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 has the individual citizen, poor though he might be, been more ready to submit to taxation for the purpose of promoting popular enlightenment. Next to the Church the public school is, of all Canadian institutions, the closest to the people's hearts. Its management and control is absolutely and directly in their own hands, and it is a source of just pride to know that the management is almost universally efficient and successful to a degree that leaves little to be desired. Our Universities, grammar-schools, and academies, while with few exceptions not boasting the huge endowments which private and public liberality has given to similar institutions in older and wealthier countries, are nevertheless well fitted to discharge their functions. On the vital question of education our fellow-citizens of the Empire may rest satisfied that we are not behind the best traditions of our race.

Looking over the whole ground, it may be said that Canada presents to-day the spectacle of a young, vigorous, and united people, which by faith and courage has come through trying struggles, overcome great obstacles, and made good its title to national existence. Its history has not been of the spectacular kind which appeals to the imagination; but it has made for the development of the qualities necessary to national strength. While building railways, constructing canals, overcoming mountain ranges, bridging rivers, and developing the wealth afforded by Nature, she has carefully provided for the religious wants of the people, preserved the love of home and family, which is the foundation of all nationhood, established and carried on a sound and progressive system of education, and generally met all the demands of a growing civilization. Religious toleration, social order, and commercial and industrial development have gone hand in hand. Other countries may now be at or past the zenith of their career; Canada is but entering upon hers. She faces the great undertaking of the future—such as the construction of another transcontinental railway; such as