£2 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
school and the German normal schools which I had the pleasure of visit- 
ing last year. Also, after six months, if his course of instruction is satis- 
tactory, or if he passes an examination required by the department, he is 
authorized to teach. That certificate supplies what you would call our 
second-grade teachers ; but we do not stop there. These teachers, together 
with a limited number of higher grade still, cover the whole field of ele- 
mentary work. 
Five years ago we had only what you here would call a normal college, 
and what we call a school of pedagogy, organized very much as yours, in 
some respects after the German method, where we gave instruction in 
psychology, which is the foundation of all true teaching. You will see, 
:herefore, what the Province of Ontario has done in the great work of 
seaching ; and while we think we have reached high achievements, yet we 
believe we must develop the study and teaching of psychology—a profes- 
sional qualification, advocated by such men as M. Compayré and by Dr. 
Harris, and the eminent educators on this continent and Kurope. lf we 
have not reached our ideal it is not because we have not made the attempt, 
and we are proceeding, we trust, with some degree of speed in that direc- 
tion. 
There is just one other feature of our system : our schools are controlled, 
as I have said, in every department ; and we believe they should be con- 
trolled especially as to the kind of text-book they use. In Ontario we 
oelieve that the publisher is made for the schoolroom and not the school- 
room for the publisher. We believe in the first place that a good text- 
book cannot be prepared except by a good teacher, and regard no other 
text-book as suitable for our schools except such as are prepared by the 
most accomplished teachers in the Province. We have no confidence in 
yookmakers per se ; but a man who has taught a subject, and taught it 
well, who has the literary standing necessary, will, in nine cases out of ten, 
orepare text-books which are better than those prepared by some stranger 
so the work. Your text-books in this country are in harmony with your 
history and your institutions, and so we say that our text-books shall 
reflect Canadian sentiment, a sentiment which I trust will ever be synony- 
mous with liberty and progress. Then we say our text-books shall be 
controlled, as to their publication, by the department, so that frequent 
changes, embarrassing and expensive changes, cannot take place, and that 
the price cannot be fixed higher than the educational department shall 
think proper. And no text-book can be put upon the market unless it 1s 
accepted as to its binding and typography by the educational department. 
No text-book can be used in the Province of Ontario unless it is approved 
as to its matter, its method, and all that goes to make up a text-book. 
All this is to the advantage of our public schools in the way of regulating 
the price, the quality of the text-book, and promoting the efficiency of 
the school. You may say that system would not suit you; but it is not 
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