During my visits to the schools I found many of the school-houses

of a very inferior description--being rude log buildings, old and

dilapidated, with seats and desks of a corresponding character,

often situated on the edge of the road, and without wells, offices,

playgrounds or fencing of any kind; so that it is quite certain and

plain the requirements of the new School Law have not come into

force at all too soon, so far as the interests and advancement

of education in this part of Ontario are concerned. Indeed truth

obliges me to state that in the Riding which forms my field of

labour--and I believe the remark will hold true with still greater

force in regard to North Simcoe--the school-houses which are

sufficiently large, well ventilated, fully furnished, and provided

with an adequate supply of requisites are very few--perhaps less

than half-a-dozen all told. It is true, however, that since the New

School Law and Regulations came into operation there are indications

of a change for the better in regard to the matters to which I

have alluded. I could mention not less than twelve or fourteen

school sections in which steps have _already_ been, or are being

taken for the erection of new school-houses which are designed to

replace the old buildings, and which, in regard to adequate school

accommodation, are also intended to meet the requirements of the New

School Law, and to be in every way suitable for school purposes.

And it is to be distinctly noticed that in all the cases to which

I have referred, the _initiative_ has been taken by the people or

the trustees themselves; and I, for my part, feel that I cannot

but regard this as a very significant fact--a very hopeful and

encouraging symptom. I look upon it as an omen for good, and as an

important and gratifying evidence of the favourable and successful

working of the New School Law and Regulations. For being intimately

acquainted with the southern part of the county for the last fifteen

years, I have no hesitation in maintaining that the effects spoken

of, or the action taken by school trustees or the people, can be

fairly traced to no other cause than to the working and influence of

the New School Law and Regulations. I can testify that latterly--I

mean particularly since the passing of the New School Act--I have

marked among the people of these townships a deepening sense of

the importance of a sound education, and likewise an increasing

desire to encourage and promote it. I have noticed, also, I think,

both among trustees and parents, a growing conviction that not

only the efficiency of the teacher, but, also the discipline and

spirit of a school, the progress of children in their studies,

their proper training, and their successful education, are far more

intimately connected than it was one time imagined, with the style

and character of the schoolroom in which the work of instruction is

carried on, and with the kind of school accommodations provided for

and enjoyed by pupils.[57]

[57] These two extracts are given simply as illustrative examples,

and as they were public utterances of the Inspectors named. Similar

testimony was received by the Department from other Inspectors, but,

from the nature of the case, and their non-publication in the local

newspapers, they were not subject to the same criticism as were the

statements publicly made and published in the localities concerned.

CHAPTER V.

A SPECIAL CHAPTER ON THE STATE EDUCATION IN THE "OLDEN TIME" IN

UPPER CANADA.

In this special chapter, I insert a series of interesting papers,

illustrative of what may be called the interior or domestic

character of school life in its various phases, in Upper Canada,

from the time of the passing of Dr. Ryerson's first School Act,

in 1846, to the passing of his last School Act, in 1871. These

papers give a graphic, bird's-eye view of the state of the school,

school houses and school teachers in the years gone by. They are by

representative men--inspectors, public men and school teachers, and

they are, therefore, interesting and valuable, as giving the result

of the personal observation of these gentlemen.

The personal experience of the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald is of an

earlier date than those which follow, and refers to one of the most

noted of the old District Grammar Schools. It is highly interesting

as a reminiscence of the early training of one of our most noted

public men, and one, under whose auspices, the important School Act

of 1871 was passed.

HON. J. SANDFIELD MACDONALD'S SCHOOL DAYS--HIS REMINISCENCES OF THEM.

At a public dinner given to the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald in 1870,

