"The idea of the outlay for education being profitable for the holders of property, and thus justifying the impost, is much like a joke; for surely no one thinks it necessary to force upon men of property so great a gain, as they seldom need be convinced by their poor neighbours where their true interests lie. Gain indeed; why, probably three-fourths of the children now in the Toronto common schools will carry their education away to the West, and here be succeeded by others who will similarly want to use our property for their own benefit. Besides we might give free education to those who otherwise would be destitute of it, but make those purchase it who have the means. "While I thus dwell on the injustice of the arrangement, I do so because what is unjust cannot be wise, and not because the futility of the system is not otherwise apparent. The free system divests the teacher of all proprietary and personal interest in his school, and will speedily render him sycophantic and servile to his trustees, but haughty and negligent towards his pupils and friends. It will throw education into the hands of an electioneering party, and what kind of party that will be in such places as Toronto, need not be said. It will destroy all the confidence and love felt towards the teacher as the employee and friend of the child's parents, and substitute for them a cold respect due to the public official. It will render school attendance desultory and variable, because unpaid for, and always to be had for asking. Instead of the soft, familiar, and refined circle in which wise parents like to place their children, it will drive gentle youths and sensitive girls into the large herds of children with all the regimental strictness and coldness and coarseness by which such bodies must be marked, and thus, while the child asks bread you will give him a stone." The opposition to free schools did not all come from wealthy property-owners who objected to educating the children of the poor. Voluntary schools, wholly independent of Government control and closely allied with some church, were already in operation in populous centres in Upper Canada. The managers of these schools had to depend wholly upon subscriptions and fees. So long as all schools were supported mainly from rate bills upon parents the purely voluntary schools were not at a serious disadvantage. But if free common schools were established, then all patrons of voluntary schools must submit to be taxed twice for the education of their children. The following from a _Globe_ editorial of February 14th, 1852, shows that the effects of free schools upon voluntary schools were fully appreciated: