VOL. IV.

Upper

TORONTO,

Canada.

PAGE.

1-3

3-5

5-7

8-12 12-14

In presenting to you my annual address at the commencement of 1851, I am not in a position to enter into statistical details in respect to past educational progress; nor is it necessary that I should do so, as my last annual School Report has just been printed by order of the Legislative Assembly, and placed in the hands of each Municipal Council and School Corporation throughout Upper Canada. I will, therefore, on the present occasion confine myself to a few general remarks and practical suggestions.

My first remark relates to the settlement of the general principles and great organic provisions of our school system. It has been a common and not unfounded complaint, that there was nothing abiding, nothing settled in the principles and provisions of our School Law. Perpetual change in a school law is perpetual infancy in a public school system. Permanence and stability are essential conditions of growth, whether in an oak of the forest, or in a system of national education. But the works of man are not like the works of GOD, perfect at the beginning. The history of all science teaches us, that experiments must precede the principles which they establish; and the period of experiment in any thing is likely to be a period of change as well as of infancy. In no branch of political economy have more experiments been made, and with less progress towards the definiteness and dignity of a science, than in the department of public education. The chief reason I apprehend to be, not that it is more difficult than any other, but that it has received less attention than any other in proportion to its magnitude and importance-that in very few instances has any one man, with zeal and capacity for the task, been permanently set apart to investigate the subject in all its aspects and applications, and to bring definitely and practically before the authorities, and legislators, and citizens of his country, the results of general experience and

careful consideration, and embody them in actual recommendations and measures, and administrative policy. In New York and other States, the succession of temporary State School officers has been accompanied with an almost corresponding succession of school laws; and every confident and adventurous theorist in the Legislature, who had perhaps never been out of the limits of his native State, or read half a dozen school laws, or never studied a school system, in his life, was ready with some new project in which he imagined and insisted was embodied the sum of all human perfection, but which was no sooner tried than abandoned. In the State of New York, after almost annual legislation for nearly forty years, the general provisions of the last amended school law of that State, are, I have been informed, a reënactment substantially and almost verbatim of the general provisions of the school law of 1811, which was adopted on the recommendation of an able Committee that had devoted a year to the examination and consideration of the subjectthus coming back to the place of beginning, after having made the whole circle in school legislation. But in Upper Canada, our abnormal state of legislative experiment and change has been less protracted and tedious. We have had the great advantage of our neighbours' experiments and experience, and have reached (and I hope have exceeded) their results in legislation, without the drawbacks of their many trials and disappointments; and some of the material changes in our school law have been required by the introduction of a new system of Municipal Councils; and other portions of our recent school legislation have consisted in the introduction of new and necessary provisions, rather than the repeal of existing ones. The careful inquiry which has been instituted into the whole subject during the last five years, the many consultations which have been held in the several counties throughout the country, the minute and anxious attention whieh was bestowed upon it by the Government and the Legislature during the last session, all warrant the assurance in the public mind, that no future legislation on the subject of our Common Schools will take place, except as new wants may suggest, and the experience and convictions of the country shall require. I am the more convinced of the correctness of this conclusion from the fact, that every suggestion, whether friendly or hostile, which I have seen in newspapers proposing substitutes for certain provisions of our present school law, has been tried and found unsuccessful in some one of the neighbouring States a fact of which the projectors might have satisfied themselves, had they investigated the history of school legistation in those States, before undertaking to give lessons on the subject for Upper Canada. It cannot fail to be satisfactory and encouraging to every practical man and friend of education, to enter upon the school duties and interests of a new year with the conviction, that his labours will not be in vain, and that the system to which he shall endeavour to give efficiency will be an abiding agency for the educational development and elevation of his country.

