ering parties for
the welfare of the country, there has been an economy, intelligence and
impartiality in legislation, and in the whole administration of
government, not equalled for many years past, a corresponding
improvement in the social feelings and general progress of the country,
as well as an elevation of our reputation and character abroad, in both
Europe and America....

In no respect is the education of a people more important than in
respect to the principles of their government, their rights and duties
as citizens. This does not come within the range of elementary school
teaching; but I have sought to introduce, as much as possible,
expositions on the principles, spirit and philosophy of government, in
my annual reports, and other school addresses and documents, during the
last twenty years, and so to frame the whole school system as to make
its local administration an instrument of practical education to the
people, in the election of representatives, and the corporate management
of their affairs--embracing most of the elementary principles and
practice of civil government, and doing so to a greater extent than is
done in the school system of any country in Europe, or of any State in
America. And the strength and success of the school system in any
municipality have been in proportion to the absence of party spirit, and
the union of all parties for its promotion.... What is true in school
polity is true in civil polity; and what is true in the educational
branch of the public service, is true in every branch of the public
service.

I am aware that many good and intelligent men, of different views and
associations, regard partyism as a necessity, a normal element, in the
operations of free civil government.... I think they are in error, at
least in the Canadian sense of the term party; and that this error has
been at the bottom of most of our civil discords and executive abuses. I
think that partyism is a clog in the machinery of civil government, as
in that of school or municipal government; in which there is free
discussion of measures, and of the conduct of Trustees and Councillors;
and there have been elections and changes of men as well as of
measures.... When party assumptions and intolerance have gone so far as
to interfere with the proper functions of government, with the
constitutional rights of citizens, or of the Crown, I have, at different
times, in former years, being trammelled by or depende