BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF 1891 , .Fj.,;^/. 4.3.3.^ : y/j././^f... 9963 Cornell University Library LA 418.06C69 Public education in upper Canada, 3 1924 020 753 541 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924020753541 Columbia XDinivetsitig (Tontnbutions to Ebucation CTeacbers College Series mo. 15 Copyright, 1907 BY TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Public Education in Upper Canada Herbert Thomas John Coleman ^ PUBLISHED BY TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK 1907. ^-J-HSliG. BRANDOW PRINTING CO., ALBANY, N. Y. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I Page 1> THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND Purpose of chapter. — Early conditions ; French military posts ; French settlers in Upper Canada prior to 1791. — The Loyalist emigration; nation- alities represented; assistance furnished by British Government; the chief Loyalist settlements. — Later emigration from the United States. — Emi- gration from Europe; almost wholly from the British Isles; segregation of race elements; one notable exception; unfortunate result of the policy of segregation. — Abuses in the granting of land; Judge Thorpe's criti- cisms, 1807; Mr. Gourlay's investigations, 1817-18; cumulative effect of Government's policy. — The structure and character of the Provincial Gov- ernment; large powers of Executive; slight powers possessed by House of Assembly; chief functions of the latter body. — Municipal organization of the Province; the District; the County; the Township; the School District.— Religious denominations ; contemporary accounts of numerical standing and privileges enjoyed; the struggle for equal rights; the Clergy Reserves; the right to solemnize marriage. — General conditions of life; roads; traveling; communication with Great Britain; newspapers; post- offices. — Conclusion. CHAPTER II Page 21 THE LAND GRANTS FOR SCHOOLS Educational policy of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, 1792- 1796; his correspondence with the British Government; the defects of his policy. — The Royal Land Grant of 1797; its chief provisions. — University the earliest and chief beneficiary from Land Grant; reasons therefor; the Reverend John Strachan and his influence in Provincial politics. — Steps taken to dispose of Sjchool lands for University purposes; action of Executive Council, f8i9; exchange of University lands for more valu a-_ able Crovfh Reserves, 1827; value of University Endowment, 1839-1842.— Endowment from University lands of " National " Schools and Upper Canada College. — Action of House of Assembly, 1831, looking to the realization of a fund for Grammar and Common Schools; failure of that body to appreciate difficulties of the situation; report of the Executive Council on School Lands, 1831 ; 250,000 acres granted to Grammar Schools, 1839. — Movement for a special endowment for Common Schools; legis- lative proceedings in this regard, 1816, 1831, 1832, 1833; recommendations of Lieutenant-Governor, 1835 ; failure of Common School Endowment Bill, 1839; eventual success of movement, 1849. — Effect on educational legislation of the political complications of the time. 4 Contents. CHAPTER III Page 33 THE DISTRICT GRAMMAR SCHOOL — LEGISLATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS Legislative proceedings prior to 1807.— The District (Grammar) School Act of 1807; its chief provisions; Act made permanent in 1808; popular dissatisfaction with the Act as reflected in proceedings of the House of Assembly, 1808-1816; the Common School Act of 1816 a concession to this popular sentiment; continued agitation against the act, 1817-1819. — The District Grammar School Amendment Act, 1819; analysis of its contents.— Founding of new Grammar Schools, 1819-1839-— The General Board of Education (1823-1833) in its relations to the Grammar Schools. — Grammar Schools under the direction of the Council of King's College, 1833-1841. — Changes in administration of Grammar Schools introduced by Act of 1839. — The union of Upper and Lower Canada, 1841, and the Grammar School Act of that year.— General attitude of the Provincial Government towards Grammar Schools during the period under con- sideration. CHAPTER IV Page 44 THE DISTRICT GRAMMAR SCHOOL — ITS PECULIAR FEATURES The Reverend John Strachan, the most famous of the Grammar School masters; his connection with the schools at Cornwall and York; his thoroughness; his fondness for scientific study; his advocacy of a liberal curriculum; his methods as a teacher. — Later masters of the Grammar School at York; Mr. Samuel Armour; the Reverend Thomas Phillips. — Conditions in other Grammar Schools of the Province; the Midland Dis- trict Grammar School (at Kingston) ; the Eastern District Grammar School (at Cornwall) ; the Ottawa District Grammar School ; the Western District Grammar School (at Sandwich) ; the Johnstown District Gram- mar School (at Brockville) . — Characteristics of the Grammar School as an institution. — Upper Canada College, the "superior" Grammar School at York; its distinguishing features; its value as supplying, for the time being, the place of a University ; its limitations ; its history subsequent to 1841. CHAPTER V Page 55 THE COMMON SCHOOL — ITS EXTERNAL HISTORY No provision for elementary schools in the Land Grant of 1797. — Beginnings of elementary education in the Province; Garrison Schools; other private schools, 1789-1810. — Early certification of teachers. — ^An early petition for Government aid of elementary schools. — The Common School Act of 1816 ; its chief provisions ; defects of the Act. — The Com- mon School Act of 1820. — The Common School Act of 1824 ; provision for Sunday Schools ; recognition of a General Board of Education ; facts con- cerning this body; chief cause of its discontinuance. — Increase of annual grant to Common Schools, 1835.— Unsuccessful Common School Bills introduced in House of Assembly, 1830-1840; Mr. William Buell, Jr.'s Contents. 5 Bill; Mr. Mahlon Burwell's Bill; visit of Dr. Charles Buncombe to the United States ; his report and draft of a Common School Bill. — The Com- mon School Act of 1841 ; its chief provisions. — Subsequent legislation. CHAPTER VI Page 68 THE COMMON SCHOOL — ITS ESSENTIAL CHARACTER- ISTICS Incompleteness of data at hand. — Schools in keeping with pioneer conditions. — Pioneer life, as a whole, unfavorable to formal education. — Some compensating features ; Dr. Bourinot quoted. — Some early school- houses; description (1818) of the school buildings of the time. — Leading t5rpes of the early schoolmaster. — Prevalence of American teachers ; atti- tude towards them by the authorities; characterization of them by writers of the time. — The Common School curriculum and text-books ; scarcity of the latter; methods of instruction; daily program of the Common School at York, 1821. — American text-books in the schools; agitation against them; their eventual exclusion. — Efforts of the General Board of Education to meet the local need. — Chief cause of the low state of the Common Schools during this pieriod. CHAPTER VII Page 79 THE RELIGIOUS FACTOR IN PUBLIC EDUCATION — THE GRAMMAR AND THE COMMON SCHOOLS General belief in Upper Canada in the necessity of religious instruction in the schools; difference of opinion as to the form it should take; " Separate Schools " the answer, so far as the Roman Catholics are con- cerned; gradual relaxing of religious requirement in Common Schools attended by Protestants. The Church of England and the Grammar Schools; charge of Anglican domination made by the United Presbytery of Upper Canada in 1830; reply of a Committee of the Legislative Council; the Presbytery reiterates its charges; confessedly Anglican character of Upper Canada College. The Church of England and the Common Schools; a Provincial system of Church of England National Schools projected, 1820; Royal approval of the plan, 1823; introduction of the systems of both Bell and Lancaster in Upper Canada; details of the establishment of the Central National School at York; the Appleton Case; Parliamentary investigation and report; continuation of the Central National School till 1844. Conclusion; the Appleton Case illustrates but one phase of the struggle going on in the Province at the time. CHAPTER VIII Page 91 THE RELIGIOUS FACTOR IN PUBLIC EDUCATION — THE PROVISIONAL UNIVERSITY The two chief parties in the University controversy. — The University Charter of 1827; Dr. Strachan's visit to England; his "Appeal" on behalf of the University; his conception of its purpose; the chief provisions of the charter. — The protest of the House of Assembly in 1828 against the charter; petition to the King. — Action of the House of Assembly and of 6 Contents. the Legislative Council in regard to the charter, 1829.— Popular petition to the Imperial Parliament, 1830.— The Charter Amendment bills of 183S and 1836; passed by House of Assembly, but rejected by Council; reasons given for this rejectiop.— Attitude of Imperial Gevernraent on the Uni- versity question ; report of a Committee of the House of Commons, 1828 ; instructions of Colonial office to Sir John Colborne, 1828; request for a surrender of the charter, 1831 ; refusal of the College Council and reasons therefor — The Charter Amendment Act of 1837; its chief provisions.— A Presbyterian professorship of theology in King's College ; suggested by Committee of Imperial House of Commons, 1828; agitated by United Presbytery of Upper Canada from 1831 onward; approved by Legislative Council, 1837.— Claims of Presbyterians ignored by King's College Coun- cil, 1837; appeal to the British Colonial Office; adverse report of the Educational Commission of 1839.— Act incorporating the Presbyterian University of Kingston, 1840; provision for the endowment of a Chair of Theology in the institution from King's College funds.— Name of the institution changed by Royal Charter in 1841 to Queen's College; no mention in the charter of a Chair of Theology, hence grant from King's College withheld. — The University Act of 1849 and the complete secu- larization of King's College; its name changed to the University of Toronto. CHAPTER IX Page 102 EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES IN ONTARIO, 1846-1906 The Elementary Schools: Work of Dr. Ryerson; the School Act of 1871; appointment of a Minister of Education, 1876; Dr. J. H. Sangster's description of the public schools of 1850; forces which wrought a change for the better. — Detailed character of the present School Law. Secondary Schools: The District Grammar School of 1850. — Reforms of 1853. — Changes made by School Act of 1871. — Subsequent changes. — Present high school conditions. Normal and Model Schools: Dr. Ryerson's visit to Europe and the United States. — Founding of the Provincial Normal School at Toronto. — Opposition to the Normal School idea. — Normal School course made purely professional in 1871. — Other Normal Schools established. — Com- mon characteristics of these schools. — The Ontario Normal College.—' Recently established Faculty of Education in the University of Toronto. — Early model schools; their defects. — Reforms of 1871. — Recent changes. The Provincial University: Two chief lines of progress. — The move- ment towards centralization. — University Federation movement, 1853- 1901. — Principles underlying present federation. — Institutions outside of federation. — Conclusion, — endowments and appropriations represented by the University of Toronto as at present constituted. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The period with which the following study mainly deals is not one arbitrarily selected. It possesses characteristics which distinguish it from the years which preceded it and those which followed. The year 1791, following close upon the first English settlement, marked the creation of the province of Upper Canada by the Constitutional Act, while in 1841 came into effect the Act of Union which again joined Upper to Lower Canada; but these provinces were again separated twenty-five years later by the Confederation Act which made the Dominion of the present day. The half-century from 1791 onward was one of marked growth in the population and material wealth of the Province, but, more important for the purpose of the present study, it witnessed also the development of certain religious, political and social ideals. It was a time of ferment and of struggle and it did not pass without the shedding of patriot blood, but through the dissension and the turmoil there were established three things which are the finest fruit of the thousand ^years or more of Anglo-Saxon civilization — responsible government, religious equality and the free school. Moreover, free public education was made possible only through the overthrow of autocracy in church and state; hence no apology is needed for the frequent reference in the following pages to incidents which might seem at the first glance to be purely political or religious in their character. The debt of the writer to one predecessor in the field is mani- fest throughout. Dr. Hodgins in his Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada has compiled from an immense num- ber of sources, many of which are not readily available, a mass of information, the value of which to the student of educational conditions in Ontario can scarcely be overestimated. In a Documentary History, however, very little beyond a chrono- logical arrangement can be attempted and completeness must be secured even at the apparent sacrifice at times of relevancy. 8 Introductory Note. The present study while in a measure chronological ahd descriptive, aims to be selective and interpretative as well. In its selective character it may be regarded as supplementing the work just referred to, while from the interpretative side it may furnish an element which seems to be lacking in such an other- wise excellent work as Dr. Ross's School System of Ontario. The supplementary chapter, it may be remarked, is added with a view to throwing some light on the chapters which precede it by furnishing to the reader a summary of educational events subsequent to 1841. It must not be regarded as an attempt to re- count adequately the educational history of the Province from 1841 till the present day. CHAPTER I. The Political and Social Background. The purpose of this chapter is not to attempt a complete resume of the political and social life of Upper Canada during the period indicated; such would be in itself an undertaking of greater magnitude than the entire present work professes to be. Its design is rather to call the attention of the reader to certain salient facts without a knowledge of which any clear understanding of the educational situation would be impossible. A brief sketch of the conditions which preceded the first extensive emigration to the territory known for many years as Upper Canada and now known as the Province of Ontario, forms a fitting preface to the story of the later period. During the period of French occupation, — the Ancien Regime, so-called, — there were several fortified posts, partly for military, partly for trading purposes, along the great stretch of waterway which now forms part of the boundary between Canada and the United States. Three of these were: Fort Cataraqui, near where the city of Kingston now stands; Fort Rouille, on the site of the present city of Toronto, and Fort Niagara, on the river of that name. Two of these posts — ^the first and the last- named — were continued when the English succeeded the French as masters of the soil, and thus naturally they became centres for the distribution of the settlers who came into Upper Canada in such large numbers in the years immediately following the war of the American Revolution. Previous to this time the French had made little attempt at colonization in Upper Canada. Naturally there had been a certain extension of settlement west- ward from Montreal, along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. Then again a few of the French families who clustered about the trading post at Detroit had crossed the Detroit River and settled in what is now Canadian territory. Of these early settlers, the present French-speaking inhabitants of the County of Essex are, in the main, the descendants. This emigration was, however, so insignificant from a numerical standpoint, that it can safely be said that in 1783 (the date of the close of the lo Public Education in Upper Canada. Revolutionary War), the entire Province was practically un- touched by civilization. The nearness of this virgin territory coupled with the active encouragement given by the British Government resulted in the transplanting, in the years between 1784 and 1800, of large bodies of Loyalist settlers from the United States. The story of the persecutions which hastened this emigration does not properly belong to this narrative, and has, moreover, been told in detail by other writers. We are concerned here wholly with that part of the history of the settlement of Upper Canada which will help us to a better understanding of subsequent educational conditions in the Province. The Loyalists in question were of English, Dutch and Ger- man blood, and came almost wholly from New York, Pennsyl- vania, New Jersey and the New England States. They were able to bring very little money or moveable property with them; hence, for some years, they were dependent to a considerable degree upon the bounty of the British Government. Liberal grants of land ranging, according to circumstances, from two hundred to two thousand acres were made to them ; free rations Were dealt out, though at irregular intervals; and seed grain and farm implements were distributed to assist them to become self-supporting as speedily as possible. All this mitigated, though it by no means wholly removed, the hardships of their lot. The chief Loyalist settlements were along the Upper St. Lawrence, on the Bay of Quinte (near the eastern end of Lake Ontario), in the Niagara peninsula and westward along thp northeastern shore of Lake Erie. Because of the industry and thrift of their inhabitants, these districts soon came to rank among the most prosperous portions of the Province. Closely akin in character to these first settlers were the various bodies of Quakers, Dutch and Pennsylvania Germans, who came into Upper Canada during the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. In fact there was a marked emigration from the United States throughout the greater part of this period in spite of the fact that from 1812 till 1815 Great Britain and the United States were at war. The European immigrants to Upper Canada were almost wholly from the British Isles. Indeed, the only continental element Political and Social Background. Ii in the population of the Province during the fifty years of which we are speaking, if we exclude a band of Germans who emigrated to Markham Township in 1794 after a brief stay in New York State, seems to have been contributed by a few French Royalists, Swiss and Alsatians.