But since the expression of these emphatic opinions the tendency of
legislation in the majority of the provinces--but not in French
Canada, where the Roman Catholic clergy still largely control their
own schools--has been to encourage secular and not religious
education. It would be instructive to learn whether either morality or
Christianity has been the gainer.

It is only justice to the memory of a man who died many years after he
saw the full fruition of his labours to say that Upper Canada owes a
debt of gratitude to the Rev. Egerton Ryerson for his services in
connection with its public school system. He was far from being a man
of deep knowledge or having a capacity for expressing his views with
terseness or clearness. He had also a large fund of personal vanity
which made him sometimes a busybody when inaction or silence would
have been wiser for himself. We can only explain his conduct in
relation to the constitutional controversy between Lord Metcalfe and
the Liberal party by the supposition that he could not resist the
blandishments of that eminent nobleman, when consulted by him, but
allowed his reason to be captured and then gave expression to opinions
and arguments which showed that he had entirely misunderstood the
seriousness of the political crisis or the sound practice of the
parliamentary system which Baldwin, LaFontaine and Howe had so long
laboured to establish in British North America. The books he wrote can
never be read with profit or interest. His "History of the United
Empire Loyalists" is probably the dullest book ever compiled by a
Canadian, and makes us thankful that he was never able to carry out
the intention he expressed in a letter to Sir Francis Hincks of
writing a constitutional history of Canada. But though he made no
figure in Canadian letters, and was not always correct in his estimate
of political issues, he succeeded in making for himself a reputation