Precious Export

Canada has . . . exported men and women as well as fish and 'fur, lumber and wheat. . . . Scientists, inventors, artists and scholars have found other parts of the world more appreciative and congenial. . . . The whole process has obviously been . . . debilitating.

These biting words came from an ex-Canadian, John Bartlet Brebner, now a history professor at New York's Columbia University. For six months, at the request of Canada's Social Science Research Council, he had scanned the face of Canada. Now, in his 90-page report (Scholarship for Canada; Canadian Social Science Research Council, Ottawa; $1), as in a shaving mirror magnifying all the prominent nose pores, Canada could take a critical look at its own phiz.

Said Critic Brebner: Canadians leave home because salaries are higher in the U.S., because "the canny, cautious conservatism which has so often characterized Canadians, rich and poor alike, [makes life in Canada] discouraging." Young people especially seemed to find that "the inertia of their entrenched elders had drained Canadian life of color, zest, adventure, and the stimulation which comes from free-ranging experimentation in ideas.. . ."

Obviously, said Brebner, the Dominion's postwar planners need to do some hard thinking about making Canada a place where Canadians want to stay. But what to do?

Canadians, said Brebner, should not be so intolerant of change and "intellectual and esthetic eccentricity." The countries which succeed best in keeping their ablest citizens at home are "those which have given free scope to their poets, artists, philosophers, scholars, inventors; adventurers, and other rebels, critics and innovators. . . . Canadians would do well to make special efforts to understand any freakish compatriot who seems to be receiving more attention abroad than at home."

The pay levels for Canadian educators, added Educator Brebner, are "stupid"--most Canadian scholars and teachers are paid so little "that a very large proportion of their potential usefulness is continuously being poured down the sewer of . . . drudgery and hackwork for other income." Thus they yield quickly when American universities and laboratories beckon. "One can predict the uproar in the press and parliaments of Canada if the United States tried to buy a single Canadian island. . . . But the never-ending loss of scholars passes without comment."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.