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EDUCATION The Dominie was a strict disciplinarian, a ruler who did not bear the sword in vain, a literal interpreter of all that King Solomon has written about the benefit of the rod. He would smite sore the delinquent at his lessons; nay, it was a common thing to see him thump the ears and shoulders of a group of lads, even of strong men when slow to apprehend his instructions. The young women he punished more mildly by pinching an ear or pulling the long, black hair. We have been unable to obtain any information as to whether this no-doubt salutary discipline was borne by the fair sex with their usual patience. The pioneers who gave this information insisted that the school of their youth was vastly superior to the schools of 1883: Great as -we consider the improvement effected by the deservedly valued school-system of our province at the present day, many who remember the rough and ready extemporized school arrange- ments of fifty years ago, are of the opinion that there was, after all, in many cases, a heartiness and a force strangely lacking the more correct methods of the duly certified teacher who has passed through all the ordeals of examination, and answered all the puzzle papers of the Department of the present day. These pioneers, one may suspect, were confusing the dearly re- membered "heartiness and force" of their school and teachers with recollections of the abounding vigor of their own youth. One wonders why any man in his right mind would become a pedagogue in pioneer days. The wages of a master were so low that he could seldom marry and have a home, and unless he was rough and ready and had the courage and technique of a lion-tamer, he suffered from a daily baiting by the young men of the class, some of whom attended school almost solely for the joy of tormenting him. It is no wonder that many teachers were violent and cruel men who were continually moving from one lost battle-ground to another; and that in 1838 the government sadly reported that "it is painful to report that a great proportion of our teachers are men of intem- perate habits". Between 1850 and 1865 a number of important changes were mase in the school system of Paris. In 1850o, the first village-council ap- pointed the Reverend David Caw as superintendent of the village schools at a salary of $25.oo00 a year. His duties were to examine orally the qualifications of prospective teachers and to grant them a licence to teach if they could satisfy the standards set by himself; to inspect regularly the schools; and, in collaboration with Thos. Bosworth, the village clerk, to choose the books for the school library. Another important change was made in 1852, when the first grammar-school (high school) was established in Paris. It is true that a private grammar-school had been established here about 1840: the Reverend William Morse of St. James' Church, for a yearly tuition fee of about $25.00, taught Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Euclid to a small and select group of young ladies and gentlemen. But not until I852 was a government-supported grammar-school 157 *