* The vanguard from Great Britain were bands of Scotch Highlanders who settled in the County of Glengarry in the closing years of the eighteenth and the opening years of the nineteenth century. A noticeable feature of the disposal of the British emigrants was their settlement on large blocks of land consisting of a township or more. So clearly were the distinctions of race and religion marked by geographical position that even to-day one can find a township which is predominantly Highland Scotch, another which is almost wholly Lowland Scotch in character, others whose very names signify that the ancestors of many of the present inhabitants came, as the case may be, from the north of Ireland, from the south of Ireland, from Devonshire, Cornwall or from the German counties of Pennsylvania. In distinct contrast with the policy of settlement by townships, was that of Colonel Talbot the owner by Royal Grant of an im- mense tract of land in the western portion of the Province. . He very wisely distributed his settlers after " the checkerboard fash- ion " so that no two families of the same nationality were placed side by side. The general policy of assigning land, to which we have just referred, joined with other factors which will presently be mentioned, tended to hinder any concerted action by the inhabitants of the Province in asserting their political rights and hence helped materially in continuing a governmental policy under which the rights of the average citizen, as regarded from a more modern view-point, received very scant considera- tion indeed. Another fact which is worthy of notice in this connection was the autocratic behavior of the administration in regard to the granting of land. Mr. Robert Thorpe, one of the Provincial judges in 1807, in referring to the " shop-keeper aristocracy " which surrounded the Lieutenant-Governor and influenced his official conduct, says : " Next to themselves, their families and friends, they give unbounded tracts of land in the finest situa- •See "Ethnographical Elements of Ontario" in Papers and Rteords of tht Ota. Hist. Soc.,Vol. III. 1901. 12 Public Education in Upper Canada. tions, at whatever rules or fees they choose and then barter this land to our greatest enemies in the States ; next they keep from the House of Assembly all accounts of the greatest part of the public money, thus denying them the first privilege given by the British Act of Parliament which established their Constitu- tion."^ Mr. Robert Gourlay, an intelligent and patriotic Scotch- man who came to Upper Canada in 1817, and who made a thorough investigation of the resources of the Province with a view to " a grand system of emigration," speaks of " the mean, selfish, unprincipled and unfeeling conduct of the Provincial Government in regard to the granting of land."^ British emi- grants, according to his statement, had to " dance attendance for weeks and months together before they could get a hearing from the Land Granting Department and when at last they were heard they were sent twenty or thirty miles into the wilderness where even native Americans could scarcely exist."* All this of course tended not only to retard the development of the Province, but also to increase greatly the popular bitterness against the powerful clique who thus sacrificed the general wel- fare to their own private convenience and emolument. If this were a history of the Province as a whole rather than an attempt to describe a particular phase of its political and social life, we might go on to speak here of various other arbi- trary acts of the Executive which further estranged the popular regard and which eventually led to an armed uprising (the Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837) on the part of a radical wing of the popular party. A few of these acts will be mentioned later in connection with certain specific phases of the general subject under consideration. For a statement of the remainder the reader is referred to any one of the Histories of Canada, mentioned in the bibliography at the close of this work. A brief explanation of the structure of the Provincial Govern- ment will here be in order. Canada was at the time a Crown Colony, that is, its more important affairs were administered by the British Government or by officials appointed by that govern- ment. The highest representative of the Crown was the Gov- ernor-General who resided at Quebec. The immediate execu- > Letter to Sir George Shee, Canadian Archivts, Series 0, Vol. 305, p. 189, quoted in full in Report af Dom. Archiiiist for 189J-93, note D. p. 57. 'A StatisUeal Account of Upptr Canada, Vol. II, p. 41S. *Ibi4, p. 4ao. Political and Social Background. 13 tive authority in Upper Canada was in the hands of a Lieutenant- Governor whose headquarters were at the Provincial Capital, York (later Toronto). The immediate advisers of the Lieu- tenant-Governor were known as the Executive Council. They were appointed by him and most of them held important and lucrative positions under the Government. The legislative func- tions were in the hands of (i) a Legislative Council, also appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor, and from which the Executive Council was frequently recruited; (2) a House of Assembly, the members of which were chosen every few years by the qualified voters of the Province. It can be easily seen from the foregoing that the part actually taken by the people in the management of their affairs was a very modest one and indeed might practically be said to dis- appear under an Executive wedded to aristocratic ideals. That the Executive was at times of the character just mentioned is very clearly shown by the following statement of Lieutenant- Governor Sir Francis Gore in justification of the dismissal of Judge Robert Thorpe from the bench for political activity ob- noxious to the administration. " I cannot help entertaining the hope," remarks Sir Francis, " that the measure which has been adopted, however painful, will have the most salutary influence in preventing the further progress of that spirit of equality and want of subordination which too much prevails among the lower ranks of this Province."^ In fact throughout this whole period the House of Assembly, in so far as it kept itself free from the dictation of the Execu- tive, served two main purposes, neither of which was strictly legislative in character, (i) Through its investigations, reports and debates, it made the real needs of the Province apparent to the people at large and thus performed an educative function. (2) Through petitions which, from time to time, it laid at the foot of the Throne, it called the attention of the British Govern- ment to the crying abuses which existed in the Province and thus helped indirectly to check the autocratic tendencies of the Lieutenant-Governors and their advisers. Through these peti- tions also it helped to create, in the mother country, a senti- ment which made possible the establishment, in 1841, of the 'Letter to Lord Castlereagh, in Canadian Archives, Series Q, Vol. 310, p. 15, quoted in Report of Dom. Archivist for 1892-93, note D, p. 87. 14 Public Education in Upper Canada. principle that the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils should be men who possessed the confidence of the people as a whole. A brief statement of the municipal organization of the Prov- ince is also necessary. Before the creation of the Province of Upper Canada, by the Constitutional Act of 1791, that portion of Canada had been divided into four districts, viz. : Lunenburgh, Mecklenburgh, Nassau and Hesse. The first Parliament of Upper Canada, in 1792, re-named them the Eastern, Midland, Home and Western Districts. The Parliament of 1798 estab- lished eight districts which were subdivided into twenty-three counties, and these in turn into one hundred and fifty-eight townships.^ The names of these various districts will appear more than once in the following chapters, hence, they need not be given here. Throughout the whole of our period, the dis- trict and the township (with its included school districts) formed the units of school administration. At a later date the district was abandoned and its function, so far at least as the control of the schools was concerned, transferred to the county. The various religious denominations of the time naturally exerted a considerable influence on the educational history of the Province. Of these denominations, in their more general aspects we will now briefly speak, leaving for a subsequent chapter the consideration in detail of the relationship of cer- tain of them to the public schools. The facts, numerical and otherwise, in regard to the religious condition of the Province in 1792, are thus set forth in an ofiicial report made in that year to Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe. " Of this (the Anglican) Church " remarks the author of the report, " I am myself a member and am sorry to say that the state of it in this Province is not very flattering. A very small proportion of the inhabitants of Upper Canada have been educated in this persuasion and the emigrants to be expected from the United States will be for the most part Sec- taries or Dissenters and nothing prevents the teachers of this class from being proportionately numerous but the inability of the people at present to provide for their support. In the East- ern District, the- most populous part of the Province, there is ' Gourlay, A Statistical Account of Upper Canada, Vol. I, pp. 116-120. Political and Social Background. t$ no Church clergyman. They have a Presbyterian minister, formerly Chaplain to the 84th Regiment, who receives from the Government £50 p. ann. They have also a Lutheran minister who is supported by his congregation and the Roman Catholic priest settled at St. Regis occasionally officiates for the Scotch Highlanders settled in the lower part of the district who are very numerous and all Catholics. There are also many Dutch colonists in this part of the Province who have made several attempts to get a teacher of their own sect, but hitherto without success." " In the Midland District where the members of the Church are more numerous than in any other part of the Province, there are two Church clergymen who are allowed iioo stg. p. ann. each by the Government and £50 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. There are also here some itinerant Methodist preachers the followers of whom are numerous and many of the inhabitants of the greatest property are Dutch colonists who have for some time past been using their endeavors to get a minister of their own sect among them. In the Home District there is one clergyman who has been settled here since the month of July last. The Scots Presbyterians who are pretty numerous here and to which sect the most respectable part of the inhabitants belong, have built a meeting- house and raised a subscription for a minister of their own who is shortly expected among them. There are here also many Methodists and Dutch Calvinists." " In the Western District there are no other clergymen than those of the Church of Rome. The Protestant inhabitants here are principally Presbyterians."^ The relative standing of the various denominations as regards numbers seems to have been practically the same some thirty years later, for in Mr. Gourlay's " Statistical Account," pub- lished in 1822, we find the following, — " In Upper Canada there are six ministers of the Church of England residing at Corn- wall, Kingston, Ernestown and Fredericksburg. They solem- nize marriages but there is no ecclesiastical court. Dissenters of all denominations are tolerated and protected by law. They are not subject to tithes or civil disabilities nor disqualified for Report of Richard Cart-wright Jun'r, 1702, on "The Marriage Law in Upper Canada In Report of Dominion Archivist for 1891, Note I, pp. 85-86. i6 Public Education in Upper Canada. office or a seat in the Legislature. Their contracts respecting the support of public worship are legally enforceable. Or- dained ministers of the Scotch, Lutheran and Calvinist churches upon producing satisfactory credentials in a Court of Sessions are authorized to perform marriages where one of the parties to be married is a member of their respective societies. Any denomination holding the distinguishing Calvinistic doctrines is included under the term Calvinist, as such, Presbyterian, Congregational and Baptist clergymen exercise the power of marriage. The dissenting denominations are Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodists, Congregationalists, Moravians, Anabap- tists, Roman Catholics, Quakers, Menonists and Tunkers. Sev- eral of them are more numerous than the Episcopalians. The most numerous of all are the Methodists who are spread over the whole Province. Next in number are the Presbyterians who are of the Dutch Reformed church, the Church of Scot- land and Scotch seceders or the Associate Reformed Synod. The Presbyterians appear to be increasing in numbers and respectability." " The Roman Catholics, who are comparatively few, are attached to the government and grateful for the religious free- dom which they enjoy and by which they are distinguished from their brethren in Ireland." " Quakers, Menonists and Tunkers, being conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms are conditionally exempt from mili- tary duties."^ Some ten years later (in 1831) the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, thus describes the " Ecclesiastical Establish- ments " of the Province in a letter to Lord Goderich, the secre- tary of state for the colonies : " There are thirty-seven mission- ary establishments (of the Church of England) under the direc- tion of the Bishop of Quebec assisted by two archdeacons. . The Roman Catholic are under the control of Bishop Macdonnell who was last year appointed Bishop of Regiopolis (i. e., Kingston). The Presbyterians in communion with the Church of Scotland have about twenty ministers crfficiating in churches established in various parts of the Province. There are also about eighteen congregations unconnected with the • op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 333-234. Political and Social Background. 17 Church of Scotland. . . . The Episcopal Methodists under the direction of the Canadian Conference have about sixty preach- ers and it is said about forty thousand communicants." "By returns received in April last, the population of the Province amounted to about 234,000 being an increase since 1829 of 38,632."! Making all allowance for inaccuracies in the foregoing due to prejudice or misinformation, it is manifest that the dissenting denominations were greatly in the majority. In spite of this fact, however, the Reverend Doctor Strachan, the leader of the Angli- can church in the Province and its representative in the Legisla- tive and Executive Councils, resolutely and persistently claimed for that body all the privileges of the Establishment in England. This of course included the sole right of the Church to the enjoy- ment of the clergy reserves (an immense tract of land set apart by the Constitutional Act of 1791 for the support of " a Protes- tant clergy") and to the control of public education in all its departments. Naturally the so-called dissenters withstood these claims as unjust to themselves and to the important work which they were doing and as inconsistent with the spirit of the new coun- try. They united in opposing the claims of the Church of England to a monopoly of the clergy reserves, but differed among themselves as to the disposal which should be made of the lands in question. The Church of Scotland, for example, and a branch of the Methodists (the British Wesleyans) fav- ored a partition of these lands among the various Protestant denominations. The Canadian Methodists, on the contrary, through their official organ, the Christian Guardian, and its able editor, the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, strenuously advocated the devotion of the reserves to the support of public schools. Mr. Ryerson's position is thus stated in an editorial which appeared in the journal just mentioned, in 1838: "In respect to the ecclesiastical affairs of this province, I still adhere to the principles and views with which I set out in 1826. I believe the endowment of the priesthood of any church in this province will be an evil to> that church, as well as impolitic in the gov- • Letter to Lord Goderich, in Canadian Archives, Series Q, Vol. 337-2, p. aSa, quoted in Report of Dont. Archivist for 1899-1900, Note C, pp. 68-72. i8 Public Education in Upper Canada. ernment. In accordance with the declaration put forth by several principal ministers in the Methodist Church in Janu- ary last, I believe that the appropriation of the proceeds of the clergy reserves to general educational purposes will be the most satisfactory disposal of them that can be made."^ Another cause for complaint and opposition was the special rights which the clergy of the Church of England enjoyed in regard to the solemnization of marriage. The " Calvinistic " clergy, as we have seen, might exercise this right under cer- tain restrictions. To the Methodist clergy as being Arminian rather than Calvinist, it was wholly denied. Not only was this felt to be a hardship by the Methodists; it was regarded as an indignity as well.'' All this will help us to appreciate the fact that religious and political questions became inextricably involved at times, since religious disabilities could be removed only through an agita- tion which was more or less political in its character. These semi-political, semi-religious controversies frequently had an educational bearing and thus served to complicate educational issues. To a discussion of this phase of the subject one or more chapters will later be devoted, hence we may now pass to a consideration of other topics. Of the general conditions of life during the period little perhaps need be said. They were such as pioneer communities invariably have to encounter. Traveling, except by water, was slow and difficult. Often settlers took up farms in "the bush" before roads were built. One of the regulations enforced by Colonel Talbot in the Talbot settlement was that each settler should make at least a quarter of a mile of public road. The Canada Land Company in the opening of " the Huron Tract " for settlement exercised still greater foresight. Roads and bridges were built and town sites planned before any settlers were introduced. Such cases as the two just mentioned were, however, decidedly exceptional. Another feature which greatly hindered proper means of communication and transportation was the existence of large blocks of unoccupied land, such as the clergy reserves, which interposed barriers of unbroken forest • Quoted in Biography of Rytrson by Nathaniel Burwash, p. 115. ' The disabilities here mentioned were removed by the so-called Imperial Marriage Act of 1832. Political and Social Background. 19 between various of the occupied portions of the Province. Of the stage-coaches of the time, Dr. Scadding in his Toronto of Old says : " We are informed by a contemporary advertise- ment now before us, that ' on the 20th of September next (1816), a stage will commence running between York and Niagara ; it will leave York every Monday and arrive at Niagara on Thursday ; and leave Queenstown every Friday. Baggage is to be considered at the risk of the owner and the fare to be paid in advance.' "^ Thus it will be seen that in 1816 it took four days to accomplish a journey which is now easily achieved by rail in as many hours. " In 1835," Dr. Scadding informs us, " Mr. William Weller was the proprietor of a line of stages between Toronto and Hamilton known as " The Tele- graph Line " and " Engaged to take passengers through by daylight (a distance of some forty miles) on the Lake Road, during the winter season."