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ADDRESS 
 
 LADY ABERDEEN 
 
 pRESIDEiST OF THE ABERDEEN ASSOCIflTION 
 
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 fUBLIC nEETINQ. 
 
 OTTAWA. 1596. 
 
1^31 
 
Lady Aberdeen said : — 
 Your Excellency ^ Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is difficult for those who are in the inner circle of any Associa- 
 tion, and who believe in it, to realize that there is a large circle of 
 people who know absolutely nothing of its operations, and to whom its 
 very name conveys nothing. We, of the Aberdeen Association, for in- 
 stance who have read hundreds of leiters from lonely settlers in all 
 parts of Canada, who have been touched with the intense gratitude ex- 
 pressed for this simple monthly gift of a few old papers and magazines, 
 and who by degrees are realizing the really great benefits that may accrue 
 to the country at large by an organized and systematic circulation of 
 such literature, feel so confident of the sympathy of all good citizens 
 and kindly hearts for this enterprise, that we are apt to forget that there 
 are thousands of people in Canada who know absolutely nothing about 
 our aims. The help which we need is easily obtained, and is not costly if 
 
distributed over a large number, but we do not receive it, simp)y be- 
 cause we have not taken measures to make our 'vants known, nor to 
 enlist on our side the hel[) which would assuredly be ours if claimed. 
 
 Will you allow me this evening to treat you as if you belonged to 
 the outer world who are strangers to the Aberdeen Association, and 
 may I tell you why and how it was originated, and a little about how 
 It is carried on, and what is the sort ot help we require for it ? 
 
 ^ Those of us who know the great West of this continent can easily 
 picture to themselves the country, the scattered homesteads, the 
 primitive shacks, the miners' huts, which are inhabited by those 
 pioneers who are winning for us this vast and fertile territory at the 
 cost of endless toil and hardship. Doubtless there are many here who 
 have brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, neighbours and friends, 
 out in those western regions, and they will know something about that 
 life which looks so full of freedom and attraction and of golden hope on 
 
the outside, and which, when you come to it, means not only so much 
 grim toil,privation of all comforts, but often the lack of all that makes life 
 worth living to men and women of education and culture. Such conditions 
 are inseparable from a new country,however full of beauty and of natural 
 resources. Its development must be the price of isolation and much 
 hard work, and they are not true friends of the country who would con- 
 ceal this from intending emigrants. The land is full of hope, and the 
 reward is sure to come, but it has to be striven for. 
 
 The traditions of the first settlers of this continent are maintained 
 there by a great effort. Where there are families of children, we will 
 find the little school-house within a possible distance, available for per- 
 haps half the year, and maybe there will be the church. But there 
 you come to the end of the resources of civilization which are at hand. 
 
 Look at the walls, bare of pictures and ornaments ; look at the 
 little shelf in the corner, with its few treasures which have been read 
 
6 
 
 and re-read, and or: the table the little sheet which is published weekly 
 or bi-weekly in the town some dozen or twenty miles off, and which is 
 the only source of inform.ation as to what is going on in the outer 
 world. Think of the men, especially the bachelors, who are living out 
 their lives amidst these surroundings, who have to come back to them 
 after their hard da)'s work. Think, still more, of the women who can- 
 not even have the variety of getting away to the fields or the market, but 
 who have to face the constant monotony and daily drudgery of the 
 housework, year in and year out, if the children are to l>e cared for 
 and the home is to be kept together. Think of the children who are 
 growing up amidst this environment, where the conversation must 
 naturally turn on the all-absorbing topics of crops and the markets, and 
 whetherthe endswill meet. Isit any wonderthatunder these circumstances 
 we hear of the drift of the young people to the cities ? Can we believe 
 that that life which is lived in so narrow a groove can tend to the 
 
higher life of the nation of which these people must be the backbone? 
 
 In the old country we hear a great deal about the monotony of 
 country Hie, and of what can be done to overcome it. It does not 
 a|)pear to us that country life in the ordinary sense of the word suffers 
 from monotony when there is any centre of population at all. FrDm 
 what we have observed, there is a flow of life, of fun and sport, and 
 interchange of neighbourliness and simple gaiety, and there is such a 
 definite determination to have church and school and hall and hospital 
 and library in every small centre — which make country life very 
 attractive. 
 
 But it is of those who live twenty and thirty and forty miles away 
 from post-office or village, and where neighbours are few and far between 
 — it is of the miners and lumbermen and keepers of lighthouses, as well 
 as of the farmers and ranchers that I am speaking. 
 
 What can be done ? That is the question which some ladies at 
 
Winnipeg asked one another some eight years ago. Cannot we, whose 
 h'ves are so amply endowed with opportunities, help our brothers and 
 sisters who are doing so much for us and our country ? Out of that 
 question came an answer, which has by degrees grown into an associa- 
 tion which desires to reach, as far as possible, all these settlers who 
 cannot obtain reading matter for themselves, who teel that they cannot 
 afford to obtain the literature. These ladies organized a plan by which 
 monthly parcels of literature could be sent out to such settlers. They 
 were very doubtful of the experiment, at first. 1 hey did not know 
 how they could get the names of the people who really needed it, or 
 whether it would be abused, or the right people would not get it. 
 They did not know whether they would be able to get enough literature 
 to send. But no sooner was the announcement made to missionaries 
 and to immigration agents and to merchants and others living in these 
 districts, that they would be willing to send out the parcels of old 
 
mae;azines and books to such persons, than the applications came in 
 fast and furiously. And from that time to this tlie work has grown, 
 until some fourteen hundred famihes are supphed every month with 
 parcels of this literature. 
 
 One of our rules is, that parcels are only to be sent to such 
 families as are heard from twice a year. There must be correspondence 
 between each family and the lady who is sending out literature. In the 
 first place we always send out a circular asking what sort of literature is 
 desired, what church the family belongs to, whether there are children, 
 whether there is any particular kind of literature desired, and the 
 answer comes b?ick. 
 
 Another rule is that every parcel must contain some secular literature 
 and some religious, the latter to be of the character preferred by each 
 recipient, according to the church to which he belongs. 
 
 Then, beside the literature, we try from time to time to send them 
 
pictures, games, flower seeds, etc. We are now considering whether 
 something could not be done, by initiating some definite courses of 
 reading with questions, giving certificates, etc. We have tried it in a 
 very small way for the children, and found the most ready response ; 
 and often they write us and ask us for school books, and other books 
 for the education of the children who cannot get to school through 
 many of the winter months. We think that there is surely scope for 
 the useful development of our Association along the lines originated by 
 the Chautauqua system, but in a more simple form. 
 
 But far more eloquent than any speeches that can be made on 
 behalf of our Association are the letters received by our workers from 
 the recipients, and which make each feel convinced that her particular 
 list requires the very best of the treasures we have to give. 
 
 These letters require no comment. In the words of our Winnipeg 
 Secretary, *' comedies and tragedies unfold themselves continually 
 
11 
 
 throughout the year's correspondence, and it often strikes our workers 
 as indeed pathetic that in some instances our Association seems to be 
 the friend to whom they desire first to confide their trouble. The old 
 folks that loved them are no more. The friends whom they knew have 
 passed away, or have moved to another part of the country," 
 
 And so for these solitary lives this correspondence with an un- 
 known friend, which seems such a little thing, may yet be doing a great 
 patriotic service, besides unlocking the hearts ot those who hive grown 
 weary of life's struggle, and who are tempted to think that '• nobody 
 cares." 
 
 And as regards the parcels themselves, do not these letters give us 
 an idea how the magazines and papers ot the Aberdeen Association 
 may shed a radiance over life, charming away the oching sense of lone- 
 liness, the feeling of desolation that so often comes to those shut out 
 from the outer world ? The story of adventure and the tale of heroism, 
 
12 
 
 the explanation of a scientific truth, the picture of the life of some 
 leaders in thought or action, which we passed over so lightly as we cut 
 the pages of the magazine, have a new meaning when received in those 
 far-away places of the earth. Can we not imagine the rush ior the 
 papers when the mail arrives ? Can we not picture the breathless 
 interest of the group gathered round the father in the evening ? Can 
 we not conceive how new aims and new motives transform the whole 
 life of many a young man and maiden who ponder over an article 
 which has revealed new truths to their hearts ? 
 
