In 1853, a radical amendment was adopted by which Separate School supporters received a _pro rata_ share of the legislative grant only, and upon subscribing for school purposes a sum equivalent to the grant secured were relieved of all taxation for Common School purposes. The Act of 1853 also gave the Separate School trustees power to issue certificates to the teachers employed by them, and the same power of levying rates upon the supporters of their schools as that exercised by trustees of Common Schools. While the Separate School Bill of 1853 was before the Legislature, there was an attempt to introduce a clause establishing a general Board of Trustees for Separate or sectarian Schools in towns and cities. Ryerson went to Quebec to confer with the Attorney-General and vigorously opposed the Bill. His correspondence shows that he had no wish to place Separate Schools on an equality with Public Schools. In fact he wished to do nothing that would encourage or make easy their formation. The law as it stood allowed Separate Schools only when the teacher was of a different religious faith from those wishing the Separate School. A general Board of Separate School Trustees for every town or city would have greatly increased the number of Separate Schools. Ryerson says: "This is placing Sectarian Schools upon a totally different foundation from that on which they have always stood; it is the introduction of a system of sectarian schools without restriction and almost without conditions.... If there are city and town Boards of Sectarian School Trustees they will claim the right of appointing their own local superintendents, and thus their schools will be shut up against all inspection except that they themselves may please to require or permit.... Thus such a Board in Toronto might recognize and claim public aid for every child taught in convents and by other private teachers of the same religious persuasion.... If provision be made in each city and town to incorporate into one Board one religious persuasion, exempting it from the payment of school rates and authorizing it to tax and collect from its own members to any amount for school purposes, the application of any other religious persuasion in any such city or town cannot be consistently or fairly resisted.... The effect of all this would be to destroy the system of Public Schools in cities and towns and ultimately perhaps in villages and townships, and to leave all the poorer portion of the population and that portion of it connected with minor religious persuasions without any adequate and certain means of education. I think the safest and most defensible ground to take is a firm refusal to sanction any measure to provide by law increased facilities for the multiplication and perpetuation of sectarian schools."[92] [92] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 172 and 173. * * * * *