In this (Western) District the Council says:
"We well know that a very large number of the trustees can neither read nor write, and, therefore, it must be obvious that the greater part of the requirements of the law remain undone."
On this statement the Chief Superintendent remarks:
"In other districts where the trustees can read and write, and where the councillors an correspondingly intelligent and discreet in their school proceedings, no disputes or inconvenience have, as far as I am aware, occurred on this subject."
In the District of Dalhousie, the Chief Superintendent states:
"Still greater dissatisfaction and confusion were created by the mode of proceeding adopted by the council. Before the passing of the present School Act the council of this district never imposed a school assessment.... The introduction of a district assessment (under the new Act) would naturally excite some dissatisfaction, and especially in a district bordering on counties in Lower Canada where the school assessment had been resisted.... In addition the Chief Superintendent adds:
"The Council in the autumn of 1847 passed a by-law to this effect:
"Whereas the school section division mode by this Council at its last session, are in many instances, discordant to the convenience and wishes of the inhabitants, and that to correct them satisfactorily this present session is impracticable. The District Superintendent is empowered and required to make a distribution of the school fund (legislative grant and county assessment) 'share and share alike,' among qualified teachers without reference to the number of scholars under their tuition, but in proportion to the time such teachers may have been teaching, etc."
Thus the Superintendent remarks, "this by-law contemplated the abolition of the statute requiring the school grant to be distributed according to the school population of each section. It made no distinction between the able teacher who taught sixty scholars and the young one who taught twenty; it had no regard to the engagements which may have been made by trustees according to law; it required of teachers conditions which the law had not enjoined, and proposed to deprive many of them of advantages which the law had conferred.... Of course I pointed out the illegality and injustice of the by-law and it was not acted upon. At the session of the Council lately held, a resolution was adopted praying the Governor-General to dissolve the Council that the sense of the inhabitants of the Dalhousie District might be taken on the school law.... It is doubtless probable that many of the inhabitants have not distinguished between the provisions of the law and the proceedings of their own Council—attributing to the former what has been occasioned by the latter."[50]
Contrast the enlightened discussion of such questions to-day with the ignorant dogmatism of that day, and you can form some idea of the magnitude of Dr. Ryerson's labors,—not only in laying broad and deep the foundations for his superstructure, but in seeking to overcome the deep-rooted and unreasoning prejudices of those days—days indeed of anxiety and toil and fierce opposition, which I so well remember.
Estimate of Lord Elgin's Character by the Hon. W. H. Draper.
On the arrival in Canada of Lord Elgin, as Governor-General, Dr. Ryerson wrote confidentially to Hon. Attorney-General Draper (on the 16th February, 1847), asking him for his "opinion of the new Governor-General." Mr. Draper replied on the 22nd as follows:—
"As far as my opportunities of judging go, I think Canada will find cause of satisfaction in having Lord Elgin for a Governor. He is industrious in habit, pleasing in manner, extremely courteous and affable in bearing. I find him also diligent and shrewd in inquiry; and the observations which fall from him show that he has studiously kept pace with the great questions of the day (I do not mean our Canadian politics simply), and besides the cultivation of classical education in its broader sense, he possesses a mind stored with facts bearing on and illustrative of those questions. In these respects, or more correctly speaking in the latter, and as regards trade and finance, he reminds me more of Lord Sydenham than any other governor of my time. I think he possesses also caution and firmness;—that he will not resolve hastily, that he may not have to change his resolves. He has large ideas of the capabilities and resources both of Canada and of the British North American Provinces, and, as it strikes me, without any reference to a political union of these provinces, thinks that a course might be taken to develop the whole, by separate parts taking a common course in matters in which they have a common interest—internal communication, favorable to our European commerce and connections will serve as an illustration of the sort of questions to which I allude.... All this, of course, is mere opinion, but such are my first impressions, and as such, and no more, I readily give them to you in reply to your enquiry, etc."