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t the Hinister to suggest the remedy. In A"? and he thought again last year 'het'Wersrd an amendment along the thetaitimeuines. and to the effect that a scheme, should be devised to afford the' children in the agricultural dis- tricts such higher education as could 'be got in the Public Schools. (iii) Minister of Education said that his tion was principally platitudes, but? the result of it was to give the coun- . . against the will ot the Minister 'Education, the continuation classes the Public Schools. Mr. Whitney T plained that there was very great HINIBTER OF EDUCATION. . Ross, after congratulating Mr. itney upon his selection as leader the Opposition, referred to r. Hardy's speeches at Owen ', und and London, which he itsald, were perfectly legitimate. He pointed out that Mr. Whitney, who was so sensitive about Mr. Hardy's speeches, supported Sir Charles Tup- per, who openly promised at Winnipeg to build the Hudson Bay Railway. As to the interference ot officials m elec- tions, he called attention to the fact qthat in Mr. Whitney's own riding a customs omeer had been nominated for Parliamentary honors; but Mr. Whit- ney had nothing to say of that. His arguments recalled upon himself. Mr. Ross said that he did not believe in either Dominion or Provincial omclals interfering in eteetiontr---the sooner the civil service of this country recoganed that it was a civil service of the w ole people and not of one party or another the better. The Government that could not sustain itself without the as- sistanceof its officials perambulating from end to end of the country did not deserve to be in power. - - se in connection with the exa- ~"one in the Public Schools. and _ ked the Educational Council.. He aid the Educational Council had to appoint the exact examiners nominat- ed by Mr. Ross. and he had heard that ,0!) one occasion the members of the Council asked for more names and the inister gave them one more name. q Whitney added that he had no po- knowledge .ot' this statement, ' for ail ge knew, might be a tion. Pit 9350 attacked the ' Inrttittitets,riec1aring that the weremuzzled when they met way by the presence of the Dir- of the Teegchem' Institutes. Mr. ney char-g I Mt Hardy with mak- tgmentsfpt Fondon and Owen t' ich were not in keeping wibh a man tn his position, and oi theurtrongest speeches gem ithe Opposition this session y 'qtattrr erring tolthe "heeler" ques- tion,' quoting in ehitoriai from The Globe condemning the interference of ptnciait' in elections: "All honor to that party ,Mn."i!he said, "tor the manner in 'which ih. has exposed the ancer to which r have been alluding, nd it behoves the people of Canada to T the» noble words published in _ T and make it impossible for 'qmolal to take part in elections." Mr. Whitney did not maintain that the public expenditure should still be up- on the same scale as it was in John Sandfleld Maedonald's, time. The growth of the country had called for an increase in public institutions, with Consequent increase in expenditure. There had been an increase in the ex- penditure of municipal institutions of two or three fold. There was a neces- Slty tor a reasonable expenditure in order to keep up with the times and the demands of the ,people. He com- pared the increase with that of the Ottawa Government, which had grown from $22,000s000 in 1878 to $40,000.000 in the last year of their rule, for some purposes not so easily Justified as the expenditure ot the Ontario Govern- ment. Coming to his own department, he refuted the charge of too many ex- aminations, and said that nothing was suggested to take their places.'1'hey pre- vailed in every educational institution and in every country. Since 1875 the m.ber of examinations in the educa- tional system had been reduced by 23, leaving only ten now in force, which would be still further reduced to eight. A pupil could go through the whole public course without submitting himself. to a. single~ examination, and could prepare himself for the Uni- versity with only o nation, at his entrance to 1. Mr. Rirtntadr trolled -iiciiau' Gid -tGGhe increased ex- penditure was admitted, put, sqrgly ity with only o natin entrance to t oql. tney had nt exam _ T .d "at - _ Educa I: incauonal itrolled ad that Chrg _ b'-' aw-.. -" . any. f. yrtF'te be iiiriGii; ted, ii'u"i his me h Jim to send in to the Council a its of every person