^ Of communication with the mother country in 1836, Mrs. Jameson, an authoress of the period, who resided in Toronto, has the following to say in her journal: " It is now seven weeks since the date of the last letters from my dear, far-distant home. . . . The archdeacon (Dr. Strachan) told me, by way of comfort, that when he came to settle in this country (in 1799), there was only one mail-post from England in the course of a whole year, and it was called, as if in mockery, the Express."' Newspapers were few and, it would appear, short-lived as well. Mr. Lindsey in his Life of William Lyon Mackenzie, in discussing one of Mr. Mackenzie's newspaper-ventures (The Colonial Advocate, established at York in 1824), remarks: " It was doubtful whether any newspaper which had then been pub- lished in Upper Canada had repaid the proprietor the cost of its production. Any publisher who sent a thousand sheets through ihe post-office must pay $800 a year quarterly in advance."* Of post-office conditions in 1824, Mr. Lindsey informs us : " Though some of the other settlements were well supplied with post-offices, there were none at all on the south- western frontier from Chippewa by Fort Erie to the mouth of the Grand River. The three thousand settlers in Dumfries and ' op. cit., p. 49- ^Toronto of Old, p. 49- _„,,..,. , ■ .. x- j 'Vol. I, p. 182, quoted by Dr. Scadding in the work just mentioned. *Op.'eit., Vol. I, p. 36- 20 Public Education in Upper Canada. Waterloo had to travel from sixteen to forty miles before they reached a post-office. Postmasters received nothing for dis- tributing newspapers and so were careless about their delivery. Other modes of distribution were occasionally resorted to by publishers to avoid the heavy postal-tax."^ Having thus briefly reviewed the chief features of the early political and social life of the Province, we may now proceed to a study of certain movements and institutions which, while the outcome of this wider life, were directly educational in character. We will consider first the various attempts made to provide for the support of public schools out of the public domain. ^ The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie, Vol. I, p. 64, CHAPTER II. The Land Grants for Schools. The first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada after the separation of that province from Lower Canada by the Consti- tutional Act of 1 79 1, was Lieutenant-Colonel John Graves Sim- coe, an ex-officer of the British forces in the war of the Amer- ican Revolution and an ex-member of the British Parliament. As governor he actively encouraged the settlement of United Empire Loyalists in Upper Canada and sought in various other ways to promote the growth of the infant province. Being deeply chagrined at the success of the revolted colonies, he was naturally most anxious to develop in Upper Canada a sentiment of loyalty towards the political and religious institutions of the mother country. The means which, in his mind, would best conduce to this end were the appointment of an ecclesiastical official charged with the superintendence of the missionary enterprises of the Church of England in the Province, and the establish- ment of a provincial university. This university was to be — to use his own language — "A scion of the respectable stock of Oxford and Cambridge."^ The following extracts from letters written by Governor Sim- coe during his stay in Canada (1792-1796) will illustrate what has just been said and will give some further insight into the motives which actuated his official conduct. In a letter written in 1791 to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, he says, " In a literary way I should be glad to lay the foun- dation stone of some society that I trust might hereafter con- duce to the extension of science. Schools have been shamefully neglected — a college of a higher class would be eminently useful, and would give a tone of principle and manners that would be of infinite support to government."^ He returns to the same theme in a letter written in the following year to the Right Honorable Henry Dundas, Secretary of State. " But the ques- tion of higher education is of still more importance; (i. e. than • From a letter to the first Church of England Bishop of Quebec, quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 13- 'Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. II. 22 Public Education in Upper Canada. certain other matters to which he had just referred) lower edu- cation, being less expensive, may in the meantime, be provided by relations, and more remotely by school lands. The higher must be indebted to the liberality of the British Government, as, owing to the cheapness of education in the United States, the gentlemen of Upper Canada will send their children there, which would tend to pervert their British principles."^ The enthusiasm of Governor Simcoe for higher education did not meet, however, with a very sympathetic response from the officials of the Home Government. Secretary Dundas, in a reply to the letter from which we have just quoted, says, "As to schools and a university, I think that the schools will be sufficient for some time."^ Much more outspoken still in his lack of sympathy is the Duke of Portland, Secretary of State, who remarks in a letter dated June 22, 1796: "As the want of schoolmasters is particularly noticed in your letter to the bishop, I should be far from unwilling to recommend that some provision should be made here for their maintenance; but in doing this I must observe that my ideas of schoolmasters best suited to the present state of Upper Canada are such as are thoroughly competent to teach reading, writing, accounts and mensuration."' The apathy of the Home Government did not, however, pre- vent Governor Simcoe from making an earnest effort to secure an appropriation from the public domain for the needs of a university when that institution should be established. Witness the following paragraph from a letter written to the Duke of Portland a few days after the receipt of the communication from which we have just quoted. " In the meantime the sevenths of the Crown will become gradually productive as lands which have been granted shall be cultivated, or withdrawn from the market, and appropriations may be made agreeably to the opinion of the Council, to be sold hereafter for public purposes, the first and chief of which I beg to offer with all respect and deference, to your grace, must be the erection and endowment of a university from which more than any other source or circumstance whatever, a grateful attachment to His Majesty, Woe. Hist.,Vo\. I, p. II. 'Ibid. ^Ibid, p. 14. Land Grants for Schools. 23 morality and religion will be fostered and take root throughout the whole Province." The Reverend Doctor Ryerson, in his History of the United Empire Loyalists, refers to Governor Simcoe as " the father of constitutional, pure and progressive government in Upper Canada."^ However true this statement may be as applied to other phases of his activity, the term " progressive " can apply only with serious limitations to his educational policy. His ideal in this regard was a reproduction, in their essential characteristics, of the English public schools and universities. Elementary education was to him, as to most Englishmen of his day, a matter for charity or private enterprise. He failed to apprehend the fact that among the settlers of this new coun- try there existed a popular attitude which would in the next quarter century become increasingly hostile to aristocratic ideals in education and to sectarian domination in the public schools. Statesmanlike he was, however, in his emphasis on the desir- ability of early setting apart a portion of the public land for educational purposes, though he failed to foresee that public endowment would eventually lead to public control and to a democratic and a non-denominational, if not a purely secular, system of schools. Governor Simcoe was recalled in 1796 but his appeals had evidently produced some effect since in the following year (1797) the acting-governor — the Honorable Peter Russell — received from the Duke of Portland a communication announcing on behalf of the King " His (Majesty's) most gracious intention to comply with the legislature of his Province of Upper Canada in such manner as shall be judged most effectual, first, by the establishment of free grammar schools in those districts in which they are called for, and in the process of time by establishing other seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature for the promotion of religious and moral learning, and the study of the arts and sciences. With this view the President is directed to consult the members of His Majesty's Executive Council, and the Judges and Law Officers of the Crown in Upper Canada, and to report to the Secretary of State in which manner, and to what extent, a portion of the Crown Lands ^ History of the U. E. Loyalists, p. 313. 24 Public Education in Upper Canada. may be appropriated and rendered productive towards the forma- tion of a fund for the above purpose."^ The committee was appointed as directed and its report submitted in the following year. This report is too lengthy to be given in detail, but five of its recommendations are of sufficient importance to be quoted here: (i) That an appropriation of 500,000 acres . . will form a suffi- cient fund for the establishment and maintenance of the royal foundation of four grammar schools and an university in the Province of Upper Canada. (2) That the present circumstances of the Province call for the erection of two of these schools, one at the town of Kingston and the other at the town of Newark (Niagara). (3) That for the purpose of building a plain but solid and substantial house, containing a school room sufficient to contain one hundred boys, and apartments for the master large enough for the accommodation of a moderate family and the reception of from ten to twelve boys as boarders, the sum of ^3000 provincial currency for each will be a sufficient allowance. (4) That for the purpose of raising that sum a portion of the appro- priated tract be sold in the manner directed by His Grace the Duke of Portland with respect to the other waste lands of the Crown. (5) That for the purpose of defraying the salaries of a master and undermaster, in case an undermaster should be thought necessary, and also for the purpose of keeping the buildings in repair and making such additions thereto as circumstances shall require, the annual sum of £180 provisional currency for each school is a sufficient allowance.^ In spite of the fact, which is abundantly proven in the fore- going quotations, that in the correspondence and deliberations concerning the Royal Grant of 1797, grammar schools were regarded as having the prior claim, the university or, as it was called, King's College, was made, throughout the whole period with which we have to deal, the chief, and in fact almost the sole beneficiary. This circumstance can, to a great extent, be attributed to the influence of one man — the Reverend John Strachan. This gentleman came to Upper Canada from Scotland in 1799 with the expectation of becoming the head of the projected university. Since there was no immediate prospect of the university being established, he accepted a position as tutor in the family of the Honorable Richard Cartwright of Kingston. Subsequently he » Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 18. ilbid Vol. I, p. 33. Land Grants for Schools. 25 became clergyman of the Church of England, master of the grammar school at Cornwall and master of the Home District grammar school at York. He came to occupy at a later period many important offices. In the Church, he was made archdeacon of York and eventually bishop of Toronto. In the field of education, he was head of the General Board of Education during the ten years of its existence (1823-1833) and President of King's College from its inception till 1849. ^^ that year he resigned the presidency because of the secularization of the college through a radical change in the nature of its charter, and devoted his energies to the building up of a rival institu- tion under the auspices of the Church of England and known as Trinity College. As a member of the Legislative Council for many years and also of the Executive Council of the Lieu- tenant-Governor, he exerted great political influence. He was naturally from the first a zealous champion of the cause of the university and had much to do with the keeping of the needs of higher education prominently before the Legislature and the people. His official position, united with a strong person- ality, a broad scholarship and a high personal character made him a commanding figure in the educational life of the province for nearly half a century. It will be in order now to review briefly the various appro- priations of land for educational purposes made during the fifty years subsequent to 1797. The undesirability of an immediate sale of the half million or more of acres at the disposal of the Provincial Government for school purposes is illustrated by the fact, that 81,000 acres of land, sold in 1800 to defray the expense of building a public road, realized only £411, i6s. and the further fact that when the executive desired to secure a house and four acres of land at Niagara to be used for grammar school purposes, the owner of the property asked in exchange 73,000 acres of public land. The chief reason for the failure of the negotiations seems to have been not any belief on the part of the prospective pur- chasers that the owner's terms were exorbitant but the dis- covery that the house in question was within easy range of the guns of the American fort across the river. 26 Public Education in Upper Canada. Apart from the foregoing, no formal action looking to the disposal of any portion of the land grant for schools seems to have been taken before 1819. In that year, the Executive Council urged the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, to secure " a formal sanction under the Royal Sign Manual or the signature of His Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, to sell, lease, grant and dispose of the said 500,000 acres of land, for the purpose of establishing a university in this province." A sufficient reason for excluding the grammar schools from participation in this grant existed, in their opinion, in the fact " that provision for district schools is not now required out of this fund, being (already) made by the Legis- lature (by the Act of 1807)."^ This recommendation was never carried out, though, some ten years later, an endowment almost equal in value to that sug- gested by the Executive Council was assigned to the university. "According to the Deed of Endowment of the 3rd of January 1828, the quantity of land conveyed to the university from the Crown Reserves was 225,944 acres. . . . The Crown Reserves thus converted into University Endowment consisted of lands situate in various parts of Upper Canada in actual or nominal occupation, under lease, at rate of rental fixed by a certain scale established by the Provincial Government, and a large proportion of the lots were in an improved or cultivated state.",^ This involved a resumption on the part of the Crown of an equal amount of land from the original grant. The reason for this exchange is given in some detail by Dr. Strachan in his address at the opening of King's College in 1842. " From the first settlement of the Province, two-sevenths of the land in the settled Townships had been reserved — one for the main- tenance of the Protestant Clergy, called Clergy Reserves — ^the other still remained for special purposes at the disposal of the Government, and were called Crown Reserves. These latter being still in the Crown, had become in many places very valuable, from the settlements around them, and if brought into the market would command reasonable prices much more than the lands which had been originally appropriated for the district • Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 151- 2 From Report of Comtnissioners appointed by Lord Elgin, Governor-General, in 1848 to enquire into the aifairs of King's College, pp. 16 and 17, quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 20s. Land Grants for Schools. 27 (grammar) schools and university, which had been carelessly selected and continued, from their remoteness, almost unsale- able. Now, to secure a complete endowment for a university it was submitted by Sir Peregrine Maitland to His Majesty's Government to exchange a portion of the school lands for a like quantity of the Crown Reserves. For the mere purpose of granting lots to settlers, the school lands were as useful to the Government as the Crown Reserves ; but such an exchange, if it could be effected, would place at His Excellency's disposal an endowment which might be made almost immediately avail- able."i Under the much more favorable conditions thus brought about the financial standing of the university steadily improved, so that in January, 1839, it was estimated that up to that date there had been sold 93,737% acres at an aggregate price of £55,224, 14s., 7d. In addition to the revenue derived from the invest- ment of this sum, the income from leased lands must be taken into consideration. In February, 1842, this was stated as being £1862 per annum, with arrears of rent amounting to £15,515, 5s., 9d., of which £10,000 might be recovered in six years.^ Thus, when, in 1842, the university began its work as a teach- ing body, it had available sources of income which, for that time, were quite considerable. Closely connected with the grants and expenditures for uni- versity purposes was the attempted endowment in 1820, from university funds, of a " National " system of schools patterned after the system of the same name in England, and the assign- ment of 66,000 acres of the school lands to Upper Canada College, " the superior grammar school " founded in 1829 by Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Colborne. Since both of these institutions will be treated at some length in subsequent chap- ters, no further reference to them is here necessary. In marked contrast with the attitude of the Executive Council of 1819, a select committee of the House of Assembly on Edu- cation advocated, in 1831, the use of the land grant chiefly, if not solely, for grammar and common school purposes. After reviewing briefly the educational proceedings of 1797, 1798 and ' pp. 36-38 of address. Quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 204. 2 From a statement of the finances of King's College appended to the Journals of the House of Assembly for 1839. Quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. Ill, p. 182. 28 Public Education in Upper Canada. 1819, the committee express the opinion that the " original intention of the Legislature of 1797 has been lost sight of and for no other reason that your committee can discover than that a grammar school has by Act of the Legislature (in 1807) been already established in each district with a salary of iioo to the master."