"I have frequently been asked whether I considered it desirable that girls should study Latin in the Grammar Schools. It is, in my opinion, most undesirable; and I am at a loss to comprehend how any intelligent person acquainted with the state of things in our Grammar Schools can come to a different conclusion.... Since I became Inspector, I have not met with half a dozen girls in the Grammar Schools of Canada by whom the study of Latin has been pursued far enough for the taste to be in the least degree influenced by what has been read. Aesthetically, the benefits of Grammar Schools to girls are _nil_.... It may perhaps be said that although they have for the most part made but little progress in Latin up to the present time, a fair proportion of them may be expected to pursue the study to a point where its advantages can be reaped. I do not believe that three out of a hundred will. As a class, they have dipped the soles of their feet in the water, with no intention or likelihood of wading deeper into it. They are not studying Latin with any definite object. They have taken it up under pressure at the solicitation of the teachers or trustees to enable the schools to maintain the requisite average attendance of ten classical pupils or to increase that part of the income of the schools which is derived from public sources. In a short time they will leave school to enter on the practical work of life without having either desired or obtained more than the merest smattering of Latin, and their places will be taken by another band of girls who will go through the same routine. It may perhaps be urged that these remarks are as applicable to as large a number of the Grammar School boys as they are to the girls. I admit that they are; and I draw the conclusion that such boys, equally with the girls in the Grammar Schools, are wasting their time in keeping up the appearance of learning Latin. It would be unspeakably better to commit them to first-class Common School teachers, under whose guidance they might have their reflective and aesthetic faculties cultivated through the study of English and of those branches which are associated with English in good Common Schools. This would, of course, diminish the number of the Grammar Schools in the Province; but it might not be a very grievous calamity, especially if it led to the establishment of first-class Common Schools in localities where inferior teachers are now employed."[108] [108] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XIX., pp. 96, 97.