known to him quali-. tied to serve, and they had probably had three or four times as many names as they were required to appoint. The list. to which Mr. Whitney had refer.. red was one which hadnot been pre- pared by the department at all. It was the same list which had been ap- proved by'the Joint Board of Exam.. iners the year before, and he had thought . that as they had served only one term they} might be appointed again. Ad-l, dl anal names were sent in. andi ln'pearly every case the names were duplicated. The list was not prepared by him at all. As to the charge o centralization. Mr. Ross showed tha since Dr. Ryerson's time there had but a decrease of centralization. Even in the Provinces where they had not a Minister of Education, there was a cen- tral power in charge of the examina- _ tions. The cost of the examinations to _ the pupils had been criticized. but thei , entrance fee was only one dollar, while that in the civil service was $3 43, f) medicine $6 03, in law $6 77, and so on.: In 1895 there had been a loss to thel department of $2..5N', on the examina-l: tions. As to the cost of text-books Mn; Ross showed in Toronto where there were free text-hooks. the cost was only! seventeen cents per pupil, or. includingi scribblers. etc.. 47 cents. In Massa- chusetts the cost was $1 62 per head and Minnesota 95 cents. The cost of machinery had been criticized. but it was not a well-founded criticism, as the price of inspection per school .had not been increased since 1875, and ther were now only two instead of thr High School inspectors. and for civili government the expense last year was' only $729 more than it was 22 years ago, and if he was able to carry out his intentions the cost for this year} would be even less than that for 1876.) The Public Schools were not neglect-l ed. Where agricluture was not taught' it was because there was not a feel- ing in favor of it in the district. Th establishment of High Schools was i all cases due to the action of Count Councils. Mr. Ross deplored Mr. How land's criticism of the University, an pointed with pride to the high post tion taken by the graduate of the University in" the col legcs of Europe and the States. l The charge had been made that tech meal education had been neglected When he took charge of the depart ment there was only one. art school l the Province: last year there were 68 and the number of pupils had increas ed from 124 to 4,356. The number 0 boys in the Technical Schools was not 45,898. In 1883 there were M Publi Libraries, in 1897 there were 356. circu _ lating 1,917 365 volumes. Thirteem- Years ago 61 per cent. of the reading of the people of Ontario was fiction; now the percentage of fiction was down to 48 per cent., Nhus showing a larger appreciation of the better class of books. The effect of this upon the peo- ple could not he over-estimated. He was 'eatisned that the effect of the sys-3 tem had been to elevate the plane of public intelligence and improve public. morality. He had heard it said that the education system had had the elf-t: feet of driving our boys from the farm.f, No system of education could deter-) mine a boy's future career. The tyi: must determine himself what his car-i eer shall be, in spite of any system of; education. He did not believe that theta school system had driven the boys from1 the farm. There were various reasons why the urban population had increas- _ ed and the rural population had de- creascd. Farming was now less pro- fitaHle than it had been a few yeattl, ago. Less labor was required, and the: opportunities for industrial employ-h ment had increased. The increase int urban population had not been greater' in Ontario than elsewhere. During the , last twenty years it was in Ontario P.1 from 19 to 35 per cent.; Quebec, 19 to 29 %V per cent.; Nova Scotia, 14 to 21 per' cent.; British Columbia. 8 to 42 per. cent.; Prince Edward Island. 11 to Ill - per cent. In New Brunswick the urban t y,' population had decreased from 24 to 19 , J per cent. The increase in the Do- Ar, minion had been from 18 to 28 per cent. In the last decade the in.crteyyt.w4s . 331-3 per cent, as against 161-; per cent. during the previous decade; here if were sociological changes going on m i..r the world w icir-we might as well try . to interce any Pi MN swhtettcthe a House could! set mmgygiw ps Mrs. ki Partington cihMs tthate "v Bh' the l tides fill/"h he? . K' " , " ' IS' OLbe mt: