The address of Dr. Ryerson, in introducing the Governor, shows that he had no thought of divorcing the Common Schools from agriculture, the backbone industry of the people. He says: "The land on which these buildings are in course of erection is an entire square, consisting of nearly eight acres, two of which are to be devoted to a botanical garden, three to agricultural experiments, and the remainder to the buildings of the institution. It is thus intended that the valuable course of lectures given in the Normal School in vegetable physiology and agricultural chemistry shall be practically illustrated on the adjoining grounds, in the culture of which the students will take part during a portion of their hours of recreation.... There are four circumstances which encourage the most sanguine anticipations in every patriotic heart in regard to our educational future. The first is the avowed and entire absence of all party spirit in the school affairs of our country from the Provincial Legislature down to the smallest municipality. The second is the precedence which our Legislature has taken of all others on the western side of the Atlantic in providing for Normal School instruction, in aiding teachers to avail themselves of its advantages. The third is that the people of Upper Canada have during the last year voluntarily taxed themselves for the salaries of teachers in a larger sum in proportion to their numbers and have kept open their schools on an average more months than the neighbouring citizens of the old and great State of New York. The fourth is that the essential requisite of a series of suitable and excellent textbooks has been introduced into our schools and adopted almost by general acclamation, and that the facilities of furnishing all our schools with the necessary books, maps, and apparatus will soon be in advance of those of any other country."[119] In November, 1852, when the buildings[120] were formally opened, the Honourable John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, said: "Without such a general preparatory system as we see here in operation, the instruction of the great mass of our population would be left in a measure to chance. The teachers might be, many of them, ignorant pretenders without experience, without method, and in some respects very improper persons to be entrusted with the education of youth. There could be little or no security for what they might teach, or what they might attempt to teach, nor any certainty that the good which might be acquired from their precepts would not be more than counterbalanced by the ill effects of their example. Indeed the footing which our Common School teachers were formerly upon in regard to income gave no adequate remuneration to intelligent and industrious men to devote their time to the service. But this disadvantage is largely removed, as well as other obstacles which were inseparable from the conditions of a thinly-peopled and uncleared country traversed only by