^ The recommendations of the committee with the data there- for are summed up in the following paragraph : The whole reservation of 549,217 acres if sold at the average price of ten shillings ($2) per acre would give a capital of £274,608, producing, if invested at the rate of 5 per cent, interest, an annual income of £13,730 a sum sufficient to endow the schools (as detailed in the following table) which your Committee conceive to be necessary besides leaving an impor- tant balance to defray the expense of the sales and the collecting of the money. II (Free) grammar schools at £400 each is £4,400 I College at York 2,000 132 Township (Common) Schools being 12 in each District at £50 6,600 Balance to defray the expense of sales, etc 730 £13,700 : 154,920* The allusion to a " College at York " instead of a formal mention of King's College, for which a royal charter had been obtained four years previously, is significant as reflecting the hostile attitude of the House towards that institution on account of the sectarian character of the charter in question. In fact the House had, in 1829, gone so far as to pass a bill enlarging Upper Canada College into an undenominational university, hoping thereby to make the establishment of King's (College unnecessary. Of course the real purport of the bill was easily detected by the Legislative Cbuncil who, accordingly, promptly rejected it. There is little doubt that the House in its attacks on the management of the school lands and in its estimate of the immediate value of those lands, did not fully appreciate the practical difficulties of the situation. This fact is clearly shown in a report made in this same year to the Lieutenant- (]Iovernor by the Executive Council on the question of the » Doc. Hist., Vol. n, p. 22. ^ Ibid, pp. 22-23. Land Grants for Schools. 29 endowment of the grammar schools with land. After making certain recommendations pointing to the gradual realization of a money endowment for the purpose mentioned, the report goes on to state: Before closing this report, the Executive Council think it proper to advert to the assertion frequently brought forward, that the School Reser- vation might have been made long ago far more productive and yielding by this time a large disposal fund. That so long as millions of acres were in course of grant (which was the case till 1828) by the Crown in fee simple, for almost nothing, and more than half the population were entitled, from various causes, to gratuitous grants, no lands could have been sold for any price near their value. Any objection, therefore, on this head is evidently founded in error; and calculations founded upon the receipt of large sums of money from sales which could never have been effected, can only be brought forward by those who have not fully understood the subject.' Though all the parties concerned had by this time come to realize the justice of the claims of the grammar schools to a participation in the school lands, nothing in the way of positive legislation was accomplished till 1839 when by an Act of that year, 250,000 acres were definitely set apart for grammar school purposes. That this source of revenue was promptly utilized is proven by the fact that by the beginning of 1841 the amount invested in Provincial debentures on behalf of the grammar schools by the Council of King's College (the custodian of the fund) was nearly fifteen thousand pounds." When we turn to the common schools, we find that their claim to a share in the public domain was even more tardily acknowledged. As early as 1816 the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council united in an address to the Lieutenant- Governor asking for an appropriation of a part of the waste lands of the Crown for common school purposes. Though the Lieutenant-Governor in response assured the two houses of his sympathy with the movement, no further action seems to have been taken at that time. In December, 1831, there was presented to the House of Assembly a petition from certain inhabitants of the county of Oxford "praying that the House win address His Majesty praying him to authorize the Parlia- > Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 46. , . , . ' Prom Financial statement of the Bursar of King's College submitted at a meetmg of the College Council, June 30th, 1841. In Doc. Hist., Vol. IV, p. 6a. 30 Public Education in Upper Canada. ment of this Province to appropriate — acres of the waste lands of the Crown to constitute a fund for the support of common schools."' The committee to whom this address was referred recom- mended a grant, for the purpose mentioned, of one million acres. In addition they submitted a carefully wrought scheme whereby, in their opinion, a common school fund might be immediately created. This scheme involved, among other things, the use of the Provincial credit in the floating of a loan, this loan to be gradually repaid as the school lands came into the market. Nothing definite, however, came of this report, so a similar com- mittee in the following year made a like recommendation. The reasons for their action are expressed with considerable force and concreteness. " Your committee," they declare, " feel it to be their duty, most earnestly and anxiously to draw the attention of your Honourable House to the astounding fact, that less is granted by the Provincial Legislature for educating the youth of three hundred thousand people than is required to defray the contingent expenses of one session of Parliament." " How, indeed," they ask, " can useful improvements be pro- moted — ^the resources of the Province developed — its wealth increased — or its character elevated, if we continue to keep back the blessings of knowledge, and neglect to foster sound learning and scientific attainment?"^ The slowness of the Province in this regard is illustrated both in this report and the one of the preceding year by references to the endowment of common schools in various states of the Union — in New York State in particular. The Select Committee of the House on Education in 1833 repeated the recommendations of its two immediate predecessors besides urging a material increase of the annual grant from the Provincial treasury for common school purposes. In the Speech from the Throne at the opening of the Parliamentary Session of 1835, the Lieutenant-Governor recommended " that township schools should be immediately organized and some practical mode decided on for applying the funds which should accrue from the sale of school lands not alienated by His Majesty's Government, and which had been placed under the ' Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 49. ' Text of Committee's Report in Doc. Hist., Vol. 11, pp. 106-1 jo. Land Grants for Schools. 31 control of the Legislature, at the request of the House of Assembly, by the King."^ This recommendation was, however, as barren of practical result as were those of the three com- mittees of which mention has just been made. In the legislative session of 1839, a bill " to appropriate one million of acres of waste lands for the support of common schools in Upper Canada " was agreed upon by a joint committee of the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council and passed by the former body. Although not formally rejected by the Council, it was dropped in committee and so failed to become law. It is very greatly to be regretted that through this action (or rather inaction) of the Legislative Council, a measure of so vital moment to the future welfare of the Province should have thus barely failed of success. Definite legislative action in the matter was thereby delayed for ten years. Moreover the land endowment eventually granted to the common schools of the Province was in consequence only one-half of what it might otherwise have been, since the grant of 1849 was made by the legislature of the united provinces and the million acres, at that time appropriated, divided equally between Upper and Lower Canada. In thus reviewing the history of the land grant of 1797 and of the whole movement in Upper Canada for the endowment of public education from the public domain, one is strongly impressed with the influence exerted by the policy which was formulated by Governor Simcoe at the inception of the movement. The university, as has been shown, was given the first place, the grammar schools came second and the common schools last. That this attitude was opposed by a strong party in the House of Assembly and by a majority of the settlers of the province is doubtless true but popular sentiment could avail little against aristocratic prejudice entrenched behind an executive predisposed towards the conceptions of education then prevalent in the mother country, and inclined to look upon the movement for popular and non-denominational schools as an innovation tinged with disloyalty. That this ultra-conservative attitude presented elements of incongruity even to visiting Englishmen, is illustrated by the ^Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 161. 32 Public Education in Upper Canada. following extracts from Three Years' Residence m Canada by Mr. T. R. Preston, an English gentleman who spent the years 1837, 1838, and 1839 in the colony, and who, on his return to England, published the results of his observations. After review- ing in some detail educational proceedings from 1797 onward he says of the principle of a land endowment for public schools : " The method of its development (in Upper Canada) was replete with fallacy and injustice; attempting as it did to invert the legitimate order of a common inheritance. Though unques- tionably an object most desirable per se, the establishment if it were possible of an institution in Upper Canada, conferring only on the few the higher grades of literary and scientific learn- ing would be a strange burlesque, so long as elementary instruc- tion remained in arrear of the general want."^ It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the bitter political struggles of the day introduced serious complications. They led to animosities of a personal character between members of the two branches of the Legislature and between members and factions of the House of Assembly itself. All this inevitably worked hardship to the cause of educational reform. When eventually, by the Act of Union of 1841 and by the proceedings which accompanied it, the principle of " responsible govern- ment " was established and the two legislative bodies brought more into harmony with each other, reforms which had been urged in vain for over thirty years were speedily brought to pass, and in less than ten years' time an orderly and compre- hensive system of common schools was created out of the chaos which had theretofore existed. ^ Three Years' Residence in Canada, Vol. II, p. 109. CHAPTER III. The District Grammar School — Legislative and Adminis- trative Aspects. Although in the proceedings, legislative and otherwise, which attended the Royal Land Grant of 1797, definite reference was made to use of this grant for the founding and maintenance of public grammar schools, little was really done in this connec- tion for over forty years. During the meantime, such grammar schools as were established, were, with one exception, sup- ported wholly out of the Provincial treasury. The reasons for this delay and the political dissensions which arose because of it have already been referred to. A brief review of the Educational Proceedings in the Prov- incial Legislature prior to 1807 may throw some light upon edu- cational conditions during the period, and will serve incidentally to illustrate the inertia which all important reforms invariably have to overcome. In 1804, a petition^ was presented to the Lieutenant-Governor and Legislature from the County of Glengarry, mentioning that the Highlanders who formed practically the total population of the county were extremely backward in promoting education, for two chief reasons : First, that they used the Gaelic language in ordinary intercourse and in their religious services and hence thought an English education unnecessary and, second, that in the mother country they were used to charity schools and were consequently unwilling to go to any personal expense in the matter of educating their children. The petition stated further that, because of these facts, the schools existing in the county were " fluctuating and of little value " and asked on political and moral grounds for the erection of schools on Provincial authority and at Provincial expense. On the same day that this petition was read in the House of Assembly", a bill was introduced asking for the establishment of district schools out of any funds remaining unappropriated in the Provincial treasury. This bill was lost by the deciding 1 Copy of Petition in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 47. 48. 3 34 Public Education in Upper Canada. vote of the speaker. Later in the session, the member who had been responsible for the measure obtained leave from the House to bring in a bill for the establishment of a school fund. Three days later he was allowed to substitute an address on' the subject in place of his projected bill. Almost immediately thereafter he left for his home, so that even the address failed to find its way before the House. In 1805, the member in question — a Mr. Ebenezer Washburn — re-introduced his bill for establishing district schools. The House, however, proceeded no further in the matter than the holding of two meetings to consider the measure in committee of the whole. A bill for the purchase of " Philosophical Ap- paratus " met a somewhat similar fate, being dropped at the end of its second reading. It would appear from the records of their deliberations, that the Legislative Council during these two years was even less interested in educational legislation than was the House, nothing of the kind having been attempted by them. The legislative session of 1806 witnessed a decided step in advance in the matter of education. At an early period in the session, the House in Committee of the Whole passed a reso- lution to the eifect that " Seminaries for the education of the youth are highly necessary in this Province."^ The bill for the purchase of " Philosophical Apparatus " being re-introduced, passed both branches of the Legislature and was assented to by the Lieutenant-Governor. This bill, as enacted, set apart £400 for the purpose mentioned and provided that " the said instru- ments " should be deposited " in the hands of some person employed in the education of youth in this Province, in order that they may be as useful as the state of the Province will permit."^ Some idea of this apparatus and the work which it accomplished is given in the following quotation from a local historian who, writing many years later, said, " From the debris of which collection preserved in one of the rooms of the Home District School building, we ourselves, like others, probably, of our contemporaries, obtained our very earliest inkling of the existence and significance of scientific apparatus."" 1 Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 52- 2 46th George III, Chap. Ill, "An act to procure certain apparatus, etc.," Voc. Hist., Vol. I, p. s6. 3 Dr. Scadding in ' 'Toronto of Old," quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 55. Grammar School — Legislative and Adminisirative Aspects. 35 As to grammar school legislation, nothing was achieved in this year. A bill entitled "An act for the more general dis- semination of learning throughout this Province " while it passed the House, failed to secure the endorsement of the Council. A similar bill, however, became law in the following year, under the title "An act to establish public schools in each and every district of this Province." Because of the importance of this measure it will be necessary to give it a somewhat detailed consideration. By the Act of 1807^ the Province was divided for school purposes into eight districts, as against four as recommended by the special committee which dealt with the matter in 1798 and whose report is referred to in a preceding chapter. These eight districts were as follows : The Western District with a school at Sandwich, the London District with a school to be situated in the Township of Townshend, the Niagara District with a school at Niagara, the Home District with a school at York (now Toronto), the Midland District with a school at Kingston, the Johnstown District with a school in the township of Augusta and the Eastern District with a school at Cornwall. The reader who is acquainted with the geography of Ontario will see that these districts extended along the southern border of the Province from the Detroit river on the west almost to the Ottawa river on the east. Thus each district embraced an area which is now occupied by several counties. The salary of the master of each school was fixed by the Act at iioo yearly payable out of the Provincial treasury upon an order of the Lieutenant-Governor upon the Receiver-General. To the Lieutenant-Governor was assigned also the duty of appointing not less than five trustees for each district and of ratifying or rejecting the teachers which these trustees might select for their respective districts. The trustees as represent- ing, in a sense, the local community, were vested with the right of examining and appointing teachers, subject, as mentioned above, to the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. They were also given the power of removing at their discretion any teacher " for any misdemeanor or impropriety of conduct," and of nomi- nating a successor. In addition, they were authorized to make ^ 47 George III, Chap. VI, "An act to establish Public Schools in each and every Dis- trict of this Province." Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 70. 36 Public Education in Upper Canada. '■ such rules and regulations for the good government and management of the said public schools with respect to the teacher, for the time being, and to the scholars, as in their discretion shall seem meet." Although it is not expressly stated in the Act, it is to be presumed that the trustees were held responsible for the pro- vision of the necessary school buildings and equipment. In fact these already existed in the case of three of the schools — ^those at Cornwall, Kingston and York. In one case at least — ^that of the District of London — there is a record of a popular sub- scription being taken up for the building of a school house.^ The schools in question were not free in the present sense of the term as applied to education. Tuition fees were charged which went to swell the salary of the master, who was also, in some cases at least, allowed to further supplement his income by taking scholars as boarders. The Act was to be in force for four years from the date of its passing but in the following year this restriction was removed and it became a permanent piece of legislation. It would appear that there was little delay in giving effect to the provisions of the Act, since the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Gore, in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament in 1808, was able to make the following announce- ment : " Since the last session of this Legislature, the necessary means have been taken on my part, and on that of the trustees appointed by me, for the establishing of public schools, institu- tions which I trust, will be the means not only of communi- cating useful knowledge to the youth of this Province, but also of instilling into their minds principles of religion and loyalty."" The House of Assembly expressed itself in its reply as follows: " We highly applaud the prompt and efficacious measures adopted by Your Excellency and we pleasingly anticipate from these institutions the most substantial benefits to the rising gen- eration in this Province."' The satisfied state of mind reflected in these words was not, however, to continue very long. During this very session, three members of the House left their seats and departed for their ' Vide Petition to the House of Assembly from certain inhabitants of the London District in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 71. 