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unclear Chapter XX. 317 [symbol] At Toronto I was taken over the Educational Department for upper Canada. It is ambitiously housed; & combines so many objects, namely a general Library, a collection & depot of Schoolbooks, & of School apparatus, galleries of Art, chiefly for copies of celebrated pictures, & pieces of Sculpture, & Normal Schools, that I spent two hours in going through it. On my making some observations on the cost of the Building, & of its contents I was told, that it might appear that too much had been spent on the Department, but that it had designedly been carried out on this scale, & the building made imposing, & the galleries added in order to give dignity & elevation to the idea of Education in the minds of the people. A hope had been entertained, that if the Normal Schools were brought under the same roof, a better class of young persons wd offer themselves for the position of Teacher; & their hope had not be disappointed. The arguments & facts which are in favor of the Canadian Common School System are to be heard at the Department, the officers of which appeared to be able & zealous men. The system, however, has been very far from securing that unanimity of which to the South of the great Lakes exists on the subject of Common Schools. I will state the difference of opinion, & some of its causes in the words one of the leading men in the Province used in conversation with me on the subject. He said, "that great general dissatisfaction prevailed throughout Upper Canada with respect to their Common Schools.