After the union of the Canadas in 1841, a steady movement for the improvement of the elementary, public, or common schools continued for years, and the services of the Reverend Egerton Ryerson were engaged as chief superintendent of education with signal advantage to the country.  In 1850, when the Lafontaine-Baldwin government was in office, the results of the superintendent’s studies of the systems of other countries were embodied in a bill based on the principle of local assessment, aided by legislative grants, for the carrying on of the public schools.  This measure is the basis of the present admirable school system of Upper Canada, and to a large extent of that of the other English-speaking provinces.  In Lower Canada the history of public schools must be always associated with the names of Dr. Meilleur and the Honourable Mr. Chauveau; but the system has never been as effective as in the upper province.  In both provinces, separate or dissentient schools were eventually established for the benefit of the Roman Catholics in Upper or Protestant Canada, and of the Protestants in Lower or Catholic Canada.  In the maritime provinces satisfactory progress was also made in the development of a sound school system.  In Nova Scotia Dr. Tupper, when provincial secretary (1863-1867), laid the foundations of the excellent schools that the province now enjoys.

During this period the newspaper press increased remarkably in influence and circulation.  The most important newspaper in the Dominion, the Globe, was established at Toronto in 1844 by Mr. George Brown, a Scotchman by birth, who became a power from that time among the Liberal politicians of Canada.  No notable books were produced in the English-speaking provinces except “Acadian Geology,” a work by Dr. Dawson, who became in 1855 principal of McGill University, and was, in later years, knighted by the Queen; but the polished verses of Cremazie and the lucid histories of Canada by Ferland and Garneau already showed that French Canada had both a history and a literature.

Towards the close of this memorable period of Canadian development, the Prince of Wales, heir-apparent to the throne, visited the British American provinces, where the people gave full expression to their loyal feelings.  This was the third occasion on which these communities had been favoured by the presence of members of the royal family.  Prince William Henry, afterward William IV, visited Nova Scotia during the years 1786-1788, in command of a frigate.  From 1791 until 1797 Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, father of the present sovereign, was in command of the imperial forces, first at Quebec, and later at Halifax.  The year 1860 was an opportune time for a royal visit to provinces where the people were in the full enjoyment of the results of the liberal system of self-government extended to them at the commencement of the Queen’s reign by the mother-country.

A quarter of a century had passed after the union of the Canadas when the necessities of the provinces of British North America forced them to a momentous constitutional change, which gave a greater scope to the statesmanship of their public men, and opened up a wider sphere of effort to capital and enterprise.  In the following chapter I shall show the nature of the conditions which brought about this union.