It is abundantly clear from Ryerson's Reports, 1856-58, that he was dissatisfied with the progress being made in Grammar Schools and eager to attempt their improvement by means of further legislation. The most serious problem was that of providing an adequate and certain financial support for these schools. The schools were managed by trustee boards appointed by County Councils, but were attended largely by pupils of towns and cities. The people using them and contributing largely to their support were not given the power to manage them. Ryerson was also very doubtful about the result of the experiment authorized in 1854, of uniting Common and Grammar Schools. The union gave trustee boards increased freedom of management, but in many cases the union school became, for all practical purposes, a common school, having, perhaps, three or four senior pupils studying Latin and Greek. Such schools brought all Grammar Schools into contempt. The report of the Grammar School inspector on the schools of Eastern Ontario, for 1860, shows that things were far from satisfactory: "With the exception of two or three really good schools our Grammar Schools in the extreme East are in a very low state. Some of them I can only designate as infant schools. Nor do I see anything from the localities in which they are placed or the present state of the Grammar School law which gives me any hope of amelioration. Advancing civilization and the material growth of the country in time may act upon them, but immediate remedies and those of a stringent nature are imperatively needed.... The want of a class of specially trained Grammar School masters who have taken this as a permanent profession for life is a great drawback to the efficiency of our schools. The supposed inferior social status of the Grammar School master and the larger rewards held out for superior mental activity in the other professions turn aside most of those who are most eminently qualified for the scholastic office. Of the twenty-two schools mentioned in my report six were in the hands of persons who avowedly were making teaching the stepping-stone to the attainment of other professions, as law, medicine, or the church. Several were evidently conducted by persons who had taken to teaching after having failed in other walks of life. Comparatively few were held by those who were fitted for their office by previous training, or were devoting themselves entirely to their work as the main business of their lives."[105] [105] See D. H. E., Vol. XVI., pp. 148, 149.