opportunities to cultivate those social amenities which make life so
pleasant, and also do so much to soften the difficulties of one's
journey through life. [Footnote: Since the above was written, I find the
following remarks by Mr. Adam, editor of the _Canada Educational
Monthly_, to the same purport: 'The tone of the Schools might be largely
raised and the tender and plastic nature of the young minds under
training be directed into sympathy with the noble and the elevating.
Relieved of much of the red-tapism which hampers the work of the
High-School teacher, the masters of the Public Schools have more
opportunity to make individuality tell in the conduct of the school, and
of encircling the sphere of their work with a bright zone of cultivation
and refinement. But the Public School teacher will accomplish much if,
reverently and sympathetically, he endeavours to preserve the freshness
and ingenuousness of childhood and, by the influence of his own example,
while leading the pupil up the golden ladder of mental acquisition, he
encourages the cultivation of those graces of life which are the best
adornments of youth.'--Feb. 1879.] Such discipline cannot be too rigidly
followed in a country of a Saxon race, whose _brusquerie_ of manner and
speech is a natural heritage, just as a spirit of courtesy seems innate
in the humblest _habitants_ who have not yet forgotten, among the rude
conditions of their American life, that prominent characteristic of a
Gallic people. [Footnote: More than forty years ago, Mr. Buller, in his
report to Lord Durham on the State of Education in Lower Canada, pays
this tribute to the peasantry: 'Withal this is a people eminently
qualified to reap advantages from education; they are shrewd and
intelligent, never morose, most amiable in their domestic relations, and
_most graceful in their manners_.']

It is quite probable that the Public School system of this country is
still defective in certain respects, which can only be satisfactorily