THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. II5 



Schools. This sum was apportioned among the different Districts 

 into which the Province was divided on the basis of population. 

 The machinery for the management of these schools was of the simp- 

 lest form and consisted of a Board of Education for each District, 

 composed of five persons appointed by the Governor, and of a Board 

 of three Trustees who were elected annually, on the first day of June, 

 by the supporters of the school. The conditions necessary to estab- 

 lish a Common School were, — that the inhabitants of any town, 

 township, village or place should unite and provide a school-house, 

 furnish twenty scholars, and guarantee a portion of the teacher's 

 salary. These conditions being complied with, a grant not exceeding 

 $100 was paid to the teacher from the money set apart by the 

 Legislature for the support of Common Schools. This Act being an 

 experimental one, was limited to four years' duration. In 1820, the 

 Legislature reduced the annual grant to $10,000, ordered it to be 

 divided equally among the Districts, and repealed the time limit. 

 With these changes this Act formed the basis of the Common School 

 system and remained in force until 1841, when it was superseded by 

 the School Act of that year. 



During the interval from 1820 to 1841 a number of special 

 and temporary Acts were passed, some for the purpose of fixing the 

 annual legislative grant, others to convey school sites from individ- 

 uals to school trustees, while others were for the relief of teachers, 

 who had suffered loss by the defalcations of some of the District 

 treasurers. In all this time little or no progress was made in 

 elementary education, except that the schools had increased in num- 

 ber. According to the testimony of leading public men, and of 

 persons travelling through the Province, the condition of educational 

 matters was simply deplorable. The schools were schools in name 

 only, for to quote from a memorial presented to the Governor in 

 1835, — " The little instruction given to the children under the name 

 of education has no mfluence over their morals, does nothing to open 

 or expand their intellectual faculties, much less to direct them on 

 their conduct through life. English reading imperfectly taught, 

 something of writing, and the first five rules of arithmetic, which the 

 teachers we employ are seldom able to explain, make up the meagre 

 sum total of what the rising generation learn at our Common 

 Schools." 