2 Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 62. 3 Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 62. Grammar School — Legislative and Administrative Aspects. 37 homes in order (ineffectually, as it turned out) to prevent the assembling of a quorum and the consequent passing of the bill which removed the four years' restriction from the act of the preceding year. Local disapproval of a policy which concen- trated the government patronage upon a single school in a dis- trict was shown by the presentation to both branches of the Legislature, of a numerously signed petition from the London District asking that the legislative grant to that district be divided among four schools instead of being used for the sup- port of a single one. The spirit which prompted this petition re-asserted itself in two petitions presented at the legislative session of 1812, one from the Newcastle and one from the Midland District. The two were similar in tone but the latter was the more explicit in its statement of grievances. By reason of the place of instruction being established at one end of the District and the sum demanded for tuition, in addition to the annual contribution received from the public, most of the people are unable to avail themselves of the advantages contemplated by the institution. A few wealthy inhabitants and those of the town of Kingston reap exclusively the benefit of it in this District. The institution, instead of aiding the middling and poorer classes of His Majesty's subjects, casts money into the lap of the rich, who are sufficiently able, without public assistance, to support a school in every respect equal to the one established by law. Your Petitioners . . cannot be persuaded that you will continue in force an Act proved by a fair experiment to be so partial in its opera- tion, and so little calculated to effect the contemplated objects. Thus spoke the voice of Democracy. The aristocratic attitude in regard to public education found expression in a counter- petition from the Eastern District addressed to the Lieutenant- Governor in person : " We have seen provision made for giving the youth of this Province such a liberal education, as may not only qualify them for the learned professions, but also estab- lish firmly in their minds the purest morals and religious prin- ciples, which shall enable them to give the most salutary direction to the general manners of the Province, and revive that ardent patriotism, for which their fathers have been so honorably dis- tinguished."^ Although by the Common Schools Act of 1816, a rather liberal provision was made for the endowment of elementary education, ' Copies of the three petitions referred to are given in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 76, 77. 38 Public Education in Upper Canada. the attention of the popular branch of the Legislature was not to be diverted thereby from the question of grammar school reform. During the session of 1817, a bill " to repeal part of and to amend the laws now in force for establishing district schools, etc.," passed the House of Assembly. It was amended by the Legislative Council and returned for the further consideration of the House. The sudden proroguing of Parliament by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Gore, prevented any definite action of the House on the amended bill. In the following year (1818) a grammar school amendment bill was again introduced in the House. It was subsequently dropped to make room for a grammar school repeal bill. This latter bill went no further than a first reading and so the amendment bill was brought forward once more and passed, under the title "An act to repeal part of and amend the laws now in force for establishing district grammar schools in the districts of this Province and further to amend the provisions of the same." This bill was amended by the Council, accepted in its amended form by the House and to become law lacked only the assent of the interim Lieutenant-Governor, the Hon- orable Samuel Smith. This gentleman, however, possibly be- cause of the temporary character of his office, withheld that assent until he had obtained "the signification of His Majesty's pleasure in Council thereon."^ This action prevented the enact- ment of the bill into law since no effort was apparently made to consult the Royal Will in the matter, possibly because of the «, appointment a few months thereafter of a new Lieutenant- Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland. On account of the impoverished state of the Provincial treas- ury, the new Executive found it necessary to call an extra session of the Legislature. At this session, although matters of finance were naturally uppermost, sufficient attention was paid to edu- cation to result in the passing by the House of a Grammar School Amendment bill identical in title with that of the previous session. A conference between committees of the two houses, in regard to possible amendments, was in progress when the Lieutenant-Governor, having secured the necessary grants, dis- solved Parliament. ' Minutes of House for ist April, 1818, in Doc. Hist,, Vol. I, p. 118. Grammar School — Legislative and Administrative Aspects. 39 The exact nature of these various bills and amendments can- not be determined. Some inkling of their character, may, however, be obtained from a study of the Grammar School Amendment Act of 1819. The Act in question is significant not so much for any important reforms which it inaugurated as for the important tendencies which it illustrates. We will proceed to a brief analysis of this measure. The germ of local supervision of the instruction of the school is found in a clause which directs that the trustees in each district shall cause " a public examination of their respective schools to be held previous to the annual vacation,^ at which they or a majority of them shall assist." The strengthening of Parliamentary control of the school system is indicated by the provision that annual reports shall be made from each district to the Lieutenant-Governor and that these reports are to be by him laid before the Legislature " at its first meeting, for their inspection."^ The enlargement of the scope of the grammar schools is secured by a clause which provides that in every district there shall be educated at the grammar school gratis ten children to be selected by lot from a larger number to be nominated by the trustees of the various common schools in the same district. In order to guard against an insufficient return from the government grant of one hundred pounds to each school it is provided that in future grammar school masters in districts where the average attendance does not exceed ten are to receive only fifty pounds per annum.' During the twenty years between 1819 and 1839, there was very little legislation directly affecting the grammar schools. One new school — that of the Gore District — had been added to the original eight by the Act of 1819. Two more — in the Ottawa District and the Bathurst District — were created in 1823. In addition to these, Upper Canada College, a (so-called) superior grammar school, was founded by the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, Sir John Colborne, in 1829. The interest of the Legis- lature in private schools is illustrated by a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds made in 1837, to the Grantham Academy at >S9th George III, Chap. IV, "An Act to repeal part of, and to amend, the law now in force for establishing Public (Grammar) Schools in the Several Districts of this Province and to extend the provisions of the same." Sec. 4, Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 148-49. »7i»rf.. Sec. s- »/*«., Sees. 6, 7. 40 Public Education in Upper Canada. St. Catherines to enable it to liquidate a pressing debt. This act is significant as being the earliest step in a policy which the government of the Province has pursued down to the present day — that of granting financial aid to private institutions which for any reason are deemed to merit such assistance. Certain changes, were, however, made in the administration of the grammar schools. In 1823, on authority from Earl Bath- urst, the Colonial Secretary, a General Board of Education was appointed by the Executive with powers of supervision over both the grammar and the common schools.^ Although the existence and functions of this board were recognized by the Common School Act of 1824 it was made, during the ten years of its existence, the object of more than one attack in the House of Assembly. The reasons for these attacks as well as the deter- mination of the House to assert its right to a share in the administration of the schools are illustrated by the following quotations from a report, made in 1832, of a Select Committee of that body on Education. We trust that Your Excellency regarding the importance of Economy, will not continue the appropriation of three hundred pounds (^300) a year to a President of a General Board of Education — a Board which can be of no use if the District Boards of Education are constituted of persons active, zealous and conscientious in the discharge of the duties appertaining to their appointment. By the present law the District (Grammar) School Reports ought to be made directly to Your Excellency by whom they are laid before the Legislature. No systems are improved by being made more complicated; and the objection acquires greater force from the consequent increase in the num- ber of officers drawing upon the revenue devoted to Education and from the diminished importance of the Local Boards of Education, whose activity and usefulness will vary with the respect following their inde- pendence and direct responsibility to your Excellency.^ Another and perhaps a stronger reason for the opposition to which we have referred was the fact that the General Board of Education had stood for the supremacy of the Established Church in the field of public education, even going to the extent of using school land for the endowment of Church of England National Schools throughout the Province. This persistent hos- 1 Vidj copy of letter from Earl Bathnrst, Colonial Secretary, axitborizing the appoint- ment of a General Board of Education, Doc. Hist,, Vol. I, p. i8o. 2 From Report of Sr:lect Com. on Ed. as formulated in an address to Lieutenant Gover- nor Sir John Colbome. — Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 272-273. Grammar School — Legislative and Administrative Aspects. 41 tility on the part of the House of Assembly had its effect, for in a Confidential Despatch, dated July 1832, Lord Goderich, the Colonial Secretary, directs the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, " to take the necessary legal measures for dissolving the Board and of re-investing in the Crown the estate of which they have had charge. ""^ These instructions were carried out and the Board formally dissolved in the following year (1833). No real change, however, was wrought by this act of the Execu- tive. The functions formerly performed by the Board were transferred to the Council of King's College. The membership of the two bodies was almost identical and the Archdeacon of York, the Reverend Doctor Strachan, was president of the Coun- cil as he had been of the Board before its dissolution. This transfer of authority received, so far as the grammar schools were concerned, legislative sanction in the Grammar School Act of 1839. Under this Act, as has been already men- tioned, the grammar schools were endowed with two hundred and fifty thousand acres of waste land. The revenue accruing from this land was to be distributed by the Council of King's College in the following manner: One hundred pounds was to be paid annually, as thitherto, to the trustees of the various districts, and, at the discretion of the Council, there might be granted a further amount to be used in providing " an additional master and other means of instruction."^ The Act provided further that district trustees might also receive from the General School Fund two hundred pounds to " aid in the erection of a suitable building for a school house in each district: Provided an equal sum shall be raised by subscription among the inhabitants for a like object and pro- vided they shall ensure the permanent insurance of such building."^ In the clause just quoted we have the first specific declaration of a principle so characteristic of the later educational policy of the Province — that of the co-operation of the Government with the local community not only in the payment of teachers and the supervision of the schools but also in the erection and equipment of school buildings. The adoption of this principle 'Copy of Despatch in Dor. ffirf., Vo!. II, pp. 85-87. ,„, . . ,. '2nd Victoria, Chao. X. "An Act to Provide for the Advancement of Education m this Province," Sec. 5. — Doc. Hist., Vol. Ill, p. 170. ^Ihid., Sec. 7. 42 Public Education in Upper Canada. paved the way for the estabUshment at a later date of certain minimum requirements as to school buildings, grounds and equipment which must be complied with before the Government grant can become available. Opportunity for grammar school expansion was given by the Act in a clause which states : " It shall and may be lawful for the Lieutenant-Governor to authorize a sum not exceeding One Hundred Pounds (£ioo) per annum for each school, to be paid to any Board of Trustees, for the use and support of two other schools than the one in the Town where the Court House is situated, in any Town or Village in which the inhabitants shall provide a suitable school house, at which not less than sixty (60) scholars shall be educated: Provided any such additional school shall not be within six miles of the District Town ; and provided always, that nothing herein con- tained shall prevent the Council of King's College from extend- ing aid to four Grammar Schools (including the said two) other than the one established in the District Town should the said Council deem it expedient."^ An incidental provision which is worthy of notice was the formal adoption of the term " Gram- mar " as applied to these schools to the exclusion of the names " District " and " Public " which had theretofore been used. Although the first parliament which met after the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 provided for a reorganization of the common school system, it did little for the grammar schools beyond continuing the conditions which already existed. Certain minor changes, were, however, effected. While the man- agement of the grammar school lands was left with the Council of King's College, the disbursement of the revenue from these lands and the general control of the schools themselves was transferred to the Executive. This latter change was doubtless due to a widespread dissatisfaction in the various districts with the character of the rules and regulations which had been drawn up by the Council for the government of the grammar schools. Such important reforms as the consolidation of the grammar and elementary schools into one system under the expert super- vision of a Superintendent of Public Instruction, the enlarge- ment of the powers of the Municipal Councils and of the local » 2nd Victoria, Chap. X, "An Act to Provide, etc.," Sec. 8. Grammar School — Legislative and Administrative Aspects. 43 trustees, the framing of a course of study more in keeping with modern conditions of Hfe and the fixing of the qualifications of grammar school masters, remained for the Act of 1853 to accomplish. Any detailed discussion of that act^ would mani- festly be outside the province of this present study as would be also any attempt to trace the legislation which, from that date to the present time, has enlarged upon the principles which were there laid down. ^For such a discussion, vide Ross, School System of Ontario, pp. 113-115. CHAPTER IV. The District Grammar School — Its Peculiar Features. We may now proceed to a brief description of the actual working of the district grammar schools since such is neces- sary to any definite conclusion as to the place which they filled in the social and educational life of the period. In England, as is well known, much of the fame and not a little of the efficiency of certain of the great public schools has arisen from the inseparable association with them of the names of a few great masters, such as Arnold and Temple of Rugby, Thring of Uppingham, Hawtrey of Eton and Bradley of Marl- borough. In the history of the district grammar schools only one name stands pre-eminently forth, that of the Reverend John Strachan, master in turn of the schools at Cornwall and York. A graduate of King's College, Aberdeen, and a schoolmaster of some experience in Scotland he came to Upper Canada, as has already been said, to take charge of the university planned by Governor Simcoe. The recall and departure of that official before Mr. Strachan had reached the Province left the latter upon his arrival without any visible means of support. Accord- ing to his own story he would have returned to Scotland forth- with if he only had had the money for his passage. To provide himself a livelihood, he became, for the time being, a tutor in the family of the Honorable Richard Cartwright of Kingston. His success in that work paved the way for the opening of a school at Cornwall which subsequently (in 1806) became the grammar school of the Eastern District. Thither in a few years resorted the youth of many of the prominent families of the Province and from this school went out young men who were to occupy leading positions in the church, at the bar, in politics and in commercial life. A contemporary account of a public examination held in this school in 1805 is of interest as giving in some detail the curriculum of the institution. The students underwent in their diflferent classes a rigid examination, as well at the instance of the gentlemen of learning who attended as of the Reverend Preceptor, in the following order: The Latin Classics, District Grammar School — Its Peculiar Features. 