consisting of local superintendents and the trustees of grammar-schools in such county. These county Boards consist largely of the clergy of different religious persuasions, associated with some of the most intelligent lay gentlemen in each county; so that the country has the best guarantee that its circumstances will admit for the moral character and intellectual qualifications of teachers. The teachers are examined, and arranged into three classes, according to a Programme of Examination prepared and prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction for Upper Canada.

"The municipal council of each county is responsible for raising at least an equal sum for salaries of teachers in the several townships within its jurisdiction with that which is annually apportioned to them out of the parliamentary appropriation by the Chief Superintendent of Schools. The county councils also appoint the local treasurers of the school fund, and the local superintendents of schools, and provide for their salaries. Special provision is also made for the security of the school fund against the diversion of any part of it, and for the prompt payment of it to teachers at the times specified by law. Both the county and township councils have authority to raise any sums they shall think proper for public school libraries under general regulations prescribed according to law. A parliamentary appropriation has been made for the establishment of school libraries, to be expended on the same conditions with the appropriation for the support of schools.

"The law also provides a system adapted to the circumstances of cities, towns, and incorporated villages. In

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each city and town there is one board of trustees for the management of all the schools in such city or town-two trustees elected for cach ward, and holding office for two years-one retiring annually. In each incorporated village not divided into wards there is a board of six trustees elected, two retiring from office and two elected each year. These boards of trustees, thus constituted, appoint the local superintendent, and determine upon the number and kinds of schools, the employment of teachers, and all the expenses necessary for the schools in each such city, town, or incorporated village; and the municipal council is required in each case to raise the sum or sums estimated by the board of trustees for all their school purposes, and in the manner that they shall desire. There is also the same provision for the establishment of libraries in each city, town, and village, as exists in respect to their establishment in each township and county.

"At the head of the whole system we have a Council of Public Instruction and a Chief Superintendent of Schools, both appointed by the Crown. The Council has the entire management of the Provincial Normal and Model Schools, recommends the text-books for the schools and books for the school libraries, and makes the regulations for the organization, government, and discipline of common schools, the examination and classification of teachers, and the establishment and care of school libraries throughout Upper Canada.

"The Chief Superintendent, who is ex-officio member of the Council of Public Instruction, and provides accommodations for its meetings, apportions the school fund to the several municipalities throughout Upper Canada, pre

pares the general school regulations, and submits them, as well as that of text and library books, to the consideration of the Council; prepares the forms of reports and modes of all school proceedings under the Act, and gives instructions for conducting them, as well as for holding teachers" institutes; decides questions of dispute submitted to him; takes the general superintendence of the Normal School; provides facilities for procuring text and library books, and provides and recommends plans of school-houses; prepares annual reports; corresponds with local school authorities throughout Upper Canada, and employs all means in power for the promotion of education and the diffusion of useful knowledge. He is responsible for his official conduct, and for all moneys that pass through his department.

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"Such is an epitome of the system of public elementary instruction in Upper Canada. The foundation may be considered as fairly laid, and something has been done towards rearing the superstructure. In 1846 provision was made for the establishment of a Normal School, and the sum of 1500l. a-year was granted towards its support. The school was opened in the autumn of 1847, and since then 618 teachers have been trained, a longer or shorter time, by able masters, including practice in teaching in a Model School established for that purpose. Last year a grant of 1000l. per annum was made to facilitate the attendance of teachers in training at the Normal School, and 15,000l. for the erection of buildings. . . . . The number of schools in Upper Canada, under the care of the department, is 3059; the amount of money available during the year for the salaries of teachers, besides all

other expenses connected with the schools, was 88,5367.; the number of pupils in the schools reported was 151,891.

"There has been an annual increase in the statistical returns of each branch of the common school system during the last five years. The system is to a great extent voluntary. Each municipality exercises its discretion as to whether it will or will not accept the parliamentary appropriation upon the conditions specified, and each school section does the same in regard to the terms on which aid is offered in support of its school. The general regulations and oversight are such as merely to secure a fulfilment in each locality of conditions which are required by the Legislature-the collective wisdom and voice of the country-and to maintain a standard of teaching that will prevent funds provided for the promotion of knowledge from being prostituted upon ignorance and vice. The working of the common school system is a great social development; yet in its infancy but, instinct with life and energy, and fraught with results which can be more easily conceived than described."

A system of general elementary instruction combining all these advantages-free scope to local action, efficient superintendence, provision for the supply of good teachers and well-selected books- must by degrees exercise great influence on the intellectual development of the mass of the people. The Normal school is also to afford instruction in the best principles of hus

bandry, illustrated by practice on the land of the establishment. The amount of success now attending the whole scheme is very encouraging; the chief superintendent in his last published Report (Toronto, 1850), mentions, in illustration of this, the following among other facts-that, as compared with the neighbouring State of New York, the average attendance of the children in proportion to the whole number on the register is greater; that the schools under qualified teachers are kept open longer; that the proportion of teachers in the Normal school was much greater; that the schools in the rural districts are superior to those of New York, although the school law of the latter has been in existence thirty years; that the school books are better; and the amounts raised by school-rate bills and by local assessments are as large in proportion as in that State. And as regards the proportion of children attending school to those of school age in the province, it appears that, for the year 1849, of 253,364 children between the ages of five and sixteen, there were on the school rolls 138,465-a number still much too few, but indicating, as com