Bible, its institutions, cardinal doctrines and morals, together with the evidences of its authenticity." The Report goes on to show how from Ryerson's viewpoint the absence of religious teaching in the schools of the American Union was having a damaging effect upon the moral fibre of the national life. He further illustrated by reference to what he saw in France, Germany, and Ireland, how religious instruction might be given without causing any denominational friction or unpleasantness. After defining the aim and scope of a national system of education, and giving it a religious foundation, the Report outlines the subjects that should be taught in Elementary Schools, and illustrates in almost every case how these several subjects should be presented. While the basis of the instruction proposed is the three R's--reading, including spelling; 'riting, and 'rithmetic--yet it is remarkable to what an extent Ryerson proposed to go in "enriching" the Common School programme. Indeed, as one reads the Report he is inclined to repeat the old adage: "There is nothing new under the sun." Almost every subject introduced into Ontario schools during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and many which yet, in the twentieth century, seem to have an insecure foothold, and are by many denominated "fads," were included by Ryerson in his memorable Report of 1846, and the arguments he uses in favour of their adoption would not seem out of place if used by an advanced educator of the present day. He pleads for music, drawing, history, civics, inductive geography, inductive grammar teaching, concrete number work, oral instruction, mental arithmetic, nature study, experimental science, book-keeping, agriculture, physical training, hygiene, and even political economy. He illustrates some German methods of teaching reading that many Ontario teachers fondly think were originated in their own country. Ryerson from Canada, Horace Mann from Massachusetts, Sir Kay Shuttleworth from England, besides many others, about this time paid visits to Prussia, and went home to recommend the adoption of much that they saw. These men were acute observers. They recognized that the Germans had learned something that was not generally known by other teachers. How are we to explain it? Had the German teachers by accident blundered upon better _methods_ of teaching than were practised by other nations? Not so. The German methods were the natural result of the German philosophy. The work of Herbart, Froebel, and other thinkers, was bearing its natural fruit, and many of the improvements introduced into the Canadian schools by Ryerson and practised by Canadian teachers, perhaps in an empirical way, were far-away echoes of principles laboriously worked out by German scholars.