Note 25 — Colonial Chapter in the History of American Education.

All the Indian schools of the Province, which are chiefly sustained by various religious bodies are now under the control of the Indian Department at Ottawa. The following is an account of a typical Indian school at the Credit in 1830: The school room in a large and commodious apartment with tiers of raised benches in the rear: on one division of which sit the girls, and the boys on the other. There are also desks, and slates for ciphering and copy-books and copper-plate lines for whose who write. The Bible and Testaments, and some of the other books, are English printed and some American. No sectarian intolerance prevails in that way. Among the school furniture are a handsome map of the world, the arithmecon, attractive alphabets in pasteboard, regular figures illustrative of geometry, some of them cut out of wood and some of them made of pasteboard: the picture of Elijah fed by ravens, figures of birds, fishes and quadrupeds on pasteboard, coloured, accompanied with the history of each animal: the figure of a clock in pasteboard, by which to explain the principles of the time-piece. The walls are adorned with good, moral maxims; and I perceived that one of the rules was rather novel, though doubtful in place here. It was, "No blankets to be worn in school." The attendance is about 50 Indian children. The girls are taught by Miss Rolph, sister of the late Member of Middlesex: the boys by Mr. Edwy Ryerson, a younger brother of the late editor of the Christian Guardian, Rev. Egerton Ryerson. The translating office is occupied by Mr. Peter Jones, the Indian minister.