of programmes whichcater to the lowest common denominator. They mustoffer a wide range of programmes so that each memberof the audience has an opportunity to choose forhimself."

THE NATIONAL GALLERY. Perhaps one expla-nation for the fact

that 350,000 people visit the National Gallery ofCanada in a year is its balance. The gallery’s pro-gramme does not lean toward either the radical or theconservative, but tries to present the best exhibitionsavailable, with quality as the sole criterion.

The beginning of this institution goes back to thefounding of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in1880, at a time when Canada’s population was aboutfour million; today it has shouldered the formidabletask of serving a country in which the great bulk ofthe eighteen million people will never have an op-portunity to visit the gallery personally.

Lecturers, travelling exhibitions, and exhibitionsorganized by the Gallery for distribution through artcircuits, are a part of its programme. It takes its placealongside the American Federation of Arts and theSmithsonian Institution as one of the three majorcirculation agencies in North America.

Estimates indicate that more than a quarter millionpeople see the exhibitions during their tours ofCanada. The programme is being expanded everyyear in response to public interest. In one yearrecently there were 38 exhibitions offered for generalcirculation in Canada, to be shown on 166 occasionsin art galleries and exhibiting centres.

Art instruction classes for children and adults andpublic lectures and film showings now form a regularpart of the programmes of most of the larger Canadiangalleries. The National Gallery produces filmstripson Canadian artists, thus providing an importantservice to schools and art groups. Twenty of its 82movie films on art are borrowed every month bygroups and institutions.

The National Gallery houses the finest collection ofCanadian painting in existence, and takes everymeans in its power to encourage Capadian paintersand stimulate public interest. The Gallery’s beautiful1962 engagement calendar featured 28 colour re-productions of outstanding eighteenth and nineteenthcentury Canadian paintings and sculptures.

Art does not date itself like the height of an auto-mobile fin. The oldest painting in the collections of theNational Gallery, an Egyptian mummy portrait, datesback to the first century A.D. But buildings do getout of date and are outgrown, so the Gallery movedin 1960 to the new Lorne Building where it has fivetimes as much space as in the former gallery in theVictoria Museum.

NATIONAL FILM BOARD. Canada’s NationalFilm Board is doing

much to save film from the outer darkness to which

many people who professed interest in culture hadrelegated it from the beginning. Throughout thehistory of movie-making there has been a solid coreof those who believe in its creative function.

The National Film Board of Canada is the officialagency of the Canadian Government, producing anddistributing films on matters relating to the interests ofof Canadians. Its films are designed not only to reportevents in Canada factually but also to mirror thespirit of Canadian life and culture.

In addition to providing films to community andother organizations for showing to members, theBoard encourages library film nights, film festivalsand film weeks. These bring documentary and edu-cational films to people who do not belong to one orother of the many film-using organizations.

The non-theatrical 16mm films reach these peoplethrough some 470 film councils, provincial film libra-ries, public libraries, schools, and other groups. Morethan 10,000 community groups and associations arerepresented, and more than 30,000 people are activelyinvolved in the work; during the past ten years theseorganizations have invested at least five million dollarsin equipment and facilities. In the course of a yearthere are at least 272,000 community programmeshowings of NFB films to audiences aggregatingsixteen million people.

The Board pays special attention to schools. A filmadds interest to learning, as do the NFB filmstrips,produced in co-operation with Canadian educators.

The National Film Institute (formerly the Society)of Canada is doing good work in its own field. It wasformed mainly to encourage and promote the study,appreciation and use of motion and sound picturesand television as educational and cultural factors.It has expanded its activities until today its informationand film distribution services are made use of bygovernment departments, universities, schools, vol-untary national associations, and a host of others.

THE CANADA COUNCIL. Drawing together Ca-nada’s cultural inter-

ests in one package is the Canada Council, evolvedas an idea by the Massey Commission. The Councilcame into being by Act of Parliament in 1957, withan allotment of a hundred million dollars. Of thissum, half was assigned to a University Capital GrantsFund, with interest and capital to be expended overten years in helping to pay for additional space neededin university buildings for the arts, humanities andsocial sciences. The other half became an EndowmentFund, only the revenue from which is to be expendedannually. Its purpose: "to foster and promote thestudy and encouragement of, and the production ofwork in, the arts, humanities and social sciences."

The Council is not a producing agency like theCBC and the NFB. Its work is designed to stimulate,not to direct, growth in the arts and social sciences.

Through its activity it makes available financialassistance which enables many organizations in the

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performing arts to raise their standards of production.The Council has helped many groups to carry plays,art, ballet, drama and music to regions that might nototherwise have enjoyed them.

The Council has difficult decisions to make incarrying out its mandate. Time and again it returnsin its reports to this question: should the fund beapplied primarily for the benefit of those alreadydevoted to the arts, or should it be used in a way bestcalculated to carry the arts to those in whose livesthey at present play little or no part? It needs tostrike a balance between support for the best and aspreading out to reach more people.

In its report last year the Council said it wasconvinced that it must support quality rather thanquantity, professionalism in the main rather thanamateurism; that however necessary it is to supportorganizations it is equally necessary to support andencourage talented individuals without whom organi-zations of quality cannot exist. It expressed theopinion that the Council should from time to timehelp in the creation of something new, provided thatthe need is demonstrated.

The Council’s awards of scholarships and fellow-ships in the arts are processed by The Canada Founda-tion whose purpose it is to foster the arts in Canada.The Foundation, which has been in existence for sometwenty years, has a roster of 180 experts, includingCanada’s leading musicians, artists, writers, composersand directors. Scholarships and fellowships in thehumanities and the social sciences are processed byThe Humanities Research Council of Canada and bythe Social Sciences Research Council of Canada. Thetwo research councils have conducted a programme ofassistance in the humanities and social sciences sincethe early 1940’s, and derive their membership in themain from members of the academic profession inthis country.

Culture changesSome things offered as cultural seem not only miles

but light years away from what we are accustomed to,but we must keep in mind the fact that culture meanschange. Ours is no guarded citadel in which to dwell,but a road passing into wider fields, leading to thingsmore and more wonderful and strange and unknown.The experiences and standards of past generations ofCanadians have been handed down, and have beenadded to by newcomers to Canada, and are beingchanged by all of us.

We may, if we wish, disregard this or that sort ofcultural expression if it does not appeal to us, butwe must not, on that ground merely, condemn it.In any event, let us make sure that there is musicsomewhere in our lives -- the music of orchestras, ofpoetry, of the dance, of colour. Thus, by participationas an artist or by being part of an appreciative audi-ence, we contribute to an eager, more vivid, wayof living.

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