admitted that much can still be done to improve their position. Education, we all know, does not necessarily bring with it refinement; that can only come by constant communication with a cultured society, which is not always, in Canada, ready to admit the teacher on equal terms. It may also be urged that the teacher, under the system as now perfected, is far too much of an automaton--a mere machine, wound up to proceed so far and no farther. He is not allowed sufficient of that free volition which would enable him to develop the best qualities of his pupils, and to elevate their general tone. Polite manners among the pupils are just as valuable as orderly habits. Teachers cannot strive too much to check all rudeness among the youth, many of whom have few opportunities to cultivate those social amenities which make life so pleasant, and also do so much to soften the difficulties of one's journey through life. [Footnote: Since the above was written, I find the following remarks by Mr. Adam, editor of the _Canada Educational Monthly_, to the same purport: 'The tone of the Schools might be largely raised and the tender and plastic nature of the young minds under training be directed into sympathy with the noble and the elevating. Relieved of much of the red-tapism which hampers the work of the High-School teacher, the masters of the Public Schools have more opportunity to make individuality tell in the conduct of the school, and of encircling the sphere of their work with a bright zone of cultivation and refinement. But the Public School teacher will accomplish much if, reverently and sympathetically, he endeavours to preserve the freshness and ingenuousness of childhood and, by the influence of his own example, while leading the pupil up the golden ladder of mental acquisition, he encourages the cultivation of those graces of life which are the best adornments of youth.'--Feb. 1879.] Such discipline cannot be too rigidly followed in a country of a Saxon race, whose _brusquerie_ of manner and speech is a natural heritage, just as a spirit of courtesy seems innate in the humblest _habitants_ who have not yet forgotten, among the rude conditions of their American life, that prominent characteristic of a Gallic people. [Footnote: More than forty years ago, Mr. Buller, in his report to Lord Durham on the State of Education in Lower Canada, pays this tribute to the peasantry: 'Withal this is a people eminently qualified to reap advantages from education; they are shrewd and intelligent, never morose, most amiable in their domestic relations, and _most graceful in their manners_.']