understand, should be provided for all, and taught to all; should
be brought within the reach of the most needy, and forced upon the
attention of the most careless. The knowledge required for the
scientific pursuit of mechanics, agriculture, and commerce, must
needs be provided to an extent corresponding with the demand, and
the exigencies of the country; while, to a more limited extent, are
needed facilities for acquiring the higher education of the learned
professions.

With a view to give a summary sketch of Dr. Ryerson's exposition of the
system of Public Instruction which he desired to establish, I give the
following additional extracts from his first Report. After combating the
objection which then existed in some quarters to the establishment of a
thorough system of primary and industrial education, commensurate with
the population and wants of the country, he remarked:--

The first feature then of our Provincial System of Public Instruction,
should be universality. The elementary education of the whole people
must, therefore, be an essential element in the legislative and
administrative policy of an enlightened and beneficent government. Nor
is it less important to the efficiency of such a system that it should
be practical than that it should be universal. The mere acquisition, or
even the general diffusion of knowledge, without the requisite qualities
to apply that knowledge in the best manner, does not merit the name of
education. Much knowledge may be imparted and acquired without any
addition whatever to the capacity for the business of life.... History
presents us with even University Systems of Education (so called)
entirely destitute of all practical character; and there are elementary
systems which tend as much to prejudice and pervert, not to say corrupt,
the popular mind as to improve and elevate it.

The state of society, then, no less than the wants of our country,
requires that every youth of the land should be trained to industry and
its practice, whether that training be extensive or limited.

Now education, thus practical, includes religion and morality; secondly,
the development to a certain extent of all our faculties; thirdly, an
acquaintance with several branches of elementary knowledge.

By religion and morality, I do not mean sectarianism in any form, but
the general truth and morals taught in the Holy Scriptures. Sectarianism
is not morality. To