careful examination of the systems that prevail in the United States,
Prussia, and Ireland.

As in the larger provinces, much apathy was shown in Nova Scotia for
many years on the subject of the education of the people. Unhappily this
apathy lasted much longer; for the census of 1861 proved that out of a
population of 284,000 persons over five years of age, no less than
81,469 could not read a printed page, and 114,877 could not write their
names. It was not till 1864 that Sir Charles Tupper, then Premier,
brought in a comprehensive measure containing the best features of the
Ontario system; and the result has been a remarkable development in the
education of the province. In New Brunswick, where the public schools
were long in a very inferior state--though parish schools had been
established as early as 1823--the system was remodelled, in 1871, on
that of Ontario, though no provision was made for Separate Schools--an
omission which has created much bitterness in the province, as the
political history of Canada for the subsequent years abundantly
testifies. In Prince Edward Island the first free schools were
established in 1852, and further improvements have been made of recent
years. In British Columbia, the Legislature has adopted substantially
the Ontario School Law with such modifications as are essential to the
different circumstances of a sparse population. In the North-west,
before the formation of the Province of Manitoba, education was in a
much better condition than the isolation and scattered state of the
population would have led one to expect. In 1857 there were seventeen
schools in the settlements, generally under the supervision of the
clergy of the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian bodies. In
the Collegiate School, managed by the Church of England, and supported,
like all other institutions in the country, by contributions from
abroad, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Thucydides and Livy were read with other