"The infirmities of age must compel me to retire before long; and I have thought my immediate or early retirement would enable the Government to exercise its discretion more freely in regard to the Department, and system of Public Instruction.... "In case you concur in what I have above intimated, I would suggest the creation of the office of Minister of Public Instruction, and the appointment of yourself to it, as is the Premier in Lower Canada, bringing the University, U. C. College, Institutions of Deaf and Blind, as well as the Normal, High and Public Schools, under direct governmental supervision. "In the practical administration of the Education Department an abler, more judicious and reliable man cannot be found than Dr. Hodgins, who has been in the Department twenty-seven years--who was first educated to business in a retail store in Galt, and afterwards in a wholesale establishment in Hamilton with the Stinsons--clerk in the same establishment with Mr. Charles McGill, M.P., and was offered to be set up in business by the Stinsons or admitted as a partner within a year or so if he would remain, but he chose literature and went to Victoria College in 1840, where I found him; and on account of his punctuality, thoroughness, neatness, method, and excellent conduct, I appointed him on trial first clerk in my office in 1844; and having proved his ability, I wrote to him when I was in Europe, to come home to his widowed mother in Dublin, and spend a year in the great education office there, to learn the whole system and management--I having arranged with the late Archbishop Whately and other members of the National Board, to admit Mr. H. into their office to study the principles and details of its management and of the Normal and Model Schools connected with it. Mr. Hodgins did so at his own expense, and losing the salary for the year; at the end of which he returned to my office with the testimonials of the Irish National Board, as to his diligence and the thorough manner in which he had mastered the modes of proceeding in the several branches of that great Education Department. He also brought drawings, of his own make, of the Dublin Education Offices, Normal and Model Schools. Then since you know that Mr. Hodgins having taken his degree of M. A., has proceeded regularly to his degree of law in the Toronto University, and has been admitted to the Bar as Barrister at Law. He is, therefore, the most thoroughly trained man in all Canada for the Education Department; and is the ablest, most thorough administrator of a public department of any man with whom I have met. I think he has not been appreciated according to his merits; but should you create and fill the office of Minister of Public Instruction, you may safely confide the ordinary administration of the Education Department to Dr. Hodgins, with the title of my office.