improved with the progress of experience. The remarks of a writer in a
recent number of a popular American magazine, _Scribner's Monthly_, may
have some application to ourselves, when he says that there is
now-a-days 'too decided an aim to train everybody to pass an examination
in everything;' that the present system 'encourages two virtues--to
forgive and forget, in time to forgive the examiner, and to forget the
subject of the examination.' The present writer does not wish--in fact,
it is rather beyond the limit he has marked out for this review--to go
into any lengthy discussion of matters which are worthy, however, of
consideration by all those interested in perfecting the details of the
educational system in Ontario; but he may refer, _en passant_, to the
somewhat remarkable multiplication of text-books, many of which are
carelessly got up, simply to gratify the vanity and fill the purse of
some educationist, anxious to get into print. Grammar also appears to be
a lost art in the Public Schools, where the students are perplexed by
books, not simple, but most complex in their teachings, calculated to
bewilder persons of mature analytical minds, and to make one appreciate
more highly than ever the intelligible lessons of Lennie's homely little
volume, which was the favourite in those times when education was not
quite so much reduced to a science. But these are, after all, only among
the details which can be best treated by teachers themselves, in those
little parliaments which have grown up of recent years, and where
educationists have admirable opportunities of comparing their
experiences, and suggesting such improvements as may assist in the
intellectual development of the young, and at the same time elevate
their own social standing in this country. On the whole, Canada has much
reason for congratulation in possessing a system which brings education
in every province within the reach of all, and enables a lad to
cultivate his intellectual faculties to a point sufficient to place him
in the years of his mature manhood in the highest position that this