"The period is very recent when the [subject of educational comparison with the State of New York] would have been an absurdity--when the word 'contrast' must have been employed instead of the word 'comparison,' when not a few of our fellow countrymen, and some of our public men, considered the project, or the idea of emulating the Common School doings of our New York neighbours, as presumptuous and chimerical. I have not viewed the noble and patriotic exertions of the American people in any spirit of jealousy.... I hold up their example to the admiration and imitation of the people of Canada; but I have not despaired of, much less depreciated my own country; and have had, and have still in a higher degree than ever, a strong conviction that there are qualities in the people of Upper Canada, which, under a proper and possible organization, and with judicious counsel, would place schools and education in this country upon more than a level with what we have witnessed and admired in the State of New York. It is true our American neighbours have had more than thirty years the start of us; but I am persuaded we shall not require half that time to overtake them--profiting, as we have done, and doubtless will do, by their mistakes and failures, as well as by their ingenuity and success. To rebuke an unpatriotic spirit of Canadian degradation in which some Canadians indulge,[53] and to animate the hopes and exertions of the true friends of our intellectual and social progress, I will show what has already been accomplished in Upper Canada in respect to Common Schools by a comparison, in a few particulars, with what has been done in the State of New York." (The particulars which Dr. Ryerson points out are seven in number).--_Report for 1851_, (written in 1852), page 17. [53] Dr. Ryerson constantly deprecated, in these early years, this want of the spirit of Canadian Patriotism. In an eloquent paper (in the third volume of the _Journal of Education_) he shows that "_Canadian Patriotism (is) the Lever of Canadian Greatness_." He sums it up in these words: "It cannot be too strongly impressed upon every mind that it is on Canadian energy, Canadian ambition, Canadian self-reliance, skill and enterprize--in a word, on Canadian patriotism--that depends Canadian prosperity, elevation and happiness."--_Page 40._ In his reply to a complimentary letter from the Municipal Council of the County of Norfolk, in 1851, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to this subject:--