he thus referred to his early school days:--

"My friend, Judge Jarvis, has referred to my early life, and has

very properly remarked that this is the country that offers the

widest field to the industrious, or to a man of energy if he only

possesses a modicum of brains.... It is true what the Judge states

that I arrived in Cornwall forty years ago next autumn.... I was

engaged in a dry goods store. But the Judge has told you that I was

not satisfied with that state of things. I went to the school here,

which has had a reputation it may be proud of ever since the time

of the late Bishop Strachan. It was the school that educated the

Boultons, the McGills, and the Jarvises. In the school I entered,

and there I had to strive with those who were able to be maintained

by their parents. I worked against them at a great disadvantage,

and would have succumbed but that I was cheered on by my venerable

preceptor. Many others have struggled in that school of whom Canada

should be proud. One of them particularly. He was one of the

brightest and most talented of the men our eastern district can

boast of. But providence has thought proper to take him away from

his sphere of usefulness. Need I say that I refer to that ornament

of the Bench, the late Chancellor Vankoughnet.--Were Dr. Urquhart

able to boast of no other pupil but that honourable gentleman, he

might have retired on his laurels. If that old gentleman had not

sent me a letter of encouragement I would not have been here, as I

was about to break down for want of means. This letter was written

in 1835, and ... I cannot help shewing what was thought of me by one

who had the most perceptive idea of the ability of his pupils. This

letter had the effect of making me bear up in my struggle with my

superiors in position and was as follows:

"'These certify that the bearer, Mr. John S. McDonald, was a pupil

in the Eastern District School, from the 19th Nov., 1832, to the

23rd Dec. last; that during that period his industry and application

were close and assiduous, and that his progress in the several

branches of study, to which he directed his attention, was highly

respectable, and very considerably exceeded what is usually made

in the same space of time; that the perseverance manifested in

overcoming the difficulties to be encountered at the outset of a

classical and mathematical education, called forth the particular

remark and approval of his teacher, as indicating considerable

energy of character, and as an earnest of future success in the

prosecution of his studies. Moreover, that his general deportment

during the same period, was most exemplary, and becoming, evincing

at all times a kindly disposition towards his fellow students and

a most respectful deference to the discipline of the school; and

that, if the good opinion and good wishes of his teacher can on any

occasion profit him, he is justly entitled to both.'"

"I owe all the spirit of independence which I have maintained

throughout my career, to my learning in that school. After I left

school I went into the study of the law, in the office of the late

Mr. McLean."

EDUCATION IN THE COUNTY OF WELLINGTON UNDER DR. RYERSON'S

ADMINISTRATION.

The following admirable resumé of the former state of education and

of educational progress in the county of Wellington, and indeed

throughout Ontario generally, was given in an address on "Then and

Now," delivered before a public meeting in Guelph, in May, 1880, by

Hon. Charles Clarke, ex-Speaker of the House of Assembly. After some

preliminary remarks, Mr. Clarke said:--

Little more than thirty years ago, much of the country, now known

as the county of Wellington, was a wilderness. The territory north

of Guelph was almost unsettled, beyond the townships of Nichol, and

the settled portion possessed but few residents. In Wellington, the

upper tier of townships had scarcely been entered upon, and names of

places now "familiar as household words" were unknown. Such roads as

there were had been simply cut through the bush, and had experienced

little other improvement than that which the axe, the handspike,

the logging chain and fire had afforded. Peel was in the early

stage of settlement; Maryboro was almost unknown; Minto was really

a _terra incognito_; Luther was, in popular estimation, a vast and

irreclaimable swamp; Arthur had a mere handful of settlers; Mount

Forest was a nameless and unbroken government reserve for a town

plot, covered with virgin forest; Elora possessed some half-dozen

houses; such places as Harriston, Palmerston and Drayton were not

even a dream of the future; and the gravel roads, thrifty villages,

and smiling farms which now make pleasant travel from the northern

bank of the Grand River to the utmost bounds of Wellington, were

covered with thick and luxuriant growth of maple, hemlock, elm

and cedar. Everything was in primitive shape, and yet the mark of

future progress was made, here and there, and coming events cast

their shadow. Oxen were far more numerous than teams of horses,

and neither could be regarded as plentiful. The axe was more busy

than the plough, and regularly prepared more acres for the annual

sowing. Money was scarce, produce was low in price, barter was the

rule and not the exception, postal communication was defective,

wages were poor, and "hard times" were as commonly talked about and

as earnestly believed in as to-day, when, measured by the past,

the term is comparatively meaningless. There was a feeling of

despondency throughout the community, and people were divided as to

the cause of the general depression. Some blamed the Rebellion of a

few years before; others said that the effects of Family Compactism

had not yet died away; and still others attributed all evils to the

newly effected Union between Upper and Lower Canada. There is little

wonder that, at such a time, schools and schoolmasters were under

the weather, and reckoned as but of "small account" by many of our

people.

EARLY SCHOOL LEGISLATION IN 1841, 1843 AND 1846.

