426 APPLICABILITY OF OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 



Now althougli these figures may not be quite accurate, still it is 

 certain that the number of children -who are growing up in this city, 

 and who take no advantage of the opportunities of acquiring a sound 

 and useful education which are placed within their reach, is such as 

 to justify earnest consideration and instant action. We have school 

 houses externally beautiful, and fitted up internally with every con- 

 venience and appliance, we have a most respectable staff of teachers, 

 and a system of education to which, it is true, objections have been 

 raised, but in whose favor, we have the testimony of some of the most 

 eminent men both in the United States and in Great Britain. In a 

 debate which took place only a few weeks ago in the British House of 

 Commons on the subject of national education, our Canadian system 

 was referred to by the most distinguished men on both sides as one 

 not only excellent in itself, but which it would be most desirable to 

 copy in England. Why, then, it may be asked, do so many stand aloof 

 from our schools ; and why are so many growing up in ignorance and 

 vagrancy, inflicting upon society most serious injury and heavy 

 expenditure ? To answer this question fully would lead me beyond 

 the point to which at present I wish, as far as possible, to confine 

 myself. I cannot but say, however, that while much is attributable 

 to the indifference of parents for the welfare of their children, as well 

 as to the want of countenance and moral support on the part of the 

 more influential classes, much more injury is done by the misrepresen- 

 tations of advocates of sectarian education, both Roman Catholic and 

 Protestant. 



I admit that the Common School system as it stands at present does 

 not necessarily ensure the attendance of all those whose education is 

 desirable-; it does not do so in Toronto, as we see ; it has not done so 

 elsewhere. In European countries where the Free School system is in 

 operation the compulsory principle is applied, as will be seen from the 

 following extract from Dr. Kay's work on the "Social condition and 

 Education of the people." He says : 



" In Prussia, no child, without the permission both of the civil magistrate of 

 the town or village of which its parents are inhabitants, and also of their religious 

 minister, can be kept from school beyond the completion of its fifth year, or after- 

 wards discontinue its attendance on the school classes for any length of time till 

 he has passed his fifteenth year. If the parent neither provides at home for the 

 education of his children, nor sends them to the school, the teacher is bound to 

 inform the religious minister of the parent ; the minister then remonstrates with 

 him ; and if he still neglects to send his children, the minister is bound by law to 