My second general remark refers to the position which our school system and its administration occupy in respect to parties and party interests,

The virus of party spirit is poisonous to the interests of education in any country or neighbourhood, and the clangour and jostling of party conflicts are its funeral knell. It perishes in the social storm, but grows and blooms and bears fruit in the serenity and sunshine of social peace and harmony. It has, therefore, been the policy of the enemies of general education, in any country and of

whatever party, as if prompted by a malevolent instinct, to seek to invest the agency for its extension with a party character, and then strangle it as a party monster. And even unintentionally and incidentally, the interests of education have largely suffered from the same upas influence. Among our American neighbours, I have been assured, that party selfishness and contests have proved one of the most serious obstacles to the progress of their educational systems and interests. The working of their machinery of government involving countless elections and endless party conflicts, the local, if not higher, administration of their school systems has often been perverted and pressed into degrading service as an engine of party -to the grief of the earnest and patriotic friends of education; and it has been alleged, that to the intrigues of party aspirants may be traced the origin of no inconsiderable number of their projects of school laws and school reforms. It is highly honourable to the discernment and patriotism of our neighbours, that under a system of polity which to so high a degree lives and moves and breathes in an atmosphere of almost theatrical excitement, the interests of education have been so nobly sustained and its progress has been so rapid and extensive. I regard it as an interesting incident in our Canadian history, and a brilliant sign and certain augury of educational progress, that our system of popular instruction stands forth by common consent and suffrage, the exclusive property of no party, and the equal friend of all parties. If one party introduced legislative enactments laying the foundation and delineating the general outlines of the system in 1941 and 1843, and if another introduced a legislative measure to modify and essentially to improve it in 1846, both parties have united to mature and consolidate it in 1850. I think there was a moral sublimity in the spectacle presented by our Legislature at its last session, when the leading minds of both parties, (with only subordinate exceptions unworthy of formal notice, and reflecting just darkness enough to give stronger expression and greater majesty to the general outlines of the picture) forgetting the rivalships and alieni tions of party, and uniting as one man to provide the best system they could devise for the universal education of their common country--the spirit of sect being merged in the spirit of Christianity, and the spirit of partizanship absorbed in that of patriotism. I have stated the fact to several distinguished public men, as well in the United States as in England, and in every instance the comment has been one of admiration of such a spirit in the public men of Canada, and congratulation on the educational and social prospects of the Canadian people under such circumstances. As a practical development of the same spirit in administration, which had been thus illustrated in legislation, the same persons have been reäppointed, in 1850, to perpetuate and extend the work of education under the law, who were first appointed in 1846 to devise and establish it. The example and spirit of these acts should thrill the heart of every man of every party in Canada, and tell him that in the education of youth he should forget sect and party, and only know Christianity and his country.

I have a third general remark to make, and it is this-that our system of municipalities affords unprecedented and unparalleled facilities for the education and social advancement of our country. Since I came to England, a member of the Canadian Legislature now in this country, an able political opponent of the author of our present municipal law, but deeply interested in the financial and general advancement of Upper Canada, and who has to do with matters affected by that law, has expressed to me his conviction that our Municipal Law is the grandest, the most comprehensive, and most complete measure of which he has any knowledge, for developing the resources and promoting the improvement of a country, especially a young country. But what is thus stated by an impartial and competent judge to be true of this law in respect to the general resources and interests of the country is I think, preeminently true in respect to its educational interests. Among the conditions essential to the advancement and greatness of a people, are individual development and social coöperation—to add as much as possible to the intellectual and moral value and power of each individual man, and to collect and combine individual effort and resources in what appertains to the well-being of the whole community. That system of polity is best which best provides for the widest and most judicious operation of these two principles--the individual and the social. Now, to the development of the former, self reliance is requisite; and in order to that there must be self

