RYERSON 



5133 



RYSWICK 



Dr. Ryerson favored the establishment of de- 

 nominational colleges, but he urged that they 

 should be affiliated with a central provincial 

 institution. This plan has been worked out in 

 the University of Toronto. In 1884 he was 

 chosen superintendent of education for Upper 

 Canada. This office he held until Confedera- 

 tion, when he assumed the same position for 

 the province of Ontario, the combined service 

 covering thirty-two years. He drafted and pro- 

 cured the passage of laws which established the 

 principles of Ontario's school system, which 

 has been copied, to a greater or less degree, by 

 the other provinces. 



In religious affairs Dr. Ryerson was equally 

 active. In 1874 he was elected president of the 

 first General Conference of the Methodist 

 Church in Canada; this office he held four 

 years. On several occasions he was delegate of 

 the Canadian conference to conferences in Eng- 

 land. Neither religion nor education, however, 

 stifled his interest in .political affairs. He was 

 a United Empire Loyalist by descent and a 

 Tory by sympathy, but he would not apply 

 narrow Tory principles in education or religion. 

 He favored the secularization of the clergy re- 

 serves and opposed further efforts to confine 



government endowments of any kind to a par- 

 ticular denomination. Responsible government 

 he opposed, because he feared that Canada 

 might suffer from it in an extreme form. 



Dr. Ryerson was an orator of distinction, and 

 frequently spoke on the platform as well as in 

 the pulpit. He was also a contributor to jour- 

 nals and wrote a number of books which are 

 valuable sources in Canadian history. These 

 are Affairs of the Canadas; Report on Popular 

 Education; Letters in Defense of Our School 

 System; The Loyalists of America and Their 

 Times; and The Story of My Life, an auto- 

 biography. 



RYSWICK, ris'wik, TREATY OF, a peace 

 agreement made in 1697 at Ryswick, near The 

 Hague, between Louis XIV of France and the 

 coalition of European powers known as the 

 Grand Alliance. It brought to a close a nine- 

 years' war waged against Louis, whose ambi- 

 tious designs menaced the independence of the 

 nations of Europe. The various conquests 

 made by both sides during the struggle were 

 given up, and the power of Louis from that 

 time began to wane. See FRANCE, subtitle His- 

 tory of France; Louis, subhead Louis XIV; 

 WILLIAM III (England). 



