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Hon. G. W. Ross, Minister of Education, spoke as follows:—

We are assembled to-day to do honor to the founder of the school system of the Province of Ontario. On the 18th of October, 1844, the Rev. Egerton Ryerson received a commission from Sir Charles Metcalfe as Superintendent of what was then called the Common Schools of Upper Canada. At the time he entered upon his duties there were in existence 2,885 Common Schools, with a registered attendance of 96,756 children of school age. The entire revenue from all sources for school purposes amounted to $340,000. When he retired in 1876 there were 5,092 schools, with a registered attendance of 489,664 pupils, and a revenue of $3,373,035. Besides the Common Schools in existence there were 25 Grammar Schools attended by 958 pupils, and maintained at an expense of $16,320 annually. At the close of his long career there were 104 High Schools attended by 8,541 pupils, and maintained at an annual expense of $304,948. The accommodation for the pupils attending the Common Schools was supplied by 2,887 school houses, of which 213 were brick or stone, 1,008 frame and 1,666 log. The teachers numbered 3,086, and were possessed of such varied qualifications as might be expected when I tell you that they obtained their certificates in most cases from the Boards of Trustees which employed them. When he surrendered his commission there were 4,926 school-houses, of which 1,931 were brick or stone, 2,253 frame, and only 742 log, all in charge of a staff of highly educated and accomplished teachers, numbering 6,185.

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."

When he asked authority for trustees to erect school houses wherever, in their opinion, the public interests required them, he was told such a law would be arbitrary and harsh, that it would place too much power in the hands of a few men. His answer was: "School houses are cheaper than gaols, teachers are cheaper than police officers, the taxpayer must be made to pay for the common morality of the people." When he said: "Teachers must be educated and trained for their work, the success of thousands of children depend upon skilful handling and discipline in the school room, we must have Grammar Schools and Normal School and Township libraries and Boards of Examiners," he was told that the country could not afford such luxuries, that he must wait till the people were richer. His answer was: "Efficiency is the highest economy. If the springtime of life is wasted, life's greatest opportunities are wasted. The taxpayer must be made to pay for the common intelligence of the people." As a result of all this courage—may I not call it heroism—in the defence of sound principles of education he placed his native Province in the van of all the States of America and all the Colonies of the British Empire. Well may we to-day assemble to do honor to his memory. Not only Ontario, but Canada, owes much to his breadth of mind, his sagacity and his tremendous force of character.

For thirty-two years his active brain and busy pen were devoted to the work of propagating sounder views on popular education. For thirty-two years he labored to establish the democracy of mind—the common citizenship of every child attending a Public School. With a patriotism which no man ever questioned, with talents which no man could fail to appreciate, with a tenacity of purpose which no difficulty could daunt, he devoted his life to one purpose, the establishment of a school system which would fully meet the wants of a free, strong and progressive people. (Applause). It is said of Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble. It may be said of Dr. Ryerson that he found our school system without any definite organisation, he left it highly organized. He found it weak in influence and poor in circumstances, he left it endowed with houses and lands and millions of treasure. He found it tolerated as traditionally respectable, he left it enthroned in the affections of a free people.

Well may we honor his greatness, for we share in all it has produced. Well may we search our quarries for a fit emblem of the durability of his work, on which to carve his name, that generations yet unborn may recall the record of his life and be stirred to emulate his example. And yet when we have done all this, when we have committed his memory to the keeping of the bronze and granite now before us, I believe the judgment of those who know his work will be that all the monuments which mortal hands can erect, and all the eulogies which affection or admiration can prompt his contemporaries to utter, will be ephemeral and perishable compared with the educational edifice which his own hands builded or the intellectual life which of his own genius he imparted to his fellow countrymen.