45 Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Elements of Mathematics, Elements of Geog^ raphy, of Natural and Civil History. The boys acquitted themselves with great credit; neither is it easy to declare in which branch of learn- ing they succeeded best. The whole was interspersed with different pieces of poetry and prose, many of the most humorous cast, composed for the occasion.' Mr. Strachan, it may be mentioned, had a penchant for versi- fying and his compositions (invariably in the heroic couplet form, it would appear) occupied during his head-mastership a promi- nent place in the public exercises of the two schools mentioned. Another feature which came to be characteristic of these exercises was the reproduction in an abbreviated form of famous debates of the British Houses of Parliament. Certain portions of selected speeches were memorized and recited by the older boys, the form of the debate being carefully preserved. This practice was supposed to give to the boys training in public speaking. That it helped to make ready orators of them is open to ques- tion, though it must have given them some understanding of parliamentary procedure while it doubtless encouraged in many an ambition to participate in political life. Mr. Strachan was certainly a teacher of marked ability. One of his pupils, speaking many years later, bears this testimony : " He was an excellent instructor. His scholars were deeply grounded in their work. The grammar was well mastered and every rule thereof deeply impressed on the memory. Every lesson was thoroughly dissected and everything connected with it thoroughly understood before we passed to another lesson."^ In many respects Mr. Strachan was far in advance of his time in educational theory. The curriculum which we have just quoted gives evidence of his interest in geography and in " Natural and Civil History." This interest is doubtless due to the fact that in his student days these subjects had a decided attraction for him. So proficient did he become in them, indeed, that he was offered a position as assistant to the Reverend James Brown, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Mr Strachan was to perform the experiments which were to accompany the lectures. The unexpected retirement of the professor prevented the realization of this project and the ' From the Upper Canada Gazette and Canadian Oracle oi August 4th, 1805, quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 34. « . T J £ T~j A- s ' Bishop Fuller in a Sermon on the death of Bishop Strachan, Journal of Education for Upper Canada, Vol. XX (1867), p. 183. 46 Public Education in Upper Canada. disappointment ensuing had, it would appear, not a little to do with Mr. Strachan's acceptance of the offer of a position in the New World. Mr. Strachan's rather liberal views as to the curriculum are further illustrated in a course of study which he suggested, in 1829, for the grammar schools of the Province. This course included besides Latin and Greek, which naturally occupied the foremost place : ( i ) English, under which was placed, — Spelling ; Writing ; Grammar and Composition ; Elocution ; Civil and Natural History; Geography, Ancient and Modern; Use of the Globes ; Construction of Maps ; (2) Mathematics, which com- prised Arithmetic; Book-keeping; Algebra; Euclid; Trigonome- try ; Application to heights and distances ; Surveying ; Naviga- tion; Dialling; Elements of Astronomy, etc.; (3) French, which was to be studied during four of the five years of the course.^ After outlining the course, Mr. Strachan (then the Archdeacon of York and a Doctor of Divinity) made the following com- ment : " In presenting a detailed account of the mode of carry- ing this course of study into effect, I do not indulge in any imaginary process but give the actual practice of a school which flourished twenty-five years in this province.'' (Alluding of course to the Home District Grammar School.) Of Mr. Strachan's methods as a teacher, Dr. Scadding of Toronto, in a biographical sketch, gives the following interesting account. In (his) system the practical and the useful were by no means sacri- ficed to the ornamental and theoretical or the merely conventional. Things were regarded as well as words. . . In regard to things — the science of common objects— we doubt if in the most complete of our modern schools there was ever awakened a greater interest or intelligence in relation to such matters. Who that has once participated in the excite- ment of its natural history class ever forgot it? Or in that of the his- torical or geographical exercises? We venture to think that in many an instance the fullest experience of after life, in travel or otherwise, had often their association with ideas awakened then; and often compared satisfactorily and pleasurably with the pictures of persons, animals and places given rudely as it may be in text-bool Given in Doe. Hist., Vol. II, p. s8. 54 Public Education in Upper Canada. who withheld their sympathy because they regarded it as a menace to religious liberty and equality. Chief among these were the leaders in the Methodist and Presbyterian denomina- tions. The measures taken by these men to safeguard what they believed to be the rights of their respective churches will be treated in detail in one of the following chapters, hence nothing further need be said on the subject in this place. CHAPTER V. The Common School — Its External History. We have seen that in the Land Grant of 1797 no provision was made for the endowment of elementary education. The reason for this lay doubtless in the fact that the work of ele- mentary instruction was thought by the political leaders of the time to belong to the family, to the church and to philan- thropic exercise rather than to the state. This view continued to exert a powerful influence throughout the entire period now under review. Formal elementary instruction apparently began in Upper Canada with what were known as Garrison schools. The chap- lains of military posts, such as Kingston and Newark, were in the habit of gathering a few children about them whom they instructed in religion and in the rudiments of an English edu- cation. Later, when settlements had grown up at various points along the frontier, other private schools were established. These flourished for longer or shorter terms and sought to minister to what their proprietors conceived to be the educational wants of their respective communities. Two or three of these schools attempted instruction in the classics and higher mathematics and hence may be regarded as the embryos from which grammar schools later developed. One such school — that of the Reverend John Strachan at Cornwall — has been mentioned in the chapter immediately preceding. Dr. Hodgins in his Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada has collected from the local news- papers of the time a number of the advertisements of these schools. In addition to this he has given a very carefully pre- pared and rather extensive list of the schools of this class which were in operation in various parts of the Province between 1786 and 1810.^ Besides the school at Cornwall, to which ref- erence has just been made, two others on this list are referred to as classical schools, one of these having been opened at Kingston in 1786 by the Reverend Dr. Stuart and the other having been established at York in 1802 by Mr. W. W. Baldwin. ' Vide Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 30, 31. 56 Public Education in Upper Canada. The remaining schools — some twenty or more — were all plainly elementary in character. Of these one was an evening school opened at Newark (Niagara) in 1797 by a Mr. Richard Cockrel, another was an orphan school founded, in 1799, at St. Catherines, and two others were regular boarding schools. One of these last was kept by a Mr. and Mrs. Tyler, on the Niagara river near Newark. The " card " of this school is sufficiently inter- esting to deserve a reproduction here. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler take the liberty of informing the public that on Monday, the ist of February (1802) they will open their school for young people — Men and Ladies. They will keep a regular day school and night school. Children of each sex above the age of four years will be received, and the price will be in proportion to the kind of instruction the parents may wish their children to receive. They will teach in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic; the young ladies will be instructed in all that is necessary for persons of their sex to appear decently and to be useful in the world, and of all that concerns house- keeping, either for those who wish to live in town or country. The situation is healthy and agreeable, and the house suitable for a number of boarders. People who, during the heat of summer, may be advised to move for change of air will meet with proper lodgings, healthy and cheap boarding. Finally, nothing shall be neglected for health, instruction, religion and good morals, and they hope their endeavors to satisfy the public will more and more merit protection and encouragement. Mrs. Tyler having been bred in the line of mantua-maker, will receive and do her endeavors to execute her work in the neatest manner to the satisfaction of those who honor her with their custom. She embraces this opportunity to render her sincere thanks for the pro- tection she has received this day.' Dr. Ryerson in his History of the United Empire Loyalists mentions the fact that elementary schools were early established in all the loyalist communities where the number of settlers was sufficient to make such an undertaking possible. Just what the character of these schools was it is impossible now to deter- mine but they must, from the very nature of the case, have been exceedingly elementary as well as rather intermittent. As early as 1799, an attempt was made in the Province to secure the exclusion from the schools of uncertificated teachers. In the Upper Canada Gazette (the official organ of the Govern- ment) for July of that year there appears the following notice: ' Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 33. Common School — lis External History. 57 " We are happy in being informed that no person will be coun- tenanced or permitted by the Government to teach school in any part of this Province unless he shall have passed an exam- ination before one of our commissioners and receive a certificate from under his hand specifying that he is adequate to the important task of a tutor."^ The first instance of a popular attempt to interest the Provincial Legislature in the support of elementary schools appears in 1804 in the petition from certain inhabitants of the County of Glen- garry which is referred to in the chapter on " The Land Grant for Schools." This petition, as we have seen, was unavailing as were also the numerous attempts of a similar character throughout the decade which followed. We have noticed in the preceding chapter the agitation for elementary schools which followed close after the passing of the District (Grammar) School Act of 1807 and the sympathy which on the whole the House of Assembly exhibited towards the movement; conse- quently we may proceed at once to a discussion of the first piece of definite common school legislation — the so-called Common School Act of 1816. This legislation, as has already been re- marked, was in the nature of a compromise and was consented to by the Legislative Council on condition that the grammar schools were to remain undisturbed. The need of the Province as regards elementary education was recognized by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Gore, in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of the legislative session for 1816. " The dissemination of letters is," he observed, " of the first importance to every class ; and to aid in so desir- able an object, I wish to call your attention to some provision for the establishment of schools in each township, which shall afford the first principles to the children of the inhabitants and prepare such of them as may require further instruction, to receive it in the District Schools."^ The Common School Act which was foreshadowed in this speech granted i6,ooo annually for school purposes to the ten districts into which the Province was at that time divided. The amount apportioned to the several districts varied from two hundred to one thousand pounds. As soon as a competent ' Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 33- 2 Doe. Hist., Vol. I, p. 96- 58 Public Education in Upper Canada. number of persons inhabiting " any Town, Township, Village or Place " should unite and build a school house and engage to furnish twenty scholars or more, they might, after giving due notice, meet and appoint three trustees who should have the authority to examine and appoint a teacher. Such teacher was required to be a natural born subject of Great Britain or to have taken the oath of allegiance and he might be removed by the trustees for any impropriety of conduct and a successor appointed. The trustees were empowered to make rules and regulations for the governing of the school subject to the approval of the District Board of Education to whom also they were to make a report every three months stating the text-books used and the rules in force in the school. Every year, a special report was to be made informing the District Board of the number of scholars, the branches of study taught and the gen- eral condition of the school. The District Board was in turn required to compile an annual report to the Lieutenant-Governor to be by him transmitted to the Legislature. These district trustees were to be not less than three nor more than five in number and were to be appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor. Teachers were to receive their portions of the Provincial grant every six months upon presenting to the District Treasurer a certificate, signed by the local trustees, that they had given acceptable service during that period and that the number of scholars attending their respective schools had not been less than twenty. The grants made to each district under the Act were to be apportioned among the various schools according to the number of scholars in attendance but no district was to receive more than twenty-five pounds annually. A free text-book system in any district was made possible by the following clause, " That it shall and may be lawful for the District Boards to be appointed in each and every District in this Province to apply such part of the money hereby granted to the several Districts not exceeding one hundred pounds as they shall see fit, for the purchase of proper books for the use of the said common schools, and after having purchased such books to cause them to be distributed for the use of such schools in such manner as to them shall seem meet."^ 1 S6th George III, Chap. XXXVI, An act granting to His Majesty a sum of money to be applied to the use of Common Schools, etc., Sec. 12. Common School — Its External History. 59 The Act of 1816 was limited in its operation to four years from the date of its passing. In the discussion, in the Legis- lature and elsewhere, which accompanied the movement for its re-enactment certain grave defects in its operation were pointed out. A writer in The Christian Recorder for April, 1819, alludes to one of these as follows : " The Bill was very much hurt by the insertion of a clause that there should be a school in every town, village or place where twenty scholars could be collected. These loose words admit of a latitude of interpretation which could not have been intended, and multiply schools to an extent which it would require three times the Provincial revenue to support."^ It is somewhat difficult to reconcile the statement just quoted, with the fact that an investigation in 1820 showed that in certain districts considerable sums of the money avail- able for common school purposes had remained unappropriated. Whatever may have been the determining cause or causes, the Common School Act of 1820 reduced the annual Provincial grant from six thousand pounds to two thousand five hundred pounds. This reduction was manifestly favored by the Execu- tive since, in his speech from the Throne in opening the Parlia- ment of 1820, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, says : " It is neither prudent nor desirable to proceed (with the bill as it is, that is), but measures may possibly be adopted to provide the same good at a more moderate expense."^ That the good produced was as " moderate " as the expense incurred is scarcely to be doubted by any one who studies with any care the character of the common schools of the time. The Act of 1820 modified that of 1816 in other respects as follows: (i) The grant to each district was to be equally divided among the teachers of that district with the proviso that no teacher was to receive from the grant more than twelve pounds ten shillings per annum. (2) No warrant was to issue to any District Treasurer till the sums already paid to him had been accounted for. (3) Provision was made for the return to the Receiver-General of any sums remaining unexpended in the hands of the District Treasurers. The Act, like its predecessor, was limited in its operation to four years. In 1824, the clause of the Act of 1820 restricting 'Given in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. is6. ^Ibid, p. 169. 6o Public Education in Upper Canada. the period of its operation to four years, was repealed, the pro- visions of the Acts of 1816 and 1820 were enlarged to include schools among the Indians of the Province, and one hundred and fifty pounds was appropriated " for the encouragement of Sunday Schools and for affording the means of moral and religious instruction to the more indigent and remote settlements in the several districts throughout the Province."^ In one of the sections of this Act there appears also the first indication (in the case of the common schools at least) of a tend- ency to require of the teacher a certificate of qualification from an authority more central and presumably better qualified to act as an examining body, than the local school trustees. The clause in question reads as follows: Every teacher of a Common School before he shall be entitled to receive any portion of public money shall be examined by the Board of Education in the District in which he shall have taught or is about to teach a Com- mon School, or shall obtain a certificate from at least one member of such Board certifying his ability and fitness to teach the same, due regard at all times being had to the degree of education wanting, or to the branches necessary to be taught in the township, village or place in which such teacher hath undertaken, or is about to undertake, to teach a Common School.' The Act of 1824 contained, among other things, the first legis- lative recognition of a General Board which was to have super- vision of public education in the Province and especially of school funds and school lands. The one hundred and fifty pounds granted to Sunday Schools was to be " at the disposal of the general body that is or may be appointed by the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government of this Province, for the superintendence of education within the same, to be by them laid out and expended for the purchase of books and tracts designed to aiiford moral and religious instruction, which said books and tracts, when so purchased, shall be distributed by the said General Board in equal pro- portion among the several District Boards of Education through- out this Province.'" > 4th George IV, Chap. VIII, An act to make permanent and extend the provisions of the laws now in force for the establishment and regulation of Common Schools throughout this Province, etc., Sec. I. 2 Section VI of Act. s Sec. II of Act. Common School — Its External History. 