Thanks to the energy, however, of a noble few, prominent amongst

whom stood Egerton Ryerson, the Government of that day took steps

to obtain information as to the system of public education in force

in some of the states of the American Union and in Europe, and,

taking Massachussetts and Prussia as a guide, enacted a sweeping

amendment to School Act for Upper Canada, in the ninth year of Her

Majesty's reign, and put it into operation in 1847. In 1841, the

first Common School Law had been passed, and in 1843 it was amended,

but the system was defective and unproductive of expected results.

Under it, townships were divided into school sections, by township

superintendents, who were practically uncontrolled, and therefore,

in many instances, arbitrary, and these divisions were unequal in

size, often unnecessarily small, and frequently unfairly made. The

consequence of this state of things was unpopularity of the law,

and a pretty general conviction that common schools were too often

common nuisances. The report of the Superintendent of Education, for

1847, tells us that the system produced "miserable school-houses,

poor and cheap teachers, interrupted and temporary instruction and

heavy rate-bills." In some districts, before the passage of the

amending School Act, 9 Vic. Chap. 20, the District Council had

never imposed a school assessment, depending for school maintenance

entirely upon the small legislative grant apportioned to each

district, and an equivalent raised solely by rate-bills or voluntary

contributions. No uniformity existed in the use of class books, the

township superintendent or the teacher, or even the parent dictating

what should be employed in each particular section. In 1846, no

fewer than 13 different spelling books, 107 readers, 35 arithmetics,

20 geographies, 21 histories, and 16 grammars, were used in our

Common Schools, besides varying class books on other subjects.

INFERIOR QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS AND VARIED METHODS OF TEACHING.

The methods of teaching were almost as numerous as the teachers,

and followed no specified rule. Sometimes it was by classes, often

by individuals, and in other cases by an extensive use of monitors,

being generally a mixture of the three styles, and nearly always

a higgledy-piggledy, go-as-you-please arrangement, as easy as

possible to the teacher, and as unproductive of good results to

the pupil as such indefinite work might be fully expected to be.

And the character of the teachers, speaking in general terms, and

not forgetting many bright exceptions, was not above suspicion.

Certificates were granted by township superintendents, who too often

relieved the charitable, and the district council, by thrusting into

the school-house the ne'er-do-wells, the infirm, the crippled, the

sickly and the unfortunate, who, under ordinary circumstances, would

have become dependent upon the good nature and benevolence of their

fellow-citizens. In one district a superintendent, after the passage

of the new School Law, was compelled to give notice that he would

not grant certificates to any candidates unless they were strictly

sober, and that he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who

suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated. And, we are

gravely informed, the result was that a majority, not all, of the

hitherto intemperate teachers became thoroughly temperate men, and

that the incorrigible were dismissed. The quality of the teachers

may be guessed at very fairly, it is safe to say, from the salaries

paid to them. In 1845, the average was £26 2s, or $104.40; in 1846,

£26 4s, or $104.80; and in 1847, £28 10s, or $114, and this, too,

for the most part, exclusive of board. Had the schools been kept

open during the whole of the teaching months of these years, the

salaries would have averaged $134 in 1845, $147 in 1846, and $148

in 1847. It must be borne in mind that, in those days, male were

much more numerous than female teachers, so that the smaller amounts

generally paid to those of the gentler sex had comparatively little

influence in lessening the general average. The parsimony and

poverty of the people had much to do, of course, with the quality

of the teacher, for men who could obtain higher wages at almost any

other occupation, through physical or intellectual superiority,

would not waste time and opportunity to earn more than the paltry

pittance paid to the pedagogue, simply through philanthropic desire

to advance the interests of the rising generation.

DR. RYERSON'S TEST OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF A SCHOOL SECTION.