government. To the most potent developments of the latter, organization is essential; and such organization as combines the whole community for all public purposes, and within convenient geographical limits. In our system of municipalities, and in our school system which is engrafted upon the municipalities. these objects are carefully studied, and effectually provided for, and provided for to an extent that I have not witnessed or read of in any other country. In the neighbouring States, there are excellent town and city municipalities with ample powers, and in some States there are municipalities of townships and counties for certain objects; but these are isolated from, and independent of, each other, and are far from possessing powers commensurate with the development of the resources and meeting all the public wants, of the community within their respective limits. It is in Upper Canada alone that we have a complete and uniform system of municipal organization, from the smallest incorporated village to the largest city, and from the feeblest school section and remotest township to the largest county or union of counties-the one rising above the other, but not superseding it—the one connected with the other, but not contravening it-the one merging into the other for purposes of wider expansion and more extensive combination. By their constitution, these municipal and school corporations are reflections of the sentiments and feelings of the people within their respective circles of jurisdictions, and their powers are adequate to meet all the economic exigences of each municipality, whether of schools or roads, of the diffusion of knowledge or the development of wealth. Around the fire-sides and in the primary meetings, all matters of local interest are freely examined and discussed; the people feel that these affairs are their own, and that the wise disposal and management of them depend upon their own energy and discretion. In this development of individual self-reliance, intelligence, and action in local affairs of common interest, we have one of the primary elements of a people's social advancement; whilst in the municipal organizations we have the aggregate intelligence and resources of the whole community on every material question and interest of common concern. What the individual cannot do, in respect to a school, a library, a road, or a railway, can be easily accomplished by the municipality; and the concentration of individual feeling and sentiment gives character and direction to municipal action. The laws constituting municipalities and schools are the charters of their government, and the forms and regulations for executing them are aids to strengthen their hands and charts to direct the course of those who are selected to administer them.

The application of this simple but comprehensive machinery to the interests of schools and general knowledge opens up for Upper Canada the prospect of a glorious future. One of the most formidable obstacles to the universal diffusion of education and knowledge, is class isolation and class exclusiveness-where the higher grades of society are wholly severed from the lower in responsibility, obligations, and sympathy, where sect wraps itself up in the cloak of its own pride, and sees nothing of knowledge, or virtue, or patriotism beyond its own enclosures, and where the men of liberal education regard the education of the masses as an encroachment upon their own domains, or beneath their care or notice. The feeble and most needy, as also the most numerous classes, are thus rendered still feebler by neglect, while the educated and more wealthy are rendered still stronger by monopoly. Our municipal and school system, on the contrary, is of the largest comprehension-it embraces in its provisions all classes and all sects, and places the property of all, without exception, under contribution for the education of all without respect of persons. Thus every man, whether rich or poor, is made equal before the law, and is laid under obligation, according to his means, of educating the whole community. And our law provides, for the application of this great principle, not only for the establishment of schools and all requisites for their support and efficient operation, but also for the establishment and maintenance of libraries of general knowledge and reading; nor does it leave each municipality, unassisted, to collect books where and how it can, and at whatever prices, but calls in the position and assistance of government tỡ arrange for procuring, at the lowest prices, a selection of books ample in number and variety, and suitable in character, to meet the wants and wishes of every municipality in Upper Canada. The Department of Public Instruction having to do in respect to books with no private parties, but with school and municipal corporations only, the legitimate field of private trade cannot be entrenched upon,

nor the ordinary channels of private business in the least interfered with; but they will rather be enlarged by the cultivation of public taste, and the increased demand for books of instruction and entertainment.

Such are the educational circumstances under which the people of Upper Canada commence the year 1851. Several practical suggestions have been made in connexion with the preceding remarks; others are so obvious, as inferences, that I need not repeat them in this place. All that I will, therefore, add is, that if the year 1850 has been signalized by laying the foundations of our system of public instruction deeper and broader, should not the year 1851 be characterized by rearing the superstructure higher upon those foundations? If during the last few years Upper Canada has advanced beyond the State of New York in three great elements of popular education -the average time of keeping open the schools during the year, the amount of money raised by the people at large for the support of education in proportion to the population, and the proportional number of teachers trained in the Normal School-why may not Upper Canada, with its improved school law and its municipal system, become the best educated and the most intelligent country in North America? Upon ourselves will be the responsibility and shame if it be not so.

In the course of the year I hope to be able to visit each county or union of counties in Upper Canada, to bring before you at public meetings those parts of our school system which are yet to be brought into operation, and to confer with you upon the best means of perfecting what has been commenced. In devising these means, I try to conceive of the children in each municipality and school section, even the most remote and feeble, as my own children, and to provide for them educationally, as far as in my power, in the way that I would wish my own children to be provided for under like circumstances. However far I may come short of my own wishes and of your necessities, I trust you will be satisfied with my humble endeavours when they come to be practically developed; and I am sure your cordial coöperation will not be wanting in what is best for our children and patriotie for our country. I earnestly implore the Divine blessing to crown our united exertions with the most abundant success!

HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. From an elaborate and carefully written article in the last Number of the Edinburgh Review, we have selected the following Sketch of the History of the English Language. The subject is treated with much ability, and displays minute research. We have been obliged to omit many striking illustrations and interesting episodes in endeavouring to compress the contribution to the quarterly within the limits of our monthly. The article, although compressed, will prove eminently instructive and valuable.

It is hardly necessary to inform any of our readers that the AngloSaxon was one of the numerous offshoots from the prolific stock of Gothic languages. Like the modern German, it had far more varions and complicated inflections of its articles, pronouns, and adjectives, than the modern English and in the verbs more inflectional forms than the latter at present exhibits. Like the modern German, it also admitted what appears to us an inverted and unnatural order in construction; and lastly, it possessed a similar power of combining its elements, and of forming new compounds at its pleasure. This last is the singular advantage of a homogeneous language; for by a species of elasticity, it can thus accommodate itself to any condition of the national mind. Contracted during the period of barbarism, it readily expands in proportion to the demands of knowledge and civilization. By far the most momentous part of the change which has converted Anglo-Saxon into modern English, consists in the loss of many of the abovementioned grammatical peculiarites, and in mere changes of form and orthography. The vocabulary of the older language has been to a vast extent transferred to the new. Fiveeighths at least of the language spoken by Alfred still circulates in the veins of the modern English.

The Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain in 449, and in something less

than a century had conquered nearly as much of the island as they ever conquered at all. They retained their language uncorruptedby no means always the case with conquerors. As Gibbon expresses it, "a large army is but a small nation;" the progress of conquest is slow: and the victors, in time, are apt to adopt, with some modifications, the language of the vanquished.

The Anglo-Saxon continued to be spoken, nearly in its purity, till the Conquest (1066). It may be reckoned to have reached its highest state of development in the age of Alfred,-a natural consequence of the encouragement given to literature and every species of culture by that truly enlightened and patriotic prince.

About the time of the Conquest, or rather a little before, commenced those changes, which terminated in the formation of what we must call a new language-the English. Yet it is not till two centuries after that event (1258), that we possess a document which shows us the transformation almost complete.

The specimens which we possess of the earliest English, though scanty, are sufficient to show that the change in the language was nearly complete about the epoch fixed upon above, namely, 1258. Probably the first extant specimen of modern English, is a proclamation addressed to the people of Huntingdonshire by Henry III. in 1258.* A song of triumph (probably composed in London), on the victory of the confederate barons, in 1264, at Lewes, is somewhat less obsolete in its style; which is what one would expect. Robert of Gloucester (about 1300) made a metrical version of Geoffrey of Monmouth. By this time it appears a considerable number of French words had been received into the English language, but still in no such quantity as to justify the representation of Dr. Johnson, who says rather vaguely, that he seems to have "used a kind of intermediate diction, neither Saxon nor English." Vaguely, we say, for the passage might suggest the notion that French was found in a very large proportion: this, however, he does not mean; for, he is evidently referring principally to the change in the grammatical character of the language. Warton, speaking of the same author, calls him "full of Saxonisms." Hallam says, "On comparing him with Layamon, a native of the same county, and a writer on the same subject, it will appear that a great quantity of French had flowed into the language since the loss of Normandy." The historian must be supposed to be speaking comparatively with the French previously existing. The style of Robert of Gloucester may be easily estimated by any one curious enough to look into the accessible and copious extracts in Warton and Ellis ; it will at once be seen that, relatively to the Saxon, the French is still a very subordinate element.

It was not till the middle and towards the close of the fourteenth century, that English became, to any considerable extent, the language of literature. The first prose work was Sir John Mandeville's Travels, which appeared in 1356. Wickliffe's translation of the Bible-alas! still existing only in manuscript is referred to 1383: Trevisa's translation of Hygden's Polychronicon to 1385: and Chaucer's immortal works were all produced in the latter half of the same century. The statute of 1362, which decreed that the pleadings in courts of justice should be conducted in English, in consequence of the general ignorance of French, had been just preceded (1354) by an order that no ecclesiastical preferment should be given in England to any person not conversant with the English language, and resident there, cardinals alone excepted. Shortly after it appears to have become the common language of the court and nobility, as well as of the people.