6i At the risk of needless repetition we will proceed to re-state with some amplifications the main facts concerning this important body. The initiative in the matter of a General Board of Educa- tion had, it would appear, come from the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland. From a communication sent by him to his Executive Council in May, 1823, we learn that the formation of such a board had already been suggested to the Colonial Secretary, Earl Bathurst, and that the latter official had " signi- fied his sanction " of the plan proposed. In view of this endorse- ment of his policy, Sir Peregrine proposed to the Executive Council "the appropriation of some of the lands set apart for the Endowment of the University, in such manner as shall readily and securely create a fund to enable the General Board of Edu- cation to enter on its duties either by conveying a portion of lands in trust to the Board of Education (subject in all of its proceedings to the sanction of the Executive Government) — or by such other mode as may to the Committee of Council appear most expedient."^ The body in question was appointed by the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor this same year, with Dr. Strachan as President. To enable the Board to carry on its work, some one hundred and ninety thousand acres of land — a most liberal allowance it would seem — was assigned to it by " His Majesty's Government." The Board likewise at its first meeting (June 14th, 1823) "directed the President to submit to His Excellency, the Lieutenant-Governor, the propriety of transferring the School Fund, now in the hands of the Receiver-General, to the Treasurer (of the Board) as contingent expenses for stationery, advertisements, etc., which must be immediately incurred."^ The agitation by the House of Assembly against the General Board of Education has been described in the last chapter. Mention has also been made of the discontinuance of the Board in 1833 at the instance of the Home Government. The con- nection of the Board with the so-called " National " schools will be dealt with at some length in a chapter which is to follow. Apart from its efforts on behalf of the schools just named, 'From letter, dated May 30th, 1823, to Executive Council, given in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, 'From minutes of first meeting of Board, Doc. Hist., Vol. Ill, p. i. 62 Public Education in Upper Canada. the Board devoted itself mainly to the making of rules for the government of schools, to the prescribing and in some cases to the publishing of text-books for use in the common schools, and to the seconding of the efforts of Sir John Colborne in the establishment of Upper Canada College. The noteworthy fact about the General Board of Education, and the fact which in the end led to its discontinuance, was the entire absence of any responsibility on its part to the popular branch of the legislature. It could and it did undertake to divert the proceeds of the school lands to purposes of which the House of Assembly cordially disapproved. It could and it did undertake to supersede the common schools established by Parliamentary enactments with a system of schools wholly sec- tarian in character. Apparently Dr. Egerton Ryerson, subse- quently the founder of the present common school system of Ontario, had these circumstances in mind when, in 1833, he offered the following criticism of a proposed piece of legislation. The next leading feature of the Bill is the appointment of a General Board of Education. . . . This is proposed to be left to the Gov- ernor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government; a proposition in our opinion radically objectionable. It makes the system of Education, in theory, a mere engine of the Executive, — a system which is liable to all the abuse, suspicion, jealousy and opposition caused by despotism; and it withholds from the system of Common School educa- tion, in its first and prominent feature, that character of common interest and harmonious co-operation, which, as we humbly conceive, are essential to its success, and even to its acceptance with the Province. Education is an object in which the Government as an individual portion of the Province, and the people at large, possess, in some respects, a common interest; consequently they should exercise a joint, or common, control.' The Common School Act of 1824 continued in force until the union of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada in 1 84 1. The amount of the annual grant for common schools varied slightly, from time to time, up till 1835, when, by legis- lative enactment, it was increased to five thousand six hundred and fifty pounds. We have noticed in a preceding chapter the various attempts made from 183 1 onward to secure a land endowment for the common schools; we will now proceed to a brief characteriza- 1 Article in Christian Guardian o£ 15th of January, 1834, given in Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 149- Common School — Its External History. 63 tion of certain attempts made, during that period to secure a reorganization of the common school system itself. Although for various reasons, which are too complex to be analyzed here, they failed of becoming law, they are significant as showing an educational awakening similar in nature, if not in extent, to that which was taking place about the same time in many parts of the United States. In 1 83 1, a bill was introduced in the House of Assembly by a Mr. William Buell, Jr., which provided for ( i ) three super- intendents of schools in each township; (2) a District Board of Education consisting of five members chosen by a board of electors made up of representatives from the township superin- tendents; (3) a division of the Provincial Grant among the various townships according to their population.^ At the session of 1833-34 a Mr. Mahlon Burwell brought forward in the Assembly a bill of which the following were the principal features: (i) A General Board of Education and Dis- trict Boards of Education appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor ; (2) a Board of Township School Commissioners to have super- vision of the work of the local school trustees; (3) the estab- lishment of a School Fund " to consist of such sum or sums of money as may annually be appropriated by the Legislature out of the Provincial Revenues and the moneys arising from the sale or leasing of common school lands," also of an amount equal to the Legislative appropriations " to be raised by assess- ment, by order of the Quarter Sessions in their respective dis- tricts on the rateable property.'"" Dr. Ryerson in an editorial comment upon this bilP remarks that the idea of a local tax corresponding in amount to the Provincial grant is probably borrowed by the author of the bill from New York State. This comment, coming from such a quarter, is significant as fore- shadowing the considerable influence which the example of the United States and especially that of the state just named, was to exert upon school legislation in Canada during the next twenty years. A common school bill passed by the House of Assembly in 1835* provided for: (i) Three superintendents of schools in » Copy of Bill Doc. Hist., Vol. II, pp. 34-36- 'Doc Hist., Vol. II, p. 149. 3In Article already cited. *See copy of Bill, Doc. Hist., Vol. II, pp. 206-208. 64 Public Education in Upper Canada. each township with duties as follows: (a) To select three stu- dents from the common schools of the township who were to be considered as applicants for admission to the district grammar schools; (b) "to nominate a fit and proper person to be a mem- ber of the District Board of Education." (2) A District Board of Education who should (a) provide for the free boarding and tuition at the District Grammar School of a number of scholars not exceeding eight from each county; (b) arrange for a yearly- public examination of all the school teachers in each county. (3) An increase of the yearly common school grant to twelve thousand pounds. The teachers' examinations provided by this bill were to be presided over in each case by the district grammar school master assisted by such members of the District Board as might reside in the county. Certain additions to their regular salaries (one pound, fifteen shillings, and ten shillings respectively) were to be granted to the three teachers who stood highest at this examination. The bill in question was rejected by the Legis- lative Council and this rejection, along with that of several other important bills which had been passed by the House at this and preceding sessions, led to a prolonged controversy between the two houses and to the publication by the Council of an elaborate defence of its actions. The House of Assembly had, in connection with the educa- tional deliberations of 1835, felt the need of information as to the school systems of other countries, consequently, in April of that year, three of its members. Dr. Charles Duncombe, Dr. T. D. Morrison and Mr. William Bruce were appointed a com- mittee " to enquire into the system and management of schools and colleges in order to report fully upon the systems of educa- tion pursued in the United States."^ Dr. Duncombe as the accredited representative of the com- mittee visited, to use his own words, " the Western, Eastern, Middle and some of the Southern states " and made upon his return a rather extensive report.^ He studied with some care the school systems of Boston, New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cincinnati. His catalogue of the different kinds 1 Letter, dated 24th of February, 1856, from Commissioners T. D. Morrison and William Bruce to the Speaker of the House of Assembly in Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 288. 2 Report given in full in Doc. Hist., Vol. II, pp. 289-308. Common School — Its External History. 65 of schools which came under his notice includes : " Infant Schools, City Free Schools, Grammar Schools, Literary Insti- tutes, Eclectic Institutes, High Schools, Monitorial Schools, Lancaster Schools, Manual Labor Schools, Primary Schools and Writing Schools." In addition to the specific duties imposed on him by his instructions. Dr. Buncombe amassed by inquiry and by reading, considerable information as to the edu- cational policies of different European countries, notably Scot- land, France and Prussia. Though he saw much to approve in certain quarters of the United States and noticed a general " spirit of improvement " abroad, yet he was able to testify : " In the United States, so far as I have witnessed and am capable of judging, their common school systems are as defective as our own. They have, accord- ing to their public documents, about eighty thousand common school teachers but very few of whom have made any prepara- tion for their duties ; the most of them accidentally assume their office as a temporary employment." In 1836, Dr. Duncombe presented to the House of Assembly, along with the report of which we have just spoken, the draft of a Common School Bill.^ The leading provisions of this measure were as follows : ( 1 ) There should be a General Super- intendent of Education for the Province ; (2) there should be in each township three school commissioners and three school in- spectors. The school commissioners were assigned the duty of dividing the townships into school sections and of co-operating with the inspectors in the examination of teachers. The inspec- tors, as their name implies, were the official school visitors. (3) The bill anticipated the normal schools of a much later period by providing that, when the yearly school revenue should exceed ten thousand pounds by one thousand pounds or more, such excess should be employed in establishing four schools for the training of teachers — two for men and two for women; (4) school gardens were provided for in a clause which authorized school trustees to purchase or lease " a lot or parcel of land, farming utensils, seeds, grains and grasses for the use, benefit and behoof of that District, for the use of the teachers of the school or to be annually apportioned among the scholars of the ^ Doc. Hist., Vol. II, pp. 309-322. 5 66 Public Education in Upper Canada. school; or otherwise employed and occupied for the profit and instruction of the school or parts thereof, in horticulture, agri- culture or otherwise, growing plants, fruits, grasses and grains as the trustees, together with the school teacher for the time being, may think fit."^ (s) School workshops might in a similar way be acquired and employed " for the purpose of enabling the scholars of the school taught in that District profitably to employ a portion of their time in the acquiring a knowledge of (some) mechanical skill, art, business or profession."^ It remains now to mention briefly the chief provisions of the Common School Act of 1841.^ This Act was passed by the first parliament of the united provinces, and in fact, only a few months after the Act of Union had come into effect. This measure can be safely said to have inaugurated a new order of things in regard to the common schools, although many needed reforms were left for future legislation to accomplish. The more important features of the act in question were : ( 1 ) The establishment of a permanent school fund; (2) a grant of fifty thousand pounds annually to common schools; (3) the appointment at a liberal salary of a Superintendent of Education, one of whose duties was " to visit annually each of the Munici- pal Districts in the Province (now including both Upper and Lower Canada) and ascertain the state of the common schools therein " and who was instructed to labor for " the establish- ment of uniformity in the conduct of the common schools through- out the Province; (4) the making of special regulations for the organization of schools, the examination of teachers and the distribution of school moneys in incorporated towns and cities; (5) the formulation of certain conditions under which separate schools for Roman Catholics might be established and supported by the school rates paid by Roman Catholic tax-payers. The first four of these were certainly much-needed reforms. The last was essentially a measure of expediency, made necessary by the fact that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Lower Canada were Roman Catholics. They could not be expected to send their children to Protestant schools and neither Protes- tants nor Roman Catholics were in favor of the exclusion of Woe. Hist. Vol. II, p. 322. *Ibid. '4t1i and 5th Victoria, Chap. XVIII, An act to repeal certain acts . . and to make provision for the establishment and maintenance of common schools. Common School — Its External History. 67 religious instruction from the schools, which was the only remaining alternative. There was important school legislation in 1843 ^^'^ again in 1846, but this was mainly for the purpose of correcting certain mistakes and making good certain deficiencies in the Act of 1841. Both these measures are summarized in Dr. Ross's well- known work on The School System of Ontario, and to that book the reader, anxious to acquaint himself with their specific content, is referred. It would be interesting to follow in detail the important constructive labors of the Reverend Dr. Ryerson, Superintendent of the Schools of Upper Canada from 1844 till 1876, but such an undertaking lies plainly outside of the province of the present study. CHAPTER VI. The Common School — Its Essential Characteristics. When we turn to a consideration of the character of com- mon school education between 1816 and 1841, we find a con- siderable mass of material bearing on the subject, but little that lends itself to systematic classification and arrangement. Hence such conclusions as may be drawn here, will necessarily be quite general in character. We may say at the outset that the schoolhouses, the school- masters and the school curriculum were on the whole decidedly in keeping with the pioneer conditions of the period. The coun- try was being opened up. Settlers were pouring in, many of whom had very little conception of the character of the life to which they were coming. Children as well as parents were absorbed in a struggle with an environment from which, for some years at least, little was to be gained beyond a mere liveli- hood. It was said more than once in those early days that a farm could be won from " the bush " only at the cost of two generations. The boy of ten years, since he could drive a yoke of oxen, was put to work and hence had little time for further schooling. The winter schools broke up about " sugar- making " time because the children would thereafter be needed at home. It must be remembered, however, that the comparatively primi- tive conditions which existed, while they gave little time for the conventional training of the school, also made little demand for it. To be able to handle the axe and the plow was a more necessary accomplishment even than to read, write and cipher. Then agam, the majority of the settlers were poor, the Government, as we have seen, was far from liberal in its grants for common schools, the teachers were often most unsuited to their work, both as regards character and equipment, hence much of the " school- ing " which the children of the pioneers received could scarcely be dignified with the name of education. It is small wonder, then, that one writer on pioneer life in Upper Canada should inform us that a petition which was sent to the Old Country Common Schooi*~Its Essential Characteristics. 69 in 1828 bore on it seventy-eight thousand X marks/ the in^ ference of course being that a very large proportion of the adult male population of the Province at that date were wholly illiterate. One of the most scholarly of Canadian historians, Dr. Bour- inot, finds an excuse for this illiteracy, and its accompanying lack of refinement, in the condition of mind which a solitary life engenders as well as in the hard life of the backwoods which made schooling difficult. He insists also, and rightly, that these defects had certain redeeming virtues associated with them. His remarks are worth quoting at some length. The isolation of their (i. e. the settlers') lives, he tells us had naturally the effect of making even the better class narrow-minded, self- ish, and at last careless of anything like refinement. Men who lived for years without the means of frequent communication with their fellows, without opportunity for social instructive intercourse, except what they might enjoy at rare intervals through the visit of some intelligent clergyman or tourist, might well have little ambition except to gratify the grosser wants of their natures. The post-office, the school and the church were only to be found in the majority of cases at a great distance from their homes. Their children, as likely as not, grew up in ignorance even with educational facilities at hand; for in those days the parent had absolute need of the son's help in the avocations of pioneer life. Yet with all these disadvan- tages, these men displayed a spirit of manly independence which was in some measure a test of their capacity for better things.' All this is, of course, more or less commonplace, as are also, perhaps, the details which are to follow; yet there is about the persons and things described a certain distinctive element due to distinctive features in the political and social life which formed a background for them. The pioneer school of Upper Canada resembled, it is true, its counterpart in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky; yet it differed as well. It would be difficult to find a schoolhouse more primitive than was the one used by the first public school in the County of Victoria. " The schoolhouse, or building used as such, was an old log shanty about twenty by twelve feet, covered with elm bark, a flat roof — it had neither window, floor or fireplace or stove, consequently it could be used only in summer."' The "home-made" character of one of the early schools in Bayham Township extended even to the hinges and the latch ' Lizars, In the Days of the Canada Company, p. 437. ' Bourinot, The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People, pp. 10, 11. 