Says Dr. Ryerson, in the report to which I am indebted for these

facts: "This small compensation of teachers is the great source of

inefficiency in the common schools. Persons of good abilities and

attainments will not teach for little or nothing so long as they

can obtain a more ample remuneration in other pursuits." He adds,

in language as truthful, and as worthy of notice to-day, as when

it was written: "People cannot obtain good teachers any more than

good lawyers or physicians without paying for their services." And,

as he says in the next sentence, so say we all, and so I am happy

to observe are many of our school corporations saying all over the

province: "The intelligence of any school section or corporation of

trustees may be tested by the amount of salary they are disposed to

give a good teacher." If Egerton Ryerson had said and done nothing

more than this, he would have deserved the gratitude of every

teacher in Ontario, simply because he had the courage to put upon

record a sentiment which, at the time when he used the words, was

eminently unpopular, and a direct and stinging rebuke to nearly

every school-board then existent. In those days, cheap teachers were

wanted, and the supply equalled the demand, while the pockets of the

charitable were saved, a semblance of education was kept up, and the

county poorhouses were not required so long as every other school

section provided for one, at least, of those who would, in these

days, be generally regarded as eligible candidates for admission

thereto. The amount of interest taken in educational matters was not

evidenced in small salaries alone.

THE CHARACTER OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE ALSO A TEST.

The school-house, in its quality, too often matched the teacher. Of

2,572 school-houses in Upper Canada in 1847, 49 only were of brick,

and 84 of stone, the others being frame and log. Of the 2,500,

800, or about one-third, were in good repair; 98 had more than one

room; 1,125, or less than half, were properly furnished with desks

and seats; only 367 were provided with a suitable play-ground;

and not more than 163, out of 2,572, had necessary outbuildings.

Coming nearer home, we find that the municipalities now comprised

in the county of Wellington contained, in 1847, 43 school-houses,

of which one was built of stone, 9 were frame, and 33 were log, and

the report states that only 13 were good, 25 were middling, and the

balance were inferior. When we remember the standard of "goodness"

in those days, when school authorities at Toronto were thankful for

small favors in rural districts, we can have some faint idea of the

character of the buildings pronounced inferior. It is probable that

they came up to the style of accommodation of the Mapleton school,

in Manitoba, which I find described in the last report of the

Superintendent of Protestant Schools for that Province, as follows:

"Found that since my last visit the school-house has been floored;

it still required plastering and ceiling and weather-boarding." What

sort of a building it was before these improvements were effected,

it doesn't require a very active brain to imagine, and when you have

the picture in your mind's eye you will have some conception of the

pleasures of teaching in the "good old times," of less than half a

century ago, in Upper Canada.

SCHOOL CONDITION OF THE COUNTY OF WELLINGTON IN 1847.

