every stage, and in every branch of knowledge, teaches things and not
merely words, which unfolds and illustrates the principles of rules,
rather than assuming and resting upon their verbal authority, which
develops all the mental faculties instead of only cultivating and
loading the memory—a system which is solid rather than showy,
practical rather than ostentatious, which prompts to independent
thinking and action rather than to servile imitation.
"Such are the sources from which the principal features of the school
system in Upper Canada have been derived, though the application of
each of them has been modified by the local circumstances of our