painful, the point, once gained, has never been abandoned. No more hesitation, no more uncertainty has marked our course; and with a true appreciation of the great future before us, and our responsibility and dignity as a people, it is to be hoped that we shall never again neglect an interest so vital, and so important to our very existence, as an intelligent community.

From 1841 to 1844, little was done but simply to discover our original foundations, and to trace out, with more or less distinctness, the former proportions and outlines of the system.

In 1844, his Excellency the Governor-General appointed the Rev. Dr. Ryerson, the present Head of the Department, a Canadian himself, and fully conversant with the wants and capabilities of his native country; he combined rare administrative abilities with extraordinary energy and intellectual vigor. Ardently devoted to the advancement of the Province, he speedily set himself to reconstruct, upon a broader and more lasting foundation, our entire system of public instruction. As a preliminary step, he devoted a year to the examination and comparison of the systems of education in Europe and America, and embodied the results in a " Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction in Upper Canada." This valuable and comprehensive Report sketches with a bold and masterly hand the whole system of public instruction now in successful operation among us-one which is invariably referred to with pride and satisfaction by our own people, and with admiration and delight by strangers.

We now turn to the present state of education in Upper Canada. The chief outlines of the system are identical with those in other countries, but in its adaptation to the wants of the country and the genius of the people, it is essentially Canadian.

It comprises the three chief classes of public educational institutions—the Common School, the Grammar School, and the University proper-the two former being under the immediate control of the Department, the latter being distinct and independent.

We are indebted, in a great degree, to New York for the machinery of our schools; to Massachusetts for the principle upon which they are supported; to Ireland for the best series of common school books extant; and to Germany for our system of Normal School training. All, however, are so blended and modified, to suit the circumstances of the country, that they are no longer exotics, but "racy of the soil.”

The municipal institutions of the country being more completely developed than any other in the world, the local machinery of our Common School system forms an admirable counterpart to them, in its fullness of outline and detail.

Each city, town, township, and village has its own municipal council; while each city, town, village, and school section has equally its own independent school organization; each possessed of extensive corporate powers. One is supreme in civic affairs, while the other is not less so in all matters pertaining to the schools. The one accepts, on behalf of the whole people, the Legislative School Grant, and imposes an assessment, equivalent to the amount granted, while the other imposes any additional assessment required, and controls the entire expenditure of the school moneys, establishes libraries, and promotes the general interests of the schools.

In Upper Canada, we have forty-two counties, five cities, twentytwo towns, sixteen villages, and four hundred townships, or about five hundred municipalities. We have also the same number of city, town, and village school corporations, together with three thousand three hundred school corporations in the rural school sections, and seventy Grammar School Boards. The schools are inspected at least twice a year by Local Superintendents, appointed by the county councils; or, in the cities, towns, and villages, by the boards of trustees. The Inspectors of Grammar Schools are appointed by a central provincial authority. Each Local Superintendent is required to deliver a school lecture at least once a year, in addition to his other duties.

Besides, in addition to the judges, magistrates, and other persons specially named, each clergyman or minister, of the different religious persuasions in the country, is officially authorized to visit the schools, and aid with his counsel and advice in promoting the great objects of education.

In each county there is also a Board of Public Instruction, for the examination and licensing of teachers, composed of Local Superintendents and of the Trustees of county Grammar Schools.

As a central authority, we have at the head of the whole system a Council of Public Instruction and a Chief Superintendent of Schools --both appointed by the Crown. The Council has the entire control of the Normal and Model School--an institution established in Toronto, in 1847, for the education and training of Common School teachers. The Council also prescribes the text-books for the schools, the reading books for the public school libraries, and the Rules and Regulations for the government of the Common and Grammar Schools, the examination of Common School teachers, and for the management of the public school libraries.

The Chief Superintendent of Schools, as his name indicates, is the chief executive officer appointed to administer the public school

system. He is ex officio a member of the Council of Public Instruction, has the general superintendence of the Normal School, and prepares all the general regulations and reports relating to the schools, etc.

Such are the distinctive features of our system of Public Instruction in Upper Canada. In two or three particulars it differs essentially from any system in the United States; it may therefore be proper to refer to these peculiarities in detail.

1. Its Chief Executive is a non-political and permanent officer. The success and efficiency of the system is never systematically risked at the polls or ballot box, "where sound judgment and thoughtful counsels do not always preside; although the greatest care is taken to administer the system in accordance with the wellunderstood wishes of the people." In fact, with the truest appreciation of the great and fundamental objects of a system of Christian and national education, designed to affect every grade of society alike, the Legislature have never yet permitted it to degenerate into a symbol of strife, or to be the subject of partisan warfare. So noble an instinct is worthy of a truly great people, and should be permanently recorded to their honor.

The principles upon which our system is founded having been more than once affirmed and sustained by the electors of the Province, it has not been considered sound policy, to subject so vital an interest and so sacred a cause to the caprice of the ever-varying current of political strife, unless its very existence were imperiled by rude and unpatriotic hands. Besides, all history has shown that no great public concern, involving the highest destiny of a nation, and beset with difficulties requiring patient and delicate treatment, can ever be brought to a successful issue, where the master mind directing it is liable to change at every adverse breath of public opinion. The renowned Michael Angelo alone perfected the colossal proportions of St. Peter's, and the genius of Sir Christopher Wren alone sketched the noble structure of St. Paul's. Even in the political history of the United States, the great principle here stated receives a striking illustration. The founders of the federal constitution, knowing that the spirit of their own heroic times could not always remain, to guard their national liberties, chose out their wisest master builders; and when the edifice was reared, they enacted that their own impress should remain upon it forever, or be changed only by the two-thirds vote of a mighty nation. It is true that the permanent efficiency of our educational system is not held to be of so much importance, as is the preservation of our political liberties; but how little is it practically considered, that to that

efficiency alone, aided by the influence of the Gospel, are we indebted, under Providence, for the very existence of the civil and religious freedom which we enjoy!

As a people, we have held that, after certain great principles have been once settled, it is but sound national policy to intrust to some enlightened and responsible person, within certain restrictions, the important duty of perfecting and keeping in continuous and active operation a system of public instruction. These systems are not built up in a day, any more than was the "Eternal City" on the seven hills. And the history of our present educational structure confirms this truth; for with all the continuous aid which the Legislature has been able to give, and the public to receive and appropriate, it has taken ten years, under one guiding hand, to bring our system of public instruction through the first stage of its existence.

The system is now young and vigorous, and endowed with capabilities and resources which are rarely combined in any other statesystem of education; but had we adopted the course pursued elsewhere, we feel that we should have been dooming ourselves to continued educational infancy; and our schools would have been the subject of endless experiment and theory, without the guidance of that settled and permanent policy which alone can develop and mature a great and noble system.

2. Our next essential difference arises from the entire voluntary character of our system of public instruction. Not a penny of tax is imposed by the state for the support of the schools, nor is the law compulsory upon a single municipality of the Province. It simply offers public aid on condition that an equal amount be raised from local sources, and that the conditions annexed to the grant be complied with. Thus every county of the Province is left to exercise its own discretion, as to whether it will accept the terms offered by the Legislature, or not. With a singular unanimity, every county of the Province has accepted those terms, and but two minor municipalities have declined them; still, no penalty attaches to such a step, except the loss of the grant, which would otherwise be received. The question, then, of free schools, or of no schools, is left, where it properly belongs, to the patriotism and good sense of the people themselves. They then feel that the entire responsibility of the question rests with them, and they have the sole authority to decide it. Thus their self-respect and dignity is preserved, while the result has been most gratifying to every true friend of local self-government and popular enlightenment.

3. Our third essential difference will be found in the following extract from our school law: "And be it enacted, that no foreign

books in the English branches of education shall be used in any Model or Common School, without the express permission of the Council of Public Instruction." This effectually relieves our system of that greatest of all hindrances to its efficiency, which arises from the use of an endless variety of text-books in the schools, and which renders any uniform standard of classification impossible.

It is certain that on no light grounds should such power be reserved to the state; but, like some of those invaluable safeguards, which must be thrown around even the most equitable and evenly balanced systems of government, it was found to be absolutely necessary to impose this salutary restriction on the eccentric tastes, or mere caprice, which governed parties in the selection of textbooks. Besides, although it was admitted, that isolated text-books might be found, possessed of many excellencies, still, even such books, constructed as they were without any connection or uniformity of design, were felt to be serious hindrances, rather than helps, in the process of instruction, as the intermediate steps, or links of a complete series, were entirely wanting, or but imperfectly supplied. The question was therefore reduced to the simple one, Whether we should have an uniform series of books, constructed with a view to unity of purpose, and leading, in complete and easy steps, from the mere elements of knowledge to the higher branches of learning, or whether we should be condemned to gather instruction from a confused variety of doubtful books, in each of which the same ground might have to be gone over again, and all compiled without a plan, or without the slightest connection, the one with the other? The wiser course was therefore adopted, and an uniform series of text-books, based upon an intelligent system of classification, was adopted and recommended for general use in the schools. Not a single book in use was proscribed; but by providing a better and cheaper description of text-books, the old ones gradually disappeared from the schools, and were replaced by those recommended. The result has justified what was at first felt to be a delicate experiment, though, after all, an imperative necessity; and the Irish national series of text-books is now universally used, throughout the Province, at a cost far below what had hitherto been paid for a heterogeneous variety of inferior books, incapable alike of classification or of limitation in numbers, even in the same school.

4. Intimately connected with the foregoing, is the manner in which library books have been selected for the public schools. To the same central authority is intrusted the difficult and delicate duty of recommending suitable reading books for the public school libraries. The reasons for this course, although identical in some re