overnment becomes the mere
agency of party, and its highest gifts the prizes of party zeal and
intrigue, it loses its moral prestige and power; and from the corrupt
fountain would flow polluted streams into every Department of the public
service, which would corrupt the whole mass of society, were it not for
the counteracting and refining influences which are exerted upon society
by the ministrations and labours of the different religious
denominations.

I know it has been contended that party patronage, or, in other words,
feeding partizans at the public expense, is an essential element in the
existence of a government. This is the doctrine of corruption. The
Education Department--the highest public department in Upper
Canada--existed for more than thirty years without such an element, and
with increased efficiency and increased strength in the public
estimation, during the whole of that period. Justice and virtue, and
patriotism and intelligence, are stronger elements of power and
usefulness than those of buying and rewarding partizans; and if the
rivalship and competition of public men should consist in who should
best devise and promote measures for the advancement of the country, and
who should exercise the executive power most impartially and
intelligently, for developing and promoting the interests of all
classes, then the moral standard of government and of public men would
be greatly exalted, and the highest civilization of the whole country be
advanced. But I will not pursue this topic any further. The truths I
state are self-evident.

* * * * *

For many years after Confederation Dr. Ryerson felt that the new
political condition of the Province--which localized as well as
circumscribed its civil administration of affairs--required a change in
the management of the Education Department. He, therefore, in 1869 and
1872, urged upon the Government the desirability of relieving him from
the anomalous position in which he found himself placed under the new
system.

The reasons which he urged for his retirement are given in a pamphlet
devoted to a "Defence" of the System of Education, which he published in
1872, and are as follows:--

When political men have made attacks upon the school law, or the school
system and myself, I have answered them. Then the cry has been raised by
my assailants, and their abettors, that I was "interfering with
politics." They would assail me without stint, in hopes of crush