In rising to speak, I am all too conscious I am not rising to the occasion. Here is a glittering academic audience ready for my profound disclosures. Beyond, the wire services, radio and television are waiting to rush them to the country (I think). But what have I got to say? I heard earnest counsel on this, from men of knowledge and concern, who urged me to speak on one or another of the grave issues confronting this country and our age. I fully share their concern and I appreciated their confidence. But what do you do when you find you have little new to add in a historical context to your expressed views of urgent Canadian problems - or find that others are saying what you believe about current questions better and more fully? The answer is, do something else. Perhaps tell funny stories; or, on the eve of a critical national election, instruct everyone to go out and vote for the party of his choice. I tried to be a simple historian. I looked up the addresses of my predecessors as Presidents of the Canadian Historical Association for possible source materials.
I naturally found considerable variety. Some were general, on the "where stands History now" basis; some were quite particular, expressing a specialized research interest of the address-giver. Many were eloquent; many had messages of strong significance; all tended to increase my own consciousness of inadequacy. But I especially liked a sort of unfinished trilogy of the earlier 1950's: "Broad Horizons" by Professor A.L. Burt, and "Wider Horizons" by Professor G.E. Wilson.(1) No one, apparently, has had the nerve to complete the series with "Widest Possible Horizons." Nor have I. Instead I have been stirred to move the other way, to "Somewhat Narrow Horizons," in order to express an interest in a history of rather limited, localized Canadian dimensions, well down from international, national or even provincial levels. Its field is Canadian urban development, or better, the city in Canadian history. If I...