TORONTO OP OLD. 255 



penetration I possess in distinguishing truth from error.. I began to extend my thoughts to 

 abstract and general ideas ; and to summon the author to the bar of my reason. I learned to 

 discriminate between hypotheses and facts, and to separate the ebullitions of fancy from the 

 deductions of reason. It is not to be supposed that I could or can do these things perfectly ; 

 but I began to apply my powers : my skill is still increasing."— Then for two years more, and 

 up to tlie moment of his bold determination to make trial of his fortunes in the new world beyond 

 the seas, he is in charge of the parish-school of Kettle. We have before us a li.st of his school 

 there, March the 22nd, 1798. The names amount to eighty-two. After each, certain initials 

 are placed denoting disposition and capability, and the direction of any particular talent. 

 Among these names are to be read that of D. Wilkie, afterwards the artist, and that of J. 

 Barclay, afterwards the naval commander here on Lake Erie. We believe that Thomas Camp- 

 bell, author of the Pleasures of Hope, was also for a time under his care. 



In the history of Dr. Strachan's educational labours in Canada, the school at York presents 

 fewer points of interest than that at Cornwall, which is rendered illustrious by having had 

 enrolled on its books so many names familiar in the annals of Upper Canada. Among the 

 forty-two subscribers to an address accompaning a piece of Plate in 1833, there are Robinsons, 

 and Macaulays, and M'DoneUs, and M'Leans, and Joneses, and Stantons, and Bethunes ; a 

 Jarvis, a ChQwett, a Boulton, a Vankoughnet, a Smith of Kingston, an Anderson ; with some 

 others now less known : and so illustrative is that address of the skill and earnest care of the 

 instructor on the one hand, and of the value set upon his efforts by his scholars, on the other, 

 after the lapse of many years, that we are induced to give here a short extract from it. " Our 

 young minds," the signers of the address in 1833 say, referring to their school-days in Cornwall— 

 " our young minds received there an impression which has scarcely become fainter from time> 

 of the deep and sincere interest which you took, not only in our advancement in learning and 

 science, but in all that concerned our happiness or could effect our future prospects in life.' 

 To which Dr. Strachan replies by saying, among many other excellent things— "It has ever 

 been my conviction that our scholars should be considered for the time our children ; and that 

 as parents we should study their peculiar dispositions, if we really wish to improve them; for 

 if we feel not something of the tender relation of parents towards them, we cannot exiject to be 

 successful in their education. It was on this principle I attempted to proceed : strict justice 

 tempered with parental kindness : and the present joyful meeting evinces its triumph : it treats 

 the sentiments and feelings of scholars with proper consideration ; and while it gives the heart 

 and affections full freedom to sliew themselves in filial gratitude on the one side, and fatherly 

 affection on tlie other, it proves that unsparing labour accompanied with continual anxiety for 

 the learner's progress never fails to ensure success and to piroduce a friendship between master 

 and scholar which time can never dissolve." 



XII.— DISTRICT GRAMMAR SCKOOh— (Continued.) 

 Notwithstanding the greater glory of the school at Cornwall, (of which institution we may 

 say, in passing, there is an engraving in the board-room of our Mechanics' Institute,) the lists 

 of the school at York always presented a strong array of the old, weU-knovra and even distin- 

 guished. Upper Canadian names. This wil,! be seen by a perusal of the following document, 

 which will also give an idea of the variety of matters to which attention was given in the school. 

 The numerous familiar family names that we shall at once recognize, will require no exjjlanatory 

 comments. The intervals between the calling up of each separate class for examination appear 

 to have been very plentifully fiUed up with recitations and debates. " Order of Examination 

 of the Home District Grammar School [at York]. Wednesday, 11th August, 1819. First Day. 

 The Latin and Greek Classics. Euclid and Trigonometry. Thursday, 12th August. Second 

 Day. To commence at 10 o'clock. Prologue, by Robert Baldwin. — Beading Class.— George 

 Strachan, The Excellence of the Bible. Thomas Ridout, The Man of Ross. James McDonell, 

 Liberty and Slavery. St. George Baldwin, The Sword. WOliam McMurray, Soliloquy on 

 Sleep. Arithmetic Class.— James Smith, The Sporting Clergyman. William Boulton, jun.. 

 The Poet's New Year's Gift. Richard Gates, Ode to Apollo. OrviUe Cassel, The Rose. — Book- 

 keeping. — WUliam Myers, My Mother. Francis Heward, My Father. George Dawson, Lap- 

 land. — First Grammar Class. — Second Grammar Class. — Debate on the Slave Trade. For the 



