"I owe all the spirit of independence which I have maintained throughout my career, to my learning in that school. After I left school I went into the study of the law, in the office of the late Mr. McLean." EDUCATION IN THE COUNTY OF WELLINGTON UNDER DR. RYERSON'S ADMINISTRATION. The following admirable resumé of the former state of education and of educational progress in the county of Wellington, and indeed throughout Ontario generally, was given in an address on "Then and Now," delivered before a public meeting in Guelph, in May, 1880, by Hon. Charles Clarke, ex-Speaker of the House of Assembly. After some preliminary remarks, Mr. Clarke said:-- Little more than thirty years ago, much of the country, now known as the county of Wellington, was a wilderness. The territory north of Guelph was almost unsettled, beyond the townships of Nichol, and the settled portion possessed but few residents. In Wellington, the upper tier of townships had scarcely been entered upon, and names of places now "familiar as household words" were unknown. Such roads as there were had been simply cut through the bush, and had experienced little other improvement than that which the axe, the handspike, the logging chain and fire had afforded. Peel was in the early stage of settlement; Maryboro was almost unknown; Minto was really a _terra incognito_; Luther was, in popular estimation, a vast and irreclaimable swamp; Arthur had a mere handful of settlers; Mount Forest was a nameless and unbroken government reserve for a town plot, covered with virgin forest; Elora possessed some half-dozen houses; such places as Harriston, Palmerston and Drayton were not even a dream of the future; and the gravel roads, thrifty villages, and smiling farms which now make pleasant travel from the northern bank of the Grand River to the utmost bounds of Wellington, were covered with thick and luxuriant growth of maple, hemlock, elm and cedar. Everything was in primitive shape, and yet the mark of future progress was made, here and there, and coming events cast their shadow. Oxen were far more numerous than teams of horses, and neither could be regarded as plentiful. The axe was more busy than the plough, and regularly prepared more acres for the annual sowing. Money was scarce, produce was low in price, barter was the rule and not the exception, postal communication was defective, wages were poor, and "hard times" were as commonly talked about and as earnestly believed in as to-day, when, measured by the past, the term is comparatively meaningless. There was a feeling of despondency throughout the community, and people were divided as to the cause of the general depression. Some blamed the Rebellion of a few years before; others said that the effects of Family Compactism had not yet died away; and still others attributed all evils to the newly effected Union between Upper and Lower Canada. There is little wonder that, at such a time, schools and schoolmasters were under