Returning to 1847, we are told that in the whole of Wellington

District, composed of the territory now forming the three counties

of Wellington, Waterloo and Grey, there were 102 schools, of which

only 22 possessed good buildings. Let us glance for a moment at the

then state of finances of the school corporations in which we feel

most interested. Guelph township, including the village of Guelph,

raised $507.38 by the municipal assessment, for school purposes,

realized $556.75 from rate-bills, and received $416.69 from the

legislative grant, or a total of $1,480.82, wherewith to pay seven

teachers, maintain, more or less efficiently, ten schools, and

afford instruction, good, bad or indifferent, as the case might

be, to 517 scholars. The township of Puslinch was nearly abreast

of Guelph, and kept up 10 schools, paid 13 teachers, and had 558

scholars on the roll, at an outlay of $1,381.86, but it must be

remembered that if two or three teachers were employed, at different

portions of the year, in one school, they increased the grand total

of teachers for the year. It may have been that, while thirteen

appear to have been engaged, there were not more, and probably less

than ten employed for the full teaching year. In 1847, Erin had

the highest number of scholars of any municipality in the county,

having returned a total of 585, in six schools, and with eleven

teachers, at an outlay of $1,039.06. Amaranth was at the foot of the

list, with one school, one teacher, thirty-eight scholars, and an

outlay, made up from rate-bill, assessment and legislative grant,

of $68.04. Peel and Wellesley, combined, had one school, three

teachers,--employed at some portion or other of the year,--and spent

$80.52. Nichol (including Fergus and Elora), Eramosa and Garafraxa

made returns,--the name Garafraxa being spelt with a double r, as I

have found it to be in all old official documents,--but Pilkington,

Arthur, Maryboro, Luther and Minto do not appear to have had school

organization, not even municipal existence, while, of the whole

county of Grey, Derby and Sydenham were alone mentioned in the

return. It may be interesting to know--although I am aware, from

painful experience, that listening to strings of figures is not the

most enlivening occupation in the world,--that the whole amount paid

for school purposes, in the county of Wellington, for that year,

was $5,862, of which $5,763 was given to teachers, and that the

average cost for each pupil taught was $2.10. One other fact may be

adduced which will enable you to form a still clearer estimate of

the educational status of Upper Canada at the date referred to. The

Chief Superintendent had, in forms and regulations issued by him,

specified the lowest general standard of qualification for teachers,

but was forced to believe that a much lower standard had been acted

upon by school visitors. These visitors were clergymen, magistrates

and district councillors,--equivalent to our reeves,--and any two of

them could examine a teacher, test his or her qualification, pretty

much as they deemed best, and grant a certificate, available only

for one school and one year, it is true, but nevertheless renewable,

and answering every purpose of the certificate of to-day. It is not

difficult to imagine a much more easy and varying examination, under

such circumstances, than that which an improved system soon rendered

necessary, and the quality of teachers so produced need not be

further particularized.

We have thus obtained some glimpse of the THEN of our educational

facilities of a generation ago. The picture might be elaborated.

It would be easy to fill in details from memory; to tell how the

blind oft times led the blind; how the ignorant teacher insured the

ignorant pupil; and how "schooling" was frequently a farce, and mere

waste of time....

GREAT EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE MADE BY THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO SINCE 1847.

That the Province has made enormous strides in population, wealth,

intelligence and importance, during the last thirty years, admits

of no doubt. Our forests have disappeared, an improved system of

agriculture has followed, manufactories have sprung up, railways

have connected every county, a daily press has become an established

and indispensable institution, the telegraph has economized time

by practically annihilating distance, while numerous inventions

and discoveries have created new wants, and supplied as rapidly

as they have made them. Without losing our characteristic love

of hard work--I here speak of everybody in general, and nobody

in particular, and purposely avoid all personal allusions--and

that industrial enterprise which springs from it, we have become

a reading and much more cultured people. The scholar, endowed

with physical capacity equal to that possessed by an illiterate

competitor, is worth more than he in the factory, the workshop,

the store, the mill, the mine, or on the sea or farm. Cultivated

brain has a market value, and book learning is no longer despised,

or regarded with half contempt, as the mark distinguishing the

mere dreamer from the worker. To possess the "Reason Why" is no

proof now-a-days of physical and practical inferiority; to know

a little of everything, and everything of something, is not now

the peculiar privilege of the English Gentleman. Little wonder is

there, therefore, that what the school has helped to bring about,

should tend to make the school more valued. That such has been its

effect we have but to look around to see. Where in 1847, we, in

Upper Canada, had 2,863 school houses, our last returns show that

we possess more than 5,000, and while the number has so largely

increased the advance in value has been in much greater proportion.

In 1847 we had, in all Upper Canada, but 49 school-houses built of

brick; now we boast of 1,569 built of that material, or over thirty

times as many. In 1847 we had eighty-four constructed of stone;

now we claim more than 500. In 1847 half of our school buildings

were of logs; now not more than a seventh are of that primitive

character. There are no returns of money cost of buildings or of

amount expended in their erection in 1847, but we find that the

expenditure for all school purposes in that year, inclusive of

teachers' salaries, was $350,000, while for 1877, for erection and

repairs of school-houses, fuel, etc., alone we paid $1,035,390, and

a total for school purposes of $3,073,489, or, in round numbers,

nine times as much as in 1847. The improved financial value of the

teacher is another strong testimony, willingly borne by the people,

to their increased interest in education, for, as a rule, a free

people will not pay for that which they fail to appreciate. In 1847

there was paid for teachers' salaries a total sum of $310,398. In

1877 the amount was $2,038,099. In 1847 there were 3,028 teachers

employed, while in 1877 there were 6,468. In 1847, board was often

given in addition to the nominal salary, and was, in fact, part of

the teacher's remuneration. Grant that the teachers here enumerated

as serving in 1847 were employed eight months in that year--which

is more than the average--and put board at $2 per week, which was

higher than was the average rate in those days--the average payment

to each teacher would not exceed $170, and this was fully equal to,

if not greater than was actually allowed. In 1877 the average amount

paid to each teacher was $315. The larger amount willingly paid in

1877 for the support of Free Schools, than was unwillingly given in

1847, for the maintenance of rate-supported schools--for payment

was then made under protest, and the school law was exceedingly

unpopular, while rate-bills and contributions were nearly everywhere

necessary, in addition to municipal assessments, to make up the

teachers' salaries--is yet another proof of the hold which the

educational movement has taken upon the judgment and sympathy of the

people of Ontario. In 1847, too, pupils were grudgingly taught, at

a cost of $2.80 per head, while in 1877 the average was $6.20. And

when we add to all these things the fact that, in 1847, only 124,829

pupils attended our common schools, out of a school population of

230,975, or scarcely one in two, while in 1877, out of a school

population of 494,804, not less than 490,860 names were entered on

the roll, it is needless to say anything further in illustration

of the marked contrast between the two periods, of the immense

superiority of the present over the past condition of our schools,

and of the public opinion which is necessary to their effective

maintenance.

