TORONTO OP OLD. 267 



"For often there in pensive mood 

 They ponder deeply on the good 

 They may on Canada bestow — 

 And College Halls appear, and streams of Learning flow !" 



^he "Epilogue" to the day's performances is a humourous dissertation in doggrel verse on 

 United States' innovations in the English Language ; a pupil of the school is supposed to com- 

 plain of the conduct of the master : 



"Between ourselves, and just to speak my mind, 

 In English Grammar, Master's much behind : 

 I speak the honest truth — I hate to dash- 

 He bounds our task by Murray, Lowth and Ashe-. 

 I told him once that Aberci'ombie, moved 

 By genius deep, had Murray's plan improved. 

 He frowned upon me, turning up his nose. 

 And said the man had ta'en a maddening dose. 

 Once in my theme I put the word progress — 

 He sentenced twenty lines, without redress. 

 Again for 'measure' I transcribed 'endeavour' — 

 And all the live-long day I lost his favour." &c., &c. 

 We have ourselves a good personal recollection of the system of the school at York, and of 

 the interest which it succeeded in awakening in the subjects taught. The custom of mutual 

 questioning in classes, under the eye of the master, was well adapted to induce real research 

 and to impress facts on the mind when discovered. In the higher classes each lad m turn was 

 required to furnish a set of questions to be put by himself to his class-fellows, on a given sub- 

 ject, with the understandihg that he should be ready to set the answerer right should he prove 

 wrong : and again : any lad who should be deemed competent was permitted to challenge ano 

 thor, or several others, to read or recite select rhetorical pieces : a memorandum of the challenge 

 was recorded ; and, at the time appointed, the contest came off, the class or the school deciding 

 the superiority in each case, subject to the criticism and disallowance of the master. It will 

 be seen from the matters embraced in the programme given above, that -the object aimed at 

 was a speedy and real preparation for actual life. The master, in this instance, was disem- 

 barrassed of the traditions which, at the period now referred to, often rendered the education 

 of a young man a cumbersome, unintelligent and tedious thing. The circumstances of his 

 own youth had evidently led him to free himself from routine. He himself was an example, in 

 addition to many another Scottish-trained man of eminence that might be named, of the early 

 age at which a youth of good parts and sincere, enbghtened purpose, may be prepared for the 

 duties of actual life, when not caught in the constrictor-coils of custom, which, under the old 

 English Public School system of sixty years since, used-sometimes to torture parent and son 

 for such a long series of years. His methods of instruction were productive, for others, of the 

 results realized in his own case. His distinguished Cornwall pupils were all, we believe, use- 

 fully and successfully engaged in the real work of life in very early manhood. "The time 

 allowed in a new country like this," he said to his pupils at Cornwall in 1807, "is scarcely suffi- 

 cient to sow the most necessary seed ; very great progress is not therefore to be expected : if 

 the principles are properly engrafted we have done well." — In the same address his own mode 

 of proceeding is thus dwelt upon : " In conducting your education, one of my principal objects 

 has always been to fit you for discharging with credit the duties of any office to which you may 

 hereafter be called. To accomplish this, it was necessary for you to be accustomed frequently 

 to depend upon, and think for yourselves : accordingly I have always encouraged this disposi- 

 tion, which, when preserved within due bounds, is one of the greatest benefits that can possibly 

 ■be acquired. To enable you to think with advantage, I not only regulated your tasks in such a 

 manner as to exercise your judgment, but extended your views beyond the meagre routine of 

 study usually adopted in schools ; for, in my opinion, several branches of science may be taught 

 with advantage at a much earlier age than is generally supposed. We made a mystery of 

 nothing : on the contrary, we entered minutely into every particular, and patiently explained 

 by what progressive steps certam results were obtained. It has ever been my custom, before 



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