university at the seat of Government, to complete the system of education in the Colony at which all the branches requisite for qualifying young men for the learned professions may be taught.... The principal and professors, except those of Medicine and Law, should be clergymen of the Established Church; and no tutor, teacher, or officer who is not a member of that Church should ever be employed in the institution."

I have given this long quotation from Rev. Dr. Strachan's report for several reasons. It shows very clearly the point of view of a remarkable man who had much to do with educational affairs in Upper Canada for a period of nearly seventy years. It shows his zeal for higher education, his belief in the efficacy of a religious establishment, his narrow bigotry and intolerance of all outside of an establishment, his old-world belief that the clergy should control education, his loyal attachment to British institutions, and above all, to those who read between the lines, his lack of real interest in elementary education. He is perfectly satisfied with the state of the Common Schools, although they were then accommodating less than one in twenty of the total population. The schools of which he says, "which are now, by the exertions of Your Excellency, placed on an excellent footing, requiring no other improvements than the means of multiplying their number," were conducted in rude buildings, without any apparatus, with a motley assortment of textbooks, and taught in many cases by ignorant itinerant schoolmasters who were of no use at any other occupation, and who received from $80 to $200 a year! Little can ever be expected in the way of improvement from those who are wholly satisfied with present conditions, and it is safe to say that any improvements that took place in the Common Schools of Canada under the régime of the Rev. Dr. Strachan were owing to other causes than the efforts put forth by that gentleman. The Common Schools of Upper Canada had to wait for a new birth—until Ryerson breathed life into them.