The higher classes exclusively spoke French, from the Conquest to the reign of Edward III. Brompton relates that as Henry II. was returning from Ireland, through Pembrokeshire, and was addressed as the gode olde Kynge, ho was obliged to ask his squire the mean

* Since this document is highly curious, and usually cited as the first authentic specimen of modern English, it may be as well to state that it may be consulted in Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. viii. Appendix No. 4, or in Latham's English Language, pp. 77, 78. For a catalogue of specimens of early English, see Latham, p. 78. It is singular that the reign of Henry III. should thus present us, within less than ten years of cach other, with both the first extant Act of State in modern English (1258, as in the text), and also with the first Statute (1266, de Scaccario,) in French. And it is not less difficult to account for the first statutory appearance of the French language at that time, than for its having continued to be the ordinary language of the Statutes until 1 Richard III., 1493: especially after its abolition from Pleadings, 36 Edward III., on the popular reasons set forth in the preamble: "Reasonably the said laws and custeins the rather shall be perceived and known and better understood in the Tongue used in the said Realm, and by so much every man may the better govern himself without oflending the Law, and better defend his Heritage: aud in divers countries where the King and Nobles have been, good governance and just right is done to every person, because that the Laws and Customs are used in the Tongue of the Country."

f Southey's Common-Place Book, third series. Page 391.

ing of the words; and Hovden mentions that Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor to Richard I., did not know a word of English: though, as Hallam remarks, "it seems probable that the higher classes were generally acquainted with English, at least in the latter part of that period." All letters, including those of a merely private nature, were written in Latin till 1270, after which French was used. There is in Rymer a despatch in French as late as Hen. V., while Prince, addressed to his father; notwithstanding Thierry's criticism upon it, the fair Katharine would have understood it better than, according to Shakspeare, she afterwards understood his English. The fact that French was long the language of power, rank, wealth, and fashion, had naturally led to its more sedulous cultivation, and as naturally to the neglect of the vernacular,-which though the language of the mass, must have been subject during all that period to manifold depravations from its not being critically studied.

Since, however, up to the reign of Edward III., French was the language of the sovereign and the nobility, and the courts of law,since it was the universal practice up to that time (clearly shown in the extract above referred to), to construe Latin into French,-and since, as we learn from the statutes of Oriel College, Oxford, so late as 1328, students were ordered to converse either in French or Latin, of course as being the two polite languages,-we may be sure that the new language, if we must call it so, which had been forming in silence and obscurity, could have been little written; and the revolution, therefore, is in no degree to be ascribed to any such cause. Even in the reign of Henry VIII., when Leland had the pillaging of all the great libraries in the kingdom, he found only two or three books in English.

The writer, however, who at this earliest epoch of our literature exerted the greatest influence on the language, was unquestionably Chaucer; and he certainly introduced a large number of words from the French, as might be expected from his early familiarity with the metrical romances, and his extensive translations from them. He also endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to introduce innovations of accent and pronunciation in his attempt at a more unexceptionable harmony,

The first English printer, the celebrated Caxton, died in 1491. Southey's friend, Burnett, in his "Specimens of English Prose Writers" (which may be called almost their joint production), notices, as remarkable, what Caxton says of Trevisa's Translation. We should like to compare the Translation, as Caxton altered it on printing it, with the Cottonian or some other MS., so as to judge for ourselves by the difference between the two of the effect of the intermediate hundred years:-"I, William Caxton, a simple person, have endeavoured me to write first over all the said book of Polychronicon, somewhat have changed the rude and olde English, that is to wit, certain words, which in these days we neither used ne understood." And again: "Some gentlemen blamed me, saying that in my translations, I have over curious terms, which could not be understood of common people, and desired me to use olde homely terms in my translations. As I fain would satisfy every man, so to do, I took an old book and read therein: but certainly the English was so rude and broad that I could not well understand it. Also the Lord Abbot of Westminster did show to me late certain evidences written in old English, for to reduce it into our English then used: but it was written in such wise, that it was more like Dutch than English; so that I could not reduce, ne bring it to be understonden. And certainly, our language now used, varyeth far from that which was spoken when I was born; for we Englishmen ben born under the domination of the moon, which is never stedfast, but ever wavering; waxing one season and waneth and decreaseth another season; and common English that is spoken in one shire, varyeth from another." Of the magical power of the instrument, which had now come into Caxton's hands, there can, at all events, be no doubt. With it, he himself probably exercised a greater influence on the language than any other man between Chaucer and the Reformation; and the changes wrought in it by his wondrous art were almost immediately conspicuous.

