Great attention is very properly paid to cleanliness, inasmuch as if these young men, who are destined to teach others, acquire filthy habits, they naturally encourage the same vice in their pupils, and thus may be almost said to nationalize it.  All the tables and stools are fitted like those in the schools of the United States, which is an immense improvement on the one long-desk and long form to match, which predominate all but universally at home.  The instruction given is essentially by lecture and questioning; and I was particularly struck with the quiet modulated tones in which the answers were given, and which clearly proved how much pains were taken upon this apparently trifling, but really very important, point.[AR] You heard no harsh declamation grating on your ear; and, on the other hand, you were not lulled to sleep by dreary, dull monotony.

There are two small schools attached to the establishment, for these Normal aspirants, male and female, to practise upon, when considered sufficiently qualified.  Those thus employed during my visit seemed to succeed admirably, for I never saw more merry, cheerful faces, which I consider one of the best tests of a master’s efficiency.  The little girls, taking a fancy for music, purchased among themselves a cottage piano, which, being their own instrument, I have no doubt increased their interest in the study amazingly.  The boys have a kind of gymnasium under a shed, which, when released from school, they rush to with an avidity only equalled by that which the reader may have experienced in his early days when catching sight of a pastry-cook’s shop immediately after receiving his first tip.[AS]

I believe that to this establishment, which was founded in 1846, belongs the honour of being the Pioneer Normal School in the Western Hemisphere.  But while giving due credit to the Governor-General and the Government for their leading parts in its foundation, it should never be forgotten, how much indebted the establishment is to the unwearying zeal and patient investigations of Dr. Ryerson, the chief superintendent of schools in Canada.  This gentleman carefully examined the various systems and internal arrangement of scholastic establishments, not only all over the States, but in every country of the Old World, selecting from each those features which seemed to produce the most comfort, the best instruction, and the greatest harmony.  The result of his inquiries I subjoin from his own pen:—­

“Our system of public elementary instruction is eclectic, and is, to a considerable extent, derived from four sources.  The conclusions at which the present head of the department arrived during his observations and investigations of 1845, were, firstly:  That the machinery, or law part of the system, in the State of New York, was the best upon the whole, appearing, however, defective in the intricacy of some of its details, in the absence of an efficient provision for the visitation