Education Quote by John Strachan

The line drips with the careful pragmatism of a churchman who knows exactly where power is easiest to grab - and where it’s hardest to hold. Strachan concedes that the Provincial Legislature has managed to move the needle on education, a domain where institutions can be created by statute, budgets, and timetables. Schools can be willed into existence with paperwork. Churches can’t. Or rather: they can be built, but only with land, patronage networks, loyal congregations, and a steady pipeline of ordained men who will reproduce the right moral and political order.

That contrast is the real argument. Strachan is not praising secular governance; he’s drawing a boundary around what the state can do cheaply versus what it must do, indirectly or expensively, if it wants the colony to cohere. Education is presented as administratively solvable. Clergy placement is framed as an infrastructural challenge - which also functions as a justification for privileging the church with resources, authority, and legal advantage.

The subtext sits in the word “difficulty.” It’s a plea for patience that doubles as a demand for support. In early 19th-century Upper Canada, churches weren’t just spiritual outlets; they were civic technology: a way to Anglicize settlers, stabilize communities, and counter rival denominations that threatened the establishment’s influence. Strachan’s sentence is a measured warning: you can legislate a curriculum, but you can’t legislate legitimacy. For that, you need pulpits, buildings, and men positioned like stakes in the ground.