[12] In a letter from Barbados, dated 31st May, 1856, he said: As to education, in which you will take the greatest interest, all I can say is that my own hopes are centered in getting a good Normal School in humble imitation of yours. I think with that all will be well. If we could train good teachers we would have an admirable system. There have been some attempts, but not to much effect. I want your advice as to the establishment of this school. Tell me how to go to work to get good men, etc. I must have your plan of boarding the Normal School pupils at the public expense, which I think essential. I also want to introduce the national books (as you did). Any advice or information will be conducive to good results. Even the grand old Mother Country has not failed to acknowledge her indebtedness to him whom we honour to-day, for practical suggestions in the solution of the educational problems which confronted her public men, notably the Duke of Newcastle and the Right Hon. W. E. Forster,[13] during the years reaching from 1860 to 1870. [13] Full information in regard to the working of our system of education was communicated from time to time to the Privy Council Committee on Education in England. This was of great practical value (as he assured us) to the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, promoter of the noted English School Bill of 1870. In 1875 Mr. Forster visited the Education Department of Ontario. The _Journal of Education_ of April, 1876, thus refers to Mr. Forster's visit:-- "During the recent visits of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster and Hepworth Dixon, Esq., to the Ontario Education Department, they were kind enough to explain and discuss some of the new problems in the English Educational system, and made enquiries as to the success of our attempts at a practical solution of the same question. The two principal subjects referred to by Mr. Forster were compulsory education and denominational schools, and on these two points full explanation of our Ontario system were given."--_"Journal of Education," Province of Ontario, Volume xxviii., page 49._ In 1860, at the request of the Duke of Newcastle, who accompanied the Prince of Wales to Canada, Dr. Ryerson prepared an elaborate sketch of the system of education in Upper Canada, and contrasted it with the English and other European systems of education. This report was embodied in a letter to the Duke, dated 12th October, 1860. As to the appropriateness of our erecting a Statue to Egerton Ryerson in Ontario, as was done to Horace Mann, in Massachusetts, I may here quote a reference to the equal value of the labors of those two noted men which was made twenty-five years ago by that acute observer and experienced educational commissioner, the late well-known and distinguished Bishop Fraser, of Manchester. He said: "What Education in New England owes to Horace Mann, Education in Canada owes to Egerton Ryerson."