The school law in existence at the time of Dr. Ryerson's appointment to office consisted of 71 sections, and was as crude in many respects as the education which was obtained under it. There were practically no authorized text-books, no Boards of Examiners, no Inspectors, no Department of Education. It was an era of primitive simplicity, but an era, nevertheless, the possibilities of which no man could estimate, the development of which no man could foresee. "The deep surge of nations yet to be" had struck our shores. Thousands of sturdy pioneers were at work hewing down our forests and wrestling with such social and political problems as are incident to a primitive order of things. The materials out of which to organize society on a higher plane were abundant though undeveloped. It was a great opportunity for a man possessed of a genius for organization. In the appointment of Dr. Ryerson the opportunity and the man met face to face, and the splendid system of education which we to-day enjoy is the best proof that the man was as great, if not greater, than the opportunity. But, while the opportunity was a great one, it must not be forgotten that the difficulties to be overcome, to a less vigorous and courageous man, would have been overwhelming. The executive machinery for administering the affairs of several thousand distinct corporations, with all the complex details necessarily connected with electing trustees, collecting rates, appointing teachers, framing a curriculum of studies, regulating the discipline of pupils and supplying text-books, had all to be re-cast, if not invented, and put into operation. Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and Municipal Councils had to be indoctrinated with the new education. The press had to be directed, and the whole people educated to receive with favor a school system which ignored well established theories and deeply founded prejudices. Even popular indignation had to be set at defiance, and amid misrepresentation and calumny the master builder had often to do his work and to await the verdict of posterity for the vindication of his wisdom and foresight. It is well known, when Dr. Ryerson first proposed to make all the Common Schools of Upper Canada free alike to rich and poor, to citizen and alien, that he was charged with encroaching upon the rights of the subject, that he was charged with appropriating the money of the taxpayer who perhaps had no children to be educated for the benefit of the thriftless and pauperised classes of the community. What was his answer? It was this:--"The education of the people irrespective of rank or race or creed is a better investment even for the taxpayer than houses or lands, because it guarantees the safe possession of all his goods--it does even more--it guarantees his personal liberty and therefore the taxpayer must be made to pay for the common safety of the people."