The system of popular education in Ontario has opened a free school to every child in the land, and proclaimed his right to its advantages; it has planted a school house in nearly every neighborhood, and in hundreds of instances, made the school house the best building in the neighborhood; it has superseded the topers and broken-down characters, so common as teachers of a former age, by a class of teachers not excelled in morals by the teachers of any other country, and who, as a whole, compare favorably in qualifications with those of any State in America; it has achieved a uniformity of excellent text-books, earnestly prayed for by educators in the neighboring States, and has spread throughout the land books of useful and entertaining knowledge to the number of nearly a million of volumes; it is the nearest approach to a voluntary system of any public school system in the world; and it has developed larger resources than that of any other State in America, in proportion to the wealth and number of inhabitants.
This unparalleled success is due to the Christian feeling, the energy, patriotism and liberality of the people of this Province; but it has been imposed on me to construct the machinery, devise the facilities and agencies by which so great a work has been accomplished, and to do what I could to encourage my fellow-countrymen in its promotion.
The administration of laws generally is by learned judges, by the pleadings of learned counsel, and the deliberations of selected juries; but the administration of the school law and system is through the agency of several hundred elected councils, and nearly twenty thousand elected trustees,—thus embodying, not the learned professions, but the intelligence, common sense, feelings and interests of the people at large in the work of school administration and local self-government.
Reasons for Dr. Ryerson's Retirement as Chief Superintendent of Education.
In "The Story of My Life," I gave the following reasons, amongst others, which induced Dr. Ryerson to propose a change in the headship of the Education Department. I said: "For many years after confederation Dr. Ryerson felt that the new political condition of the Province, which localized, as well as circumscribed, its civil administration of affairs, required a change in the management of the Education Department. He, therefore, (as early as in 1868, and again in 1872) urged upon the Government the desirability of relieving him from the anomalous position in which he found himself placed under the new system. The reasons which he urged for his retirement are given in a pamphlet devoted to a 'defence' of the system of education, which he published in 1872, and are as follows:—
"When political men have made attacks upon the school law, or the school system and myself, and I have answered them, then the cry has been raised by my assailants and their abettors, that I was interfering with politics. They would assail me without stint, in hopes of crushing me, and then gag me against all defence or reply.
"So deeply did I feel the disadvantage and growing evil of this state of things to the department and school system itself, that I proposed, four years ago last December, to retire from the department, and recommended the creation and appointment of a Minister of Public Instruction. My resignation was not accepted, nor my recommendation adopted; when, two months later, I proposed that, at the commencement of each session of the legislature, a committee of seven or nine (including the Provincial Secretary for the time being) should be elected by ballot, or by mutual agreement of the leading men of both parties, on the Education Department; which committee should examine into all the operations of the department for the year then ending, consider the school estimates, and any bill or recommendations which might be submitted for the advancement of the school system, and report to the house accordingly. By many thoughtful men, this system has been considered more safe, more likely to secure a competent and working head of the department, and less liable to make the school system a tool of party politics, than for the head of it to have a seat in Parliament, and thus leave the educational interests of the country dependent upon the votes of a majority of electors in one riding. This recommendation, submitted on the 30th of January, 1869, has not yet been adopted; and I am left isolated, responsible in the estimation of legislators and everybody else for the department—the target of every attack, whether in the newspapers or in the Legislative Assembly, yet without any access to it or to its members, except through the press, and no other support than the character of my work and the general confidence of the public."
Dr. Ryerson's Letter of Resignation in 1868 and Reply To it.
The salient points of Dr. Ryerson's letter of resignation, dated 7th December, 1868, and addressed to Hon. M. C. Cameron, Provincial Secretary, are as follows:—
"I have the honor to submit to the favourable consideration of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council what, some three weeks since, I submitted to the individual members of the Government, namely, that