GREAT ADVANCE ALSO IN THE STANDARD OF TEACHING ABILITY.

And the standard of teaching ability, in so far as literary

acquirements go, has kept pace with the progress which has

otherwise characterized the history of a scholastic generation.

We have long got past the period when any two magistrates, any

two reeves, or even any two clergymen, could grant permission

to teach, and annually invest the teacher with legal status. We

subject our examiners themselves to examinations, have uniformity

in the character of our examination papers, and propound questions

to candidates which fully and fairly test their educational

attainments. We have gone beyond _that_, and instituted county

Normal Schools--for such our Model Schools may be fairly termed--at

which we require applicants for a certificate to still further

establish their fitness for the work upon which they seek to

enter. We have not reached perfection, but we have travelled a

long distance in the direction in which it lies. We have made

every school practically free, built up a High School system which

opens up to all seekers after higher education ample opportunity

to prepare for the University course, at a minimum of cost, and

placed our University upon such a footing that its advantages are

not the exclusive privilege of the well-to-do, but are proffered

to even the poorest student who cares to submit to a period of

self-denial, and lose a little extra time in early life, for the

purpose of securing them. As a people we have done no more than,

probably not so much as, we ought to do, with the view of placing

educational facilities within the reach of every child born or

brought into the Province, but we have, nevertheless, ventured

and effected more than has been attempted in many older and more

wealthy lands. We have the consciousness of having done our duty,

according to our lights. In our long-settled sections of country

the school-house bell is within the hearing, or the school-house

itself is within sight of nearly every family. In newer portions

of the Province, wherever half-a-dozen or so of clearances are

commenced, in the wilds of Muskoka or Algoma, provision is made for

the instruction of the little ones who bless those backwoods' homes.

The school-master is abroad throughout the land, and is doing much

to ensure a glowing future for our country, and when his work is

done, and he is compelled to retire from his labors, we willingly

open the public purse and give to him that which keeps him above

absolute penury, and assures him that, while Ontario cares only to

help those who possess the disposition to help themselves, she is

neither ungrateful nor forgetful. And, seeing all these things, we

cannot help feeling that our youthful Province may modestly and yet

proudly lift her head amongst the nations of the earth, assured that

there are none who can reproach her with neglect of the first and

best interests of those little children whom God has entrusted to

her keeping.

STATE OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA IN 1847-1849.

From an elaborate report prepared by the Rev. W. H. Landon, School

Superintendent, to the Municipal Council of the district of Brock

(county of Oxford) in 1849, I make the following extracts. The first

refers to the educational supineness of the people:--

"Up to a recent period (say the last two years), the people,

generally, seems to have entered upon no enquiries, and to have

formed no just conclusion on the subject of education, or the proper

means of imparting it. They seemed to think, if they thought at

all, that all schools were equal, and that all teachers who could

read, write, etc., in a better manner than their pupils were equally

good.... As to books, it was supposed that any one, or any ten of

the fifty different varieties of spelling books in use, with the

English Reader, was all that was requisite for the reading classes,

while a few treatises on arithmetic taken at random from the almost

endless variety with which the country was flooded, would supply the

means of imparting & knowledge of the science of numbers, and two or

three grammars by as many different authors, would supply material

for the grammar class and complete the stock of text books for the

schools."...

Mr. Landon draws the following graphic picture of the school-house

"shanties" of those days. He also gives a vivid view of the interior:

"The school-houses in many instances (though not in all) are

miserable shanties made of logs loosely and roughly put together;

the interstices filled with clay, portions of which are from time

to time crumbling down filling the place with filth and dust. Under

your feet are loose boards, without nails, across which, when one

walks, a clatter is produced equal to that heard in a lumber yard.

Over your head are the naked rafters, stained with smoke and hung

with cobwebs and dust. Two or three little windows, generally half

way up the walls, admit the light; and a rough door which does not

fit the opening, creaks upon its wooden hinges.... The writing

desks are generally long sloping shelves pinned up against the

walls as high as the breasts of the pupils who sit before them. The

seats are without backs and from eighteen inches to two feet high.

Sometimes we have a master's desk, but awkwardly constructed, for

the most part too high for the sitting posture and too low for the

standing one.... We have no blackboards, no maps and no illustrative

apparatus of any kind.

"When we enter one of these schools, we behold a picture of

discomfort and misery. The children are perched upon the benches

before described: but as they have no support for their backs, and

as only the taller of them can reach the floor with their feet,

marks of weariness and pain are visible in their features and

postures. Some to procure rest and ease to their aching frames have

drawn up both feet upon the bench and are sitting cross-legged like

a tailor on the shop board. Others stooping forward, rest their

elbows upon their knees, with one hand supporting their chins and

with the other holding up their books before their weary eyes;

while all avail themselves of every possible excuse to change their

position and so obtain relief. Some asking permission to go out,

others to get a drink, and many constantly flocking to the teacher's

desk with words to be pronounced, sums to be examined and corrected,

pens to be mended, or difficulties to be explained, in connection

with grammar, or other lesson, etc. So that the place is filled with

noise and disorder, rendering study impossible and anything like the

cultivation of cheerful and benevolent affections entirely out of

the question."...

Then follows an example of the character of the teaching "in a

school in the centre of one of the largest and wealthiest townships"

in the district of Brock:--

"This school was taught by a person who in his youth had enjoyed

what we term superior advantages, being connected with a family of

highest respectability. Notice of my intended visit had several

days before been sent to the teacher. The female pupils had ...

decorated the place with evergreens and bouquets of flowers. The

room, though humble and coarse, was neat and tidy. When I entered,

the class in the fourth book of lessons was reading. A book was

put into my hands and I desired them to proceed.... When they

were done reading I proceeded to examine them on the lesson.

Great Britain was mentioned in the lesson and allusion made to her

people and institutions. My first question, therefore was--Where

is Great Britain? From the vacant and surprised stare with which

this question was received I was satisfied that they had no clear

conception of what Great Britain was.... I finally asked what is the

form of Government in Great Britain? As no answer was given, I ...

asked whether a King, Queen or President governed in Great Britain?

To this question a pupil, aided by the teacher, who whispered in her

ear, replied a Queen. I than asked her name.... After a good deal

of hesitation, a young woman of eighteen or twenty years of age,

replied "Queen Elizabeth!"

THE OLD LOG SCHOOL HOUSE AND ITS BELONGINGS.

In connection with the realistic picture of education in the County

of Oxford, in 1847-49, sketched by the Rev. W. H. Landon, District

Superintendent, the following dual pictures of "The Old Log School"

and "The Pioneer Teachers," taken from the Toronto _Globe_ of 1887,

will be found to be highly interesting. The pictures are graphically

drawn by a teacher, and from a teacher's standpoint. Speaking of the

representative teacher of a former generation recalling the past, he

said:--

The old days come up vividly before him, when he first engaged

in the work in some country district, engaging to devote to it

the best energies of body and mind, for, it may be, some such

munificent salary as eight or ten dollars a month, said salary

to be supplemented by the saving in expense effected through the

process formerly so much in vogue of boarding around. How well he

remembers the old log school house, with its low ceiling on which

a tall man could easily lay his hand; the narrow apertures, fitted

with a few panes of 7×9 glass which served for windows; the floor

of unplaned boards, whose crevices were either compactly filled

with accumulations of dust and litter characteristic of the school

room, or worse still, yawning to swallow up pen-knife and slate

pencil as they would ever and anon drop from the fingers of some

luckless wight, started from the half slumber into which the drowsy

monotony of the ill-ventilated school room had beguiled him, by the

stentorian tones, or possibly the vigorous cuffs, of the master of

ceremonies. Very distinctly the vision of such a school room of the

old type, though at a date much less than fifty years ago, rises

before the writer as memory carries him back to the little Canadian

hamlet in which his boyhood was passed. The desks, so as far any

were provided, consisted of a wide shelf fixed at a pretty sharp

angle against the wall, and extending all around the room, with an

intermission only at the narrow space occupied by the door. This

primitive arrangement was sometimes supplemented with a long, