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satisfied with the present position of this great question. 
We are not doing our best so long as we allow this to be a 
local matter. The cost of education should be placed on 
the consolidated fund altogether, and it is against the interests 
of the children that it should be left in local hands, because 
we find considerable local feeling in the matter of education 
and people are jealous about their educational position. 
In some towns we find parsimonious managers with an utter 
absence of public spirit. In the matter of equipment, hygiene, 
buildings, and that sort of thing our children are taught 
under such conditions as make it impossible for them to get 
the advantage of our present educational system. So long 
as we make the education question a matter of local control, and 
until we get that removed and the whole burden placed upon 
the consolidated funds, we shall not have a satisfactory settle- 
ment of this question. I venture to say with regard to this 
question, that the sooner we get into the habit of regarding 
the child in our day schools as a potential citizen and leave 
off viewing him as a theological problem, the better it will 
be for the coming generation. The subject of Sunday schools 
having been mentioned, in my opinion, the present day 
system is very unsatisfactory. I do not think the coming 
generation has as good a chance as the present one in this 
respect. I amongst others, owe a lot to the influence of the 
Sunday school. The Sunday schools7of to-day were failing 
to rear so robust a generation as the Sunday schools of a 
generation ago. 
My next generation obviously refers to the children. We 
cannot consider this question educationally without referring 
to the physical condition of the child at the beginning 
of its career. I should like to throw out the suggestion that 
this problem begins before the child is born. Then there 
is the question of infantile mortality, which to my surprise, 
has not been mentioned, being one of the most painful and 
difficult problems of modern times, especially in large in- 
dustrial centres such as that in which we live. 200 per 1 ,000 
is the death rate here. I am sorry to be compelled to think 
that when these children come into the world they have not 
even half a chance of surviving to the end of the first year. 
Indeed, without attempting in any way whatever to slander 
or libel my fellow countrymen, 1 am bound to say that there 
are scores and hundreds of cases where, to say the very least, 
they do not study to keep the children alive and that because 
they would rather they were out of the way. The ordinary 
operative does not become interested in the child until it is 
approaching the time of life when it will be a wage-earner ; 
