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In the 1914 report of the Reading Camp Association, Alfred
Fitzpatrick appealed to the elite concerns about the growing radicalism of
immigrants in an attempt to build support for his work:
The horrors of war have clarified our national vision. In the
past we have bent our energies to the securing of a great population. Today
Canadians are awakening to the fact that if we would secure the well-being and
security of this Dominion and maintain a worthy place within the Empire, we
must with urgency proceed with the task of Canadianizing the foreigners within
our shores, and bring them into intelligent harmony with our Canadian and
British ideals.77
Referring to the work of his organization in frontier camps, he
pointed out that:
In the tents and buildings instruction is given in the
evenings, on rainy days and on holidays, both to English-speaking men and
foreigners. It includes the teaching of the English language and our ideals of
citizenship to the non-AngIo-Saxons. The instructors demonstrate what it really
means to be a Canadian. They carry on the process of assimilation in the only
way feasible, namely by personal contact.78
Radicalism and Ignorance
Fitzpatrick's reference to intelligence (i.e. "intelligent
harmony with our Canadian and British ideals") was a frequent one in
writings. It was a prominent component of the emerging
"Canadianization" perspective on illiteracy. That is, literacy was
equated with intelligence, and ilteracy with ignorance. Moreover, intelligence
was equated with acceptance of dominant Canadian values and institutions, and
ignorance with acceptance of, or vulnerability to, "alien doctrines"
(or "perverted revolutionary doctrines"). example, E. W. Bradwin
underscores the perceived connection between radicalism and ignorance:
The demagogue, actuated by personal spleen or ambition, or, as
is sometimes the case, lacking any real understanding of causes and their
inevitable effects, comes to the fore. Such leaders are not steadied by
knowledge, nor disciplined by hard thought. Zealous and imaginative, they
advocate rapid advances along untried paths. The more vociferous their talk the
greater is the influence among foreign-born campmen, otherwise sober-minded,
but whose hindsight has been untrued by abnormal mental environment.
In view of the connection between radicalism and ignorance,
literacy instruction must become a vehicle for lessons in dominant social
political values if "ignorant" immigrants are to become truly
intelligent and "right thinking". C. M. MacInnes, a university
professor and Canadian representative to the World Association of Adult
Education durinq the 1920's in Europe wrote:
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