Hamilton's own country
abandoned his ideas, usually for the worse.

In the social life of the cities the influence of the official classes
and, in Halifax and Quebec, of the British redcoats stationed there was
all pervading. In the country the pioneers took what diversions a hard
life permitted. There were "bees" and "frolics," ranging from strenuous
barn raisings, with heavy drinking and fighting, to mild apple parings
or quilt patchings. There were the visits of the Yankee peddler with his
"notions," his welcome pack, and his gossip. Churches grew, thanks
in part to grants of government land or old endowments or gifts from
missionary societies overseas, but more to the zeal of lay preachers
and circuit riders. Schools fared worse. In Lower Canada there was an
excellent system of classical schools for the priests and professional
classes, and there were numerous convents which taught the girls, but
the habitants were for the most part quite untouched by book learning.
In Upper Canada grammar schools and academies were founded with
commendable promptness, and a common school system was established in
1816, but grants were niggardly and compulsion was lacking. Even at the
close of the thirties only one child in seven was in school, and he was,
as often as not, committed to the tender mercies of some broken-down
pensioner or some ancient tippler who could barely sign his mark. There
was but little administrative control by the provincial authorities. The
textbooks in use came largely from the United States and glorified that
land and all its ways in the best Fourth-of-July manner, to the
scandal of the loyal elect. The press was represented by a few weekly
newspapers; only one daily existed in Upper Canada before 1840.

Against this background there developed during the period 1815-41 a
tense constitutional struggle which was to exert a profound influence on
the making of the nation. The stage on which the drama was enacted was
a small one, and the actors were little known to the world of their day,
but the drama had an interest of its own and no little significance for
the future.

In one aspect the struggle for self-government in British North America
was simply a local manifestation of a world-wide movement which found
more notable expression in other lands. After a troubled dawn,
democracy was coming to its own. In England the black reaction which
had identified all proposals for reform with treasonable sympathy