3 From the letter of a superannuated school teacher, given in Doc. Hist., Vol. IV, p. 147. 70 Public Education in Upper Canada. on the door. " The walls were built of logs dovetailed at the corners, the chinks being filled in with mud. Logs formed the rafters, and large pine slabs were used instead of shingles. These latter were weighed down by logs firmly tied to the build- ing by willow withes. Inside, wooden pins were driven part way into the wall and on these pine planks were laid. These planks extended nearly around the building and formed the desks. Half of a bass-wood log, the flat side dressed smooth, was supported by four heavy wooden legs and formed the bench. The door had wooden hinges and a wooden latch. A large fireplace sup- plied warmth in cold weather."^ Of the uncomfortable and unsanitary condition of these early schoolhouses, no special evidence is perhaps necessary, yet the comment of a writer in the Kingston Gazette in 1818 is worth quoting both because of its vividness and because of its humor. "One might suppose," this gentleman remarks, " from the shat- tered condition and ill-accommodation of many schoolhouses, that they were erected as pounds to confine unruly boys and punish them by freezing them and smoking them, so that the master can do little more than regulate the ceremonies of the hearth." There was no one distinct type of the early schoolmaster, rather, there were several. There was first, the old countryman of decayed fortunes. A specimen of this class is thus described in a letter which Dr. Hodgins includes in his Documentary History. " He was an Irishman . . . and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. He drifted to Emily (Township) where he took up the land granted to him as a discharged soldier, but, being not used to manual labor, he did not stay long on the land. The settlers, being desirous of getting their children as much of an education as the resources of the country and their own limited means could afford, held a meeting and concluded to endeavor to make an arrangement with Mr. H to open a school. The result was that he was engaged to teach while the weather kept fine at the rate of eight dollars per month."^ This same poor fellow, we are told, later, was found dead in the roadway a few months afterwards, as the result of an over- 1 From " Prize Sketches of Schools in the County of Elgin," published in the St. Thomas Journal and reprinted in Doc. Hist., pp. 140-144. 3 Letter from a superannuated school teacher, Doc. Hist.. IV, p. 147. Common School — Its Essential Characteristics. 71 indulgence in the potent whiskey of the time. Then there was the ambitious young man, who, perhaps, had had the advantage of one or more winters at one of the district grammar schools. Like the college or academy student of New England during this same period, he taught school as a means of livelihood while preparing for a more lucrative or a more honorable calling, such as that of the law, of medicine or of the ministry. Again, there were some men, though how many it is impossible to tell, who continued in the profession and even in the same school for a considerable number of years and who, both as regards scholarship and character, were worthy of a larger remuneration and more favorable conditions of work than the times afforded. These men were to be found more particularly in the older and more thickly settled districts where the school as an institution had more chance to flourish and where the work of the master was more highly regarded and hence better rewarded than in the newer portions of the Province. A fourth, and if contemporary accounts are to be accepted, a very numerous class was that of the schoolmaster adventurer of the type of Ichabod Crane and own brother to the hedge- schoolmaster of the South before the war. These wanderers were very frequently Americans and were none the more highly regarded because of that fact. It must be remembered that we are dealing with the period immediately following the War of 1812-1815, and that to the loyal Briton of that day the name "American " had as sinister a meaning as the name " Yankee " had to the Virginian or the Georgian of the decade before the Civil War. All this was narrow-minded of course and yet, with the memory of an American invasion fresh in their minds and with many of the United Empire Loyalists still alive, it was most natural. We are informed that as early as 1799 it had been the policy of the government " to exclude schoolmasters from the States lest they should instill Republicanism into the tender minds of the youth of the Province."^ The Reverend John Cosens Ogden, an American clergyman who visited the Province in 1809, records the following as his impressions : " Dreading revolutions, they (the inhabitants) are cautious in receiving Republicans from the •Smith, A Geographical Account of the British Possessions in North America. •J2 Public Education in Upper Canada. States and wish to encourage husbandmen and laborers only. Clergymen, lawyers, physicians and schoolmasters from the States are not the first characters which would be fostered. Many congregations would be formed and schools opened if the policy in this particular had been different."^ Mr. Robert Gourlay in his Statistical Account of Upper Canada asserts that nearly four-fifths of the settlers in Upper Canada in 1818 had come from the United States. After making all due allowance for the Loyalist immigration immediately sub- sequent to the Revolutionary War, it is evident that a great many of these settlers must have come into the Province since 1800. Mr. Gourlay himself refers to the loyalty of these people to Great Britain during the struggle of 1812-1815. It was doubt- less the existence in the Province of such a large number of American-born citizens that gave the itinerant American teacher his opportunity, if it did not create an active demand for him. There is abundant evidence that he at least was there and that his presence was looked upon by many with great disfavor. The criticisms oflfered upon his activity were generally similar in character to the following which is a quotation from a Statistical Account of Upper Canada published in 1836. It is really melancholy to traverse the Province and go into many of the Common Schools; you will find a herd of children instructed by some anti-British adventurer, instilling into their young and tender minds senti- ments hostile to the Parent State; false accounts of the late war of 1812, in which Great Britain was engaged with the United States; Geography, setting forth New York, Philadelphia, Boston, etc., as the largest and finest cities in the world; historical reading books describing the Ameri- can population as the most free and enlightened under Heaven; insisting on the superiority of their laws and institutions to those of all the world; in defiance of the mob supremacy daily witnessed and lamented; and American Spelling Books, Dictionaries and Grammars, teaching them an anti-British dialect and idiom although living in a Province and being subjects of the British Crown.' Practically all the writers on the common schools of the period, and this includes the authors of the various reports of Select Committees of the House of Assembly on Education, agree in several important respects, which may be mentioned here by way of summarizing this especial phase of our subject: * A Tour through Upper and Lower Canada, By a Citizen of the United States, p. 55. * Dr. Thomas Rolph, A Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Common Sckool-^Its Essential Characteristics. 73 (i) They unite in calling attention to the extremely tran- sitory character of the average teacher. " In every township," says Mr. Flindall, in an article from which we have already quoted, " a teacher of twelve months' standing is a prodigy ; one of as many weeks the most common."^ A resolution intro- duced into the House of Assembly in 183 1 speaks of common school teaching as having become " a mere matter of convenience to transitory persons or common idlers who often stay but for one season and leave the schools vacant till they accommodate some other like person."" (2) They are unanimous in emphasizing the total unfitness, both moral and intellectual, of a great many of the common school teachers. Stronger language could scarcely be used than is to be found in reports of the Select Committees just referred to and in resolutions which from time to time received the serious attention of the House of Assembly. One such resolu- tion, for example, speaks of " the youth of the Province being left without due cultivation or, what is still worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious and intemperate examples before them in the person of their monitors."* (3) They attribute the low state of tiie common schools in the main to the meagreness of the Government appropriations. For example, a Select Committee of the House of Assembly in 1833 reports that " these District Common Schools have de- teriorated since the reduction of the annual appropriation to their support. ... In some of the districts not more than four or five pounds can justly be given to any one teacher and, should there be no remedy next year, the grant will admit of only two or three pounds each which would be something like a mockery."* A Parliamentary Commission which in 1839 made a careful investigation and an exhaustive report voices the same sentiment in language differing little from the foregoing. They account for the " want either of literary or moral qualifications in the common school teachers " as follows : " The cause of the unfitness your committee believe to be the inadequate remunera- tion which is held out to those who would embrace this occupa- * Essay on Education in Upper Canada published in Kingston Gazette, 1818. Reprinted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 133-135- * Proceedings of House of Assembly for 1831. In Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. Si. ' Educational Proceedings of House of Assembly for 1831, Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 51. * Report of Coiiimittee, Doc. Hist., Vol. II, p. 109. 74 Public Education in Upper Canada. tion. In this country, the wages of the working classes are so high that few undertake the ofBce of schoolmaster except those who are unable to do anything else."^ The common school curricula of the day were, of course, in keeping with the schoolhouses in which they were taught and with the teachers who administered them. Certainly nothing very extensive could be expected of the first teacher in School Section No. 8, Malahide Township, " who only knew how to read and write a little."^ Of a- somewhat similar character must have been those who qualified for their positions under the Act of 1824, one of whose clauses, as we have seen, stipulated that, in the examination of teachers, " due regard should be had at all times to the degree of education wanting or to the branches necessary to be taught in the township, village or place in which such teacher hath undertaken or is about to teach, a common school.'" Very illuminating indeed, in this connection, is the following description of the practices in vogue in the first common schools of what is now one of the most prosperous and enlightened rural communities in the Province. After giving a formidable list of studies " which are the terror of the luckless child of to-day, who has to carry enough of books to make them [sic] tired physically as well as mentally," the writer of the sketch in ques- tion remarks, " On starting to school, the child of by-gone days simply had to carry a ' shingle ' on which his letters were printed. This he would study until tired when he would quietly raise [sic] up, place his book on the seat and sit down. There being no desks to hold the books, this style of book was very handy as there was no danger of the leaves being torn out." "After the letters were thoroughly learned, the first step in advance was promotion to the class which was engaged in the study of the New Testament, the Bible being then the standard text-book for reading. The scholars were thoroughly drilled in the teachings of Bible truths for a long time after learning to read fairly well. Not until the scholar could read and spell well was he allowed to begin to write and a good deal of pains was taken to teach the scholar to write well. The pens used ^From Report of Commission, Doc. Hist., Vol. Ill, pp. 243-283. The extract given curs on p. 249. 2From ''Prize Sk »Sec. VI of Act. occurs on p. 249 2From Prize Sketches of Schools in Elgin County" — Doc. Hist., Vol. IV, p. 140 Common School — Its Essential Characteristics. 75 were made of goose quills, the ink also was made of soft maple bark, oak galls or something of that nature. To buy ink was impossible at that time and steel pens had not come into general use. The copy-books were often made of wrapping paper, fools- cap paper was very scarce and expensive. A little arithmetic was also taught and this in the majority of cases was the total amount of education which the pupils had the chance to receive. More advanced pupils were taught a little grammar, geography and history."^ The following daily program^ of the York common school in 182 1 is of value in this connection as showing: (i) A purely formal course of study consisting of reading, writing, spelling, parsing, analyzing, arithmetic tables, etc. ; (2) the use of the New Testament as a text-book, apparently for purposes of " the letter" rather than for those of "the spirit;" (3) the require- ment of weekly recitations in the Church Catechism; (4) the segregation of boys and girls in the two lower classes: All the classes (at least four lessons a day) read, spell and parse. Examinations are held every evening in Grammar, Spelling and Arith- metic Tables. The Church Catechism is heard once a week. The follow- ing is the daily order of studies : First Class of Boys, First Class of Girls. Second Class of Boys. Second Class of Girls. Morning. Grammar Lessons, Ex- ercises on Grammar, Reading, Sprfling and Parsing; Writing or Arithmetic. Grammar "Tasks," Definitions, Correc- tion of Erroneous Syntax; Reading Parsing and Sfjelling; Writing or Arithme- tic. Grammar, Parsing ; Etymology, Reading, Spelling and Writ- ing. Grammar Lessons ; Definitions, Reading, Spelling and Pars- ing; Writing. Books Used. Murray's English Reader; Murray's Grammar and Exercises ; Gray and Walkinghame's Arithme- tic. Enfield's Speaker; Murray's Grammar and Exercises; Carpenter's Scholar's As- sistant; Walkinghame's Arithmetic. New Testament, Murray's Grammar and Spelling Book. Barrie's Reader, Murray's Grammar ; Carpenter's Assistant; Scott's Les- sons ; Writing. Woe. Hist., Vol. I, p. 166, Reprint of articles from the St. Thomas Journal on "Schools and Dominies, in the Township of Aldborough." 'Given in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, p. 182. 76 Public Education in Upfer Canada. Third and Fourth Class of Children. First Class of Boys. First Class of Girls. Second Class of Boys. Second Class of Girls. Spelling, Reading An- Testament and Murray's alyzing, Orthogra- Spelling Book, phy. Afternoon. Reading, Spelling and Same as in the morning. Parsing; Writing or Arithmetic. Reading, Spelling and Same as in the morning. Parsing, Writing and Arithmetic. Reading, Spelling, Same as in the morning. Parsing and Writ- ing. Reading, Spelling, Same as in the. morning. Parsing and Writing. Third and Fourth Same as in the morning. Classes. A very noticeable feature of the social life of the period was the scarcity of books. Mr. Edward Allen Talbot, an educated Englishman who came to the Province in 1818, asserts in one of a series of letters to the Old Country, subsequently collected and published in book form, that during five years' residence in Upper Canada he saw only two persons with books in their hands and that one of these cases was that of a man who was consulting a medical work for a disease with which he was afflicted. " Indeed," Mr. Talbot goes on to say, " the scarcity of books in the country parts of Canada is nearly as great as that of pineapples on the summit of Snowdon."^ This scarcity, on account of the poverty of many of the settlers and on account also of the absence of suitable depots for distribution, extended even to school books. It was this condition of affairs doubtless which led to the provision of the Act of 1816 authorizing Dis- trict Boards of Education to expend certain amounts in the purchase of text-books and to distribute those books as cir- cumstances might demand. This permissive legislation seems to have availed little however, since throughout the entire period under consideration the lack of satisfactory text-books was a fruitful source of complaint. In the first school established at Richmond Hill in the Home District (in 1820) there was evidently not only a lacking of • From Letter XXX of the series, quoted in Doc. Hist., Vol. I, pp. 194-196. Common School-^Its Essential Characteristics. yj books but alsj o o n o w H o ^ oeo OiH »n o w o>o 00 OiM ^.^o H o Oi rt * *ooo H m ■/) O 0 o> 0«> lOM tt M ^ r«. Oi lovi^oo 0> w)0D n o o « n 00 I*) o o o" « ti o \0 o OD M •OOD O M *0 rOt> ^0 * (O •*00\O 00 0>0 « M -♦ o>o m P4 ;Zi^^ :,u,H,i,u,Hfunui, I enaencies m Ontario, 18^6-1^06. 117 l-l o o u m a ■< Hi u m o u in O » H o »; S ij u 15 H in H H >J O o » o CO ^; o a o U *0 t-X- ^ H vtC h H •* c m ^00 ^0 00 000o c r- t^r- m 1 « : 'tm-* to M ■* & «» 4* 4>» Hot^oEw oc h r* H T ■* OH-* m « 0.00 ■♦ " W OP M p- 1 w M r> t» m moo Oiooo^ <^ CO c - 00 »- wvO M '^ 0. « <. rOOO w to 0. Ov fO c ^ m t* CO 00 C4 M 4* N r-mm 00 '^ % *o K ■^■^m -* I- p 00 ^ « ^ to ^ 4 cj" -* ** «# _•* 0<0 r^ «^ O^C * w f * M r^W (O c« <0«) MOO M CO C ^ 00 w H (N to •♦oo *o w oi r- P t^ M_ H r* 00 ^ ^. 10 ^ * 0" •0 i-t* 0" 00 t^ T t- 0>0 H 00 00 a"* ^ ■* M -O c « 0. w 4* M t- ■ i «K s H 000 (O f^ M U 1 M O 1 M -"fOO « Mjr-in ■* Of. -) r. r» p r^ moo o> « 00 CO r^o f I-. & u T « r-m 0. to 4 0" " <♦ «' ^ « c ft C M lO ^ «^ ■* ^C » c^to to m t^ VO H 1 « «tmo 00 \0— m •♦ n « f « 000 ro 00 4» M « 1* «» 4« H o 0>C vO ^ tf m w tot- •* r 0.0 to to ^ t^ tr> f t * torn m OvC « r* 00 O.mf0 00 00 f^"^ -"T W w 'f 0> H w M M «» 4* M M <* H 4» H ■* « 00 00 H «n e ^ n 00 M n H inin« M -o « 1 a « 1 m \0 M c< Ol moo N o» M m c « m f 1 m 00 «o to ■* .2 ^ (Of* ^ « H « •o 00 moo" pT "1 in inG «* 0. 00 1 « r- MOO 00 00 a-« C4 N «• ^ 00 mH "O X v> 4* 4* w •s 5 mn o> c h & ^0 • • m^ M ro m Oi ■) « m ■a OoovO m p> 00 ^ « 00 ^ 0.5 00 0. vO c h VO S ? 00 "O oc r«) 00 lO*^ M «» w a> ^ 4» •s t :- 1 :^;2 i ; 2 : :g S • C .Si! ant nt and other a a ■a 1 •s schools ulation betwee pupils attend; school teache] a mount of Legislative gr mount of Municipal gra sessnrents rustees' rate bills and T3 1 (0 U • .0* G • 1 1 1^ IP S So s s 1 1 S ^ III -d-d 1 1 i3 a< Ze8 ZS5 « H A4A< ii8 Public Education in Upper Canada. 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