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tion of the people; and that not by temporary expedients, but by the establishment of permanent and liberal educational institutions.

You will remember that in opening this Council for the first time, I endeavored to urge the importance of this question on the Province. The experience of eighteen months has only served to deepen and strengthen the views which I then ventured to express. The whole tendency of the discussions which have taken place throughout the Colony on the subject of the Waste Lands, must have left the impression that the result of legislation on that subject will be to create possibly with great rapidity a very large class of peasant proprietors and small farmers throughout the Province. Those who think as I do that such a class will constitute the surest basis for the durable prosperity of a Colony and the happiness of its inhabitants, have watched that tendency with the deepest interest.

But it is impossible to anticipate without mistrust and alarm the increase of such a class in numbers and wealth, if their youth are allowed to grow up without that education, which alone can fit them to become the duties which privilege entails, and to exercise the great political privileges which our Constitution places in their hands. Institutions so free as those which have been bestowed on this Colony, will prove a curse, and not a blessing, in the hands of an intelligent and educated people.

You will remember the Government postponed framing a measure for establishing an educational system until the present session, and you were asked for a vote of a thousand pounds in order to provide for education temporarily, until experience should have shewn what might be devised as most applicable to the condition of the Province.

Full accounts will be laid before you of the manner in which that grant has been expended. The difficulties which have been experienced have arisen from the limited supply of schoolmasters, and from the impossibility of making permanent institutions on the frail security of a casual vote of the Council.

In dealing with education there are two distinct questions for legislation. First, that relating to the system to be adopted. Secondly, that relating to the means by which it is to be maintained.

In establishing any system, it is idle to disguise the difficulties arising from the connection between education and religion; and the various views entertained on the nature and extent of that relation, in a country consisting of various religious denominations.

The measure to be submitted to you endeavours to deal fairly with that part of the subject. But I desire to say it is no proposed in the expectation that it will, of necessity, solve a question which ever has been, and will be, surrounded with difficulty. To contrive such a system, Gentlemen, I believe is not in the power of man. In a matter in which opinion and feeling enter so largely, the spirit in which any system is worked will mainly determine its success or failure. The most that legislation can do is to establish a system which shall be fair to all, and shall definitely recognize the duties of all; and the principle in the proposed measure is this—that whilst no system deserves the name of education which endeavours to separate secular instruction from moral and religious training, yet the duty of the state extends only to affording secular instruction, whilst the various religious denominations of which the state is composed are the proper organs for conveying doctrinal instruction in religious matters. If the state then shall undertake to teach secular things, and shall place it in the power of the teacher of religion to fulfil his proper duty, it has done all that it can do in the matter.

But with the other part of the subject—the means of maintaining educational institutions, this Bill does not propose to deal; and in this respect it is manifestly inadequate to the object sought. I can never regard any system as satisfactory or sufficient, which is not maintained by a fixed and permanent source of income.

The expenses attending an efficient educational system are two-fold; comprising, first, the cost of building school-houses and providing materials for the schools; and, secondly, the cost of maintaining the schoolmasters. The first of these demands is of a varying nature, and may be supplied as funds become available; but the second is a permanent annual expense to be guaranteed every year.

I am aware that it has been proposed to set aside a portion of the land fund or land rate for educational purposes. I should rejoice to see that proposal adopted. But the funds which may be anticipated from this source are, in their nature, precarious, likely to vary largely from year to year, and not to be relied on for meeting a fixed annual liability. Besides if the Education is to be made worthy of the Province, if a system is to be established which shall command the respect of the people, I believe the funds arising from land sales will be wholly absorbed for many years, in