ent of all inspection, control, or
competition in wealth--all its officers securely paid by the state,
independent of exertion or success--will in a short time, as a
general rule, degenerate into inactivity, indifference, and
extravagance. In collegiate institutions, as well as in the higher
and elementary schools, and in other public and private affairs of
life, competition is an important element of efficiency and
success. The best system of collegiate, as of elementary education,
is that in which voluntary effort is developed by means of public
aid. It is clearly both the interest and duty of the state to
prompt and encourage individual effort in regard to collegiate, as
in regard to elementary, education and not to discourage it by the
creation of a monopoly invidious and unjust on the one side, and on
the other deadening to all individual effort and enterprise, and
oppressive to the state.

We submit, therefore, that justice and the best interests of
liberal education require the several colleges of the country to be
placed upon equal footing according to their works. We ask nothing
for Victoria College which we do not ask for every collegiate
institution in Upper Canada upon the same terms.

We desire also that it may be distinctly understood that we ask no
aid towards the support of any theological school or theological
chair in Victoria College. There is no such chair in Victoria
College; and whenever one shall be established, provision will be
made for its support independent of any grant from the state.[148]
We claim support for Victoria College according to its works as a
literary institution--as teaching those branches which are embraced
in the curriculum of a liberal education, irrespective of
denominational theology.

We also disclaim any sympathy with the motives and objects which
have been attributed by the advocates of Toronto College monopoly,
in relation to our National School system. The fact that a member
of our own body has been permitted by the annual approbation of the
Conference to devote himself to the establishment and extension of
our school system, is ample proof of our approval of that system:
in addition to which we have from time to time expressed our
cordial support of it by formal resolutions, and by the tes