Owing partly to the more general writing, and still more to the printing of the language, a sensible improvement took place between the age of Caxton and the death of Henry VIII. The compositions which remain to us exhibit progressively greater brevity of expression, as well as compactness of construction, and even some degree of occasional elegance. To give the language, how

ever, that polish and refinement which it was destined ultimately to reach, another cause still more powerful was to come into operation contemporaneously with the above causes; we mean the revival of classical literature.

A favourable instance of this influence operating on a mind of the first order may be found in the writings of the bosom friend of Erasmus, Sir Thomas More. Ben Jonson tells us that "his works were considered as models of pure and elegant style ;" and Hallam is of opinion that his history of Richard III. "is the first example of good English language; pure and conspicuous, well chosen, without vulgarisms or pedantry."

Not only was the first effect of the revival of classical literature on language and style simply beneficial, but it continued to be so till Elizabeth had ascended the throne. The critical cultivation of the language proceeded for some time on right principles and by a safe method. Nay, some of the learned men of the century might be considered almost purists in their views upon this subject. Thus we are told that Sir John Cheke (1514-1557), the famous Professor of Greek at Cambridge, under whom studied Roger Ascham, the celebrated tutor of Elizabeth herself, projected a plan of reforming the English language by eradicating all words except those derived from Saxon roots!

"From the authors," says Dr. Johnson, "which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translators of the Bible, the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon, the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh, the dialect of poetry from Spenser and Sydney, and the diction of common life from Shakspeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed."

Up to Elizabeth's reign there was, perhaps, no great reason to complain of the extent of classical importations; after that period, however, we certainly find the Latin element making undue encroachments; and those encroachments continued for nearly half a century onward, producing a very perceptible difference for the worse in diction, and introducing a species of construction utterly unsuited to the genius of the English language.

So extensive were these importations, that there are comparatively few terms of classical origin now in use (if we except the additions to the nomenclature of modern science), which are not to be met with in some shape or other in the writers who flourished from the accession of Elizabeth to the Restoration. From the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Donne, and about a score more of our authors of this period, might probably be collected two or three thousand Latin derivatives, which have since become obsolete; many of them among the amağ λsyoueva, as critics would say, of the authors themselves. Some such audacities were ventured on among his "native wood notes wild" even by Shakspeare,—at least some pass under his name.

Of the writers of this epoch who so largely imported Latinisms into the language, Jeremy Taylor is perhaps the one who, as little as any, affects the periodic style. Though his sentences are often long, inordinately long, his connectives are usually extremely simple. One favourite and much abused conjunction is his general link. How exquisite is the harmony, as well as the conception of the following sentence! The close is music itself :-"So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, and the sighing of a man by the joys of an angel, and a salutary frown by the light of God's countenance, a few frowns by the infinite and eternal hallelujahs, so much are the sorrows of the godly to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity. Their sorrows can die, but so cannot their joys. And if the blessed martyrs and confessors were asked concerning their past sufferings and their present rest, and the joys of their certain expectation, you should hear them glory in nothing but in the mercies of God, and in the cross of the Lord Jesus. Every chain is a ray of light, and every prison is a palace, and every loss is the purchase of a kingdom, and every affront in the cause of God is an eternal honour, and every day of sorrow is a thousand years of comfort, multiplied with a never ceasing numeration,-days without night, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, society without envying, communication of joys without lessening; and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from whence a friend never went away." With the Restoration (1660) commenced a striking series of