 This then is the work which those who support the Aberdeen 
 Association are doing ; they are helping many a family to fight the 
 battle of life, lightening the burden of overworked fathers and mothers, 
 educating the children in a thousand pleasant ways, and giving whole- 
 some recreation and food for 'thought to many a solitary young fellow 
 
13 
 
 far from all kith and kin, and who may be thereby strengthened against 
 temptation and directed towards noble ends. 
 
 And now how do we want you to help us ? For I know that 
 your hearts have heen stirred and that you long to be par- 
 ticipators in this. Perhaps you will say that with free postage 
 granted us by the Post Ofifice authorities, free carriage by the ocean 
 steamships and railway companies, free service rendered by our officers, 
 and free quarters for many of our branches, that we require no assist- 
 ance. And still more perhaps w^ll you think this when you hear of an 
 English Branch working under the Marchioness of Dufferin at the Im- 
 perial Institute, and of a Scotch Branch working at Glasgow, both 
 sending us large contributions. But the truth renr»ains that we do need 
 help, for there are numberless small expenses to be constantly met, 
 the cost of conveying parcels from the railway depots to the various 
 offices, the cost of paper and twine, the postage of letters, printing ex- 
 
14 
 
 penses, and so forth. We should have been lone; ago bankrupt had it 
 not been for a generous gift of $500 from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, but 
 we feel that we ought to be able to support ourselves now, and 
 that we ought also to prepare for a time whep we shall probably 
 have to pay for the rent of a Central Office and a paid Secretary, owing 
 to our ever-increasing business. We think that a large increase in our 
 membership would best meet the circumstances, each member paying 
 an annual subscription. « 
 
 But b'^sides subscriptions we want our friends to bear us always m 
 mind when they are disposing of their old magazines, or of any other 
 literature which would be bright and attractive. 
 
 And then besides papers and books, and especially consecutive num- 
 bers of the same magazine for a year, we are grateful for coloured pic- 
 tures or prints in good condition, and games small enough to go by 
 post for our Christmas parcels. 
 
15 
 
 And when you have become subscribers, when you have sent us 
 all the nice literature and pretty things you can, please do us yet an- 
 other service — please speak a good word for us whenever you can. 
 Tell others what the Aberdeen Association means, and how gratefully 
 \iz parcels are received — tell them that there is no charity, no desire to 
 patronize about it, but merely the expression of a frank brotherly in- 
 terest between those who live in cities and have abundance of literature 
 at their disposal, and those who live in lonely places and have no such 
 advantages — tell them of the influence that this circulation of good 
 literature is having in the homes of the West, and especially amongst 
 the young people. Tell them that we are not crabbing the country or 
 minimizing its resources or its bright future because we speak of the 
 necessary solitariness of the lives of the brave, bright pioneers who 
 have shown their belief in it by making their homes there, but that we 
 are on the contrary helping to bring happiness and contentment to the 
 
16 
 
 very best class of settlers, who desire something outside material ad- 
 vantages. And tell them too that apart from the direct helpfulness 
 and brightness which our organization brings in its train, chat the in- 
 direct good of formin:y links between East and West, between dwellers 
 on the prairie and in the forests with those in the cities is a very real 
 source of strength to the country. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for coming here to-night, and 
 for showing your interest in this scheme. I thank especially the 
 Ministers and the other friends who are to speak to us, who have 
 spared time to come and express their personal approval, and T leave 
 the Aberdeen Association with the utmost confidence in your hands, 
 and I know that from this evening you will all be Aberdeen Associa- 
 tion members. (Applause.) 
 
^ ^ f ^ ^ ^ 
 

 
 E ^Iberr^ Christmas 
 
 aiiD 
 
 H Ibapp^ IRew )l)eav.