The great educational advantages that the people of Canada now enjoy, and more especially in the premier Province of Ontario–as the splendid exhibit recently made at Paris and Philadelphia has proved to the world–are the results of the legislation of a very few years. A review of the first two periods of our political history affords abundant evidence that there existed in Canada as in Europe much indifference in all matters affecting the general education of the country. Whatever was accomplished during these early times was owing, in a great measure, to the meritorious efforts of ecclesiastical bodies or private individuals.