In a letter to the writer of this Retrospect, from the Hon. Issac Buchanan, dated 11th April. 1883, in reply to some enquiries in regard to the appointment of Dr. Ryerson, Mr. Buchanan thus related the circumstances under which the munificent sum of $200,000 a year was granted by the Legislature in 1841 for the support of the then newly-established Common Schools in Upper and Lower Canada. He said:--"This first attempt of mine to get an endowment for education (out of the Clergy Reserve Fund), failed as there was no responsible government then. But five years afterwards when my election for Toronto had carried Responsible Government, and before the first parliament met, I was talking to the Governor-General (C. Poulett Thompson, Lord Sydenham). He felt under considerable obligation to me for standing in the breach when Mr. Robert Baldwin found that he could not succeed in carrying Toronto.... He spoke of Canada as 'a drag upon the mother country.' I replied warmly ... for I felt sure (as I told him), that if we were allowed to throw the affairs of the Province into regular books ... we would show a surplus over expenditure. His Excellency agreed to my proposal, and I stipulated that, if we showed a yearly surplus, one half would be given as an endowment for an educational system. Happily we found that Upper Canada had a surplus revenue of about £100,000 ($400,000), one half of which the parliament of 1841 laid aside for education, the law stipulating that every District Council getting a share of it would tax locally for as much more, and this constituted the fund of your educational system." EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF DR. RYERSON UP TO THIS TIME. Up to this time Dr. Ryerson's energies, as I have shown, were wholly engrossed in contending for the civil and religious rights of the people. He had also, ten years before, projected and collected money for the establishment of an academy or college for higher education at Cobourg, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. His efforts in this, and in the establishment of the Victoria College at Cobourg, as a university, in 1840, aroused a widespread interest in education generally, which bore good fruit afterward. This university has now been in operation forty-eight years, and from it the first arts graduate in Upper Canada was sent forth in 1846. Its first president was the Rev. Dr. Ryerson; the second was the Rev. Dr. Macnab, now of Bowmanville. Its late distinguished president, the Rev. Dr. Nelles, was Dr. Ryerson's pupil. He held his position with honor to himself for thirty-six years, and died in October, 1887, deeply and universally regretted by the entire community. FIRST APPOINTMENT OF A SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION FOR UPPER CANADA. In the _Canada Gazette_ of May, 1842, the following announcement was made:-- "SECRETARY'S OFFICE, KINGSTON, 11th May, 1842. "His Excellency the Governor-General has been pleased to make the following appointments:--