they are looked upon as seminaries exclusively instituted for the education of the children of the more wealthy classes of society, and to which the poor man's child is considered as unfit to be admitted. From such causes, instead of their being a benefit to the province, they are sunk into obscurity, and the heads of most of them are at this moment enjoying their situations as comfortable sinecures. Another class of schools has, within a short time, been likewise founded upon the liberality of the legislative purse, denominated common or parish schools, but like the preceding, the anxiety of the teacher employed, seems more alive to his stipend than the advancement of the education of those placed under his care: from the pecuniary advantages thus held out, we have been inundated with the worthless scum, under the character of schoolmasters, not only of this, but of every other country where the knowledge has been promulgated, of the easy means our laws afford of getting a living here, by obtaining a parish school, which is done upon the recommendation of some few freeholders, getting his salary from the public, and making his employers contribute handsomely beside.

"It is true, rules are laid down for their government, and the proper books prescribed for their use; but scarcely in one case in ten are they adhered to, for in the same class you will frequently see one child with Noah Webster's spelling-book in his hand, and the next with Lindley Murray's. However prone the teachers are to variety in their schools, much blame is to be attributed to the trustees, who are in many instances too careless, and I might almost add too ignorant to discriminate right from wrong, in the trust they have undertaken for the public benefit. It is therefore not to be wondered at why the parish school system should meet with almost universal reprobation from most discerning men.

แ Of these parish schools, we are burdened with a liberal share, having no less than three of them. If the establish

ment of this system was meant by the legislature to abbreviate the present enormous price of education, they have been miserably deceived; for I can see no alteration or reduction from the charge made before the passing of the act. The price then was 12s. 6d. [i. e. $2,50,] and is now the same, per quarter."*

In 1819, the Executive Council, on considering the Duke of Portland's dispatch of 1797, recommended that 500,000 acres of land be disposed of for the purpose of establishing a University in Upper Canada. The members of the Council thought that £10,000 would be required for the erection of "a suitable building and provide a library, philosophical apparatus and a botanic garden," with £4,060 per annum for "salaries, scholarships and contingencies."

In July, 1819, provision was made for an additional grammar school; for holding annual public examinations; for reporting the condition of the school to the governor, and for educating ten common school pupils, free of charge, at each of the nine public grammar schools already established; but the provincial allowance to teachers of grammar schools was reduced to £50 in all cases where the numbers of pupils did not exceed ten.

Thus ebbed and flowed, without a master hand to stay the current, that tide which in other lands is regarded as the nation's life's blood; and thus was permitted to ensue that state of living death by which Upper Canada, in the significant and popular metaphor of the day, was likened to a 'girdled tree,' destitute alike of life, of beauty, or of stately growth.

* In 1818, Mr. Gourley reports the names of the grammar school masters in Upper Canada as follows: Johnstown District, Rev. John Bethune, (now dean and rector of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal ;) Midland District, Rev. John Wilson; Home District, Rev. Dr. Strachan, (now Bishop of Toronto ;) Niagara District, Rev. John Burns, (father of the late Hon. Judge Burns;) London Dis trict, Mr, James Mitchell, (subsequently Judge of the District Court;) Western District, Mr. Merrill; Eastern and Newcastle Districts, vacant.-Statistical Account of Upper Canada, &c., Vol. II., Appendix xciv.

CHAPTER IV.

FITFUL PROGRESS FROM 1822-1836.

In 1822, Sir Peregrine Maitland, the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, submitted to the Imperial government a plan for organizing a general system of education for the province, including elementary schools; and, in 1823, he obtained permission from England to establish a Board of Education for the general superintendence of this system of education, and for the management of the uni versity and school lands throughout the province. This Board prepared some general regulations in regard to the schools, and proposed a plan by which to exchange 225,944 acres of the less valuable of the school lands for the more productive Clergy Reserve lands. The plan having been approved of by the home Government, was carried into effect by the Governor soon after. In 1824, the first attempts towards providing the public with general reading books, in connection with the common and Sunday schools, were made. The sum of £150 was annually appropriated for this object, and authorized to be expended by the Provincial Board of Education in the purchase of "books and tracts designed to afford moral and religious instruction." These books and tracts were intended for equal distribution throughout all the districts of Upper Canada.

Thus were presented the dim outlines of a system of public instruction, which it was clear the necessities of the country required, but which for want of a vigorous and systematic departmental supervision was gradually permitted to languish. The educational legislative enactments themselves were suffered to become almost obsolete on the statute book.

In these fitful efforts may be traced the noble instincts of the province to possess herself of an invaluable palladium of civil and religious freedom, but which the apathy or selfishness of her sons alone presented her from acquiring.

We honour her even in her failures, while we learn a valuable lesson from her history: that to entrust the cause of education to the chances of political strife or to the guidance of self-interest or aimless counsels is to doom it to shipwreck and destruction.

In January, 1824, the Common School Act was made to apply "to all schools that are now or may hereafter be established and kept among the Indians who shall be resident within the limits of any organized county or township within this province, excepting such schools as shall or may be otherwise provided for."* Provision was also made this year for the examination of common school teachers by county Boards of Education.

In March, 1827, Sir Peregrine Maitland obtained a charter for King's College, Toronto. In transmitting the charter, Lord Bathurst proposed to endow the University, as follows: "I am further to acquaint you that His Majesty has been pleased to grant £1,000 per annum as a fund for erecting the buildings necessary for the college, to be paid out of the moneys furnished by the Canada company and to continue during the term of that agreement.

"I have to authorize you, on receipt of this dispatch, to exchange such Crown Reserves as have not been made over to the Canada Company for an equal portion of the lands set apart for the purpose of education and foundation of a University, as suggested in your dispatch of the 19th December, 1825, and more fully detailed in Dr. Strachan's Report of the 10th March, 1826; and you will proceed to endow King's College with the said Crown Reserves with as little delay as possible."

Objections having been made in Upper Canada to the charter of King's College as too exclusive, a committee of the House of Commons, in 1828, recommended the appointment in it of a theological professor each for the established

All the Indian schools of the province, which are sustained by various religious bodies, are chiefly under the control of the Indian Department. The management of the Indian lands is vested in the Crown Lands Department.

churches of England and Scotland. This recommendation was, however, not acted upon.

In 1829, Sir John Colborne, (now Lord Seaton,) superseded the Royal Grammar, or District School, at York, now Toronto, by an institution which he named Upper Canada College. He obtained for it, from His Majesty's Government, an endowment of 66,000 acres of school land, besides some town lots. On the 4th January, 1830, this college was formally opened. See Part Second, chapter iii.

In 1828-9, the Wesleyan Methodists took active steps to establish an Academy for the superior education of pupils of both sexes; and in June, 1830, the Wesleyan Conference appointed a committee to collect subscriptions and to select a site for the proposed academy.

In 1831, a committee of the House of Assembly recommended that £4,400 per annum be granted for the support of the eleven free grammar schools, or respectable seminaries [to be "incorporated with the present district schools,"] where the youth of the province generally might receive a liberal education, without being removed many hundred miles from the tender care and watchful authority of their parents." The committee was also opposed to the endowment of "King's College, or any other extensive university which can only be viewed as of benefit to those whose wealth enables them to bear the great expense of sending their chil dren to the capital of the province;" but it recommended that £2,000 be set apart for the annual support of a provinçial seminary at York, "whether called Upper Canada College, or by any other name." They further recommended that £50 be annually granted to establish a school in each of the 132 townships of Upper Canada, (being 12 schools in a district,) and thus give to Upper Canada a system of edu cation that might well be envied by any other colony in His Majesty's dominions." The report was partially acted upon in 1839. See page 394.

In November, 1831, Lord Goderich, in a dispatch, pro