90 THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



erature and science are employed in University education in this Pro- 

 vince. We need not go beyond our own ranks to find several who 

 are justly esteemed as authorities in the departments to which their 

 attention is devoted. But in the schools in which preparation is 

 made for a course of University study, it appears to me there is room 

 for improvement in this particular, and I am sure you will concur 

 with me in expressing a hope, that whatever may be found wanting 

 in this important practical department of education may be speedily 

 supplied. 



The other branch of the question is of still more serious conse- 

 quence. "We yet, happily, have the opportunity of endeavouring to 

 anticipate and to prevent evils which older communities are striving 

 to mitigate and to cure. The increase of offences committed by the 

 young, forces itself on the attention of Statesmen as well as of Philan- 

 thropists. Lord Stanley, not very long ago remarked, in reference 

 to it : " The only means for diminishing crime consists in the detec- 

 " tion and training of criminal children to habits of honest industry :" 

 ■a sad but pregnant admission, not only of the absence of right 

 'education, but of a training in the paths of vice and crime. Our 

 young country has not yet sunk to that stage of demoralization ; 

 we may yet, I trust, look with hope and confidence to the prevention 

 of guilt, by training children before they have become initiated in 

 vicious pursuits ; and this is the object attainable, as appears to me, 

 through our Common School system. If it requires any change — 

 any new powers to make it thoroughly efficient in that respect, such 

 change should not be delayed, such powers should not, and I believe, 

 could not be long withheld ! JSTo man who seriously reflects on the 

 •subject will pay grudgingly the amount he may be taxed to render 

 our Schools accessible to those whose parents or guardians are unable 

 Or even unwilling to pay for their education. Every farthing thus 

 expended, will save pounds of the cost attending the detection and 

 punishment of crime. But many will think the taxation neither 

 wise nor just if they see free schools with a comparatively slender 

 attendance, while the streets are filled with idle and vagrant children, 

 ignorant, uneducated, if not already vicious, in danger of falling 

 before the first temptation. It is the office of the Legislature to 

 consider and determine what amount of interference with the rights 

 of parents who neglect this duty to their children should be sanc- 

 tioned — to what extent and in what manner a needful compulsion 

 should be brought to bear both upon parents and children. It may 

 not be a problem of easy solution, but, I think, it is one that must 



