"In acknowledging your letter of the 7th December last, placing your resignation of the office of Chief Superintendent of Education in the hands of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and suggesting that the Department of Public Instruction should be placed under the more direct management of the Government, through a Minister, to be designated 'the Minister of Public Instruction,' holding a place in the Executive Council and a seat in the Legislative Assembly, thus bringing this department, in common with all other branches of the Government, within the control of the people through the responsible advisers of the Crown. I am directed by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, to thank you for the valuable suggestions contained in your letter, and to request that you will continue to discharge those important duties, which you have performed for a quarter of a century with so much credit to yourself and benefit to the people of this Province, until His Excellency's advisers shall have more fully considered your suggestions, and matured a measure for placing your department under the direct supervision of a member of the Executive Council. "The services that you have rendered your country, and your now advanced age, fully warrant your asking to be relieved from the further discharge of your arduous duties; but knowing your vigor of mind and energy of character, His Excellency ventures to hope that compliance with the request now made will not prove too great a tax upon your energies, or interfere seriously with any other plans you may have formed for the employment of the remaining years of a life devoted to the moral and intellectual improvement of your fellowmen." To this letter Dr. Ryerson replied on the 30th January, 1869, as follows:-- "I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date conveying the most kind expression of his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor in regard to myself and my past humble services, and the request that I would continue in my present office until His Excellency's advisers should be able to mature a measure to give effect to the recommendations of my letter of 7th of December last respecting the direct responsibility of the Education Department to Parliament, and the creation of the office of Minister of Public Instruction to be filled by a responsible Minister of the Crown, having a seat in Parliament. The more than kind reference to myself on the part of His Excellency has deeply affected me, and for which I desire to express my most heartfelt thanks. "I beg to assure you for the satisfaction of His Excellency that I will subordinate every inclination and contemplated engagement, to the great work of the Education Department and the system of Public Instruction, as long as I have strength and may be desired by the constituted authorities to do so.