Noted Representative Educational Leaders—Dr. Strachan and Dr. Ryerson.
It will simplify my statement of the case if I revert back to the transition period between the establishment of the district Grammar Schools in 1809 and the university charter of 1827; and from thence take a somewhat prospective view of events in the order in which they afterwards transpired. For convenience I would, therefore, select two noted men of their times as representatives of the two social forces to which I have referred, and of the opposite opinions on education and other subjects which then prevailed.
The first was the Rev. Dr. Strachan (afterwards first Church of England Bishop of Toronto), and the other was the Rev. Dr. Ryerson, the representative and trusted leader of the members of the Methodist Church in the Province.
Dr. Strachan was the undoubted representative of the English and particularly the Scotch views on educational matters. Dr. Ryerson, on the other hand, was the equally true and faithful exponent of the British Colonial, or United Empire Loyalist, views and opinions on the same subject. What these latter views and opinions were may be gathered from a reference to the educational chapter in the colonial history of the thirteen colonies, as given in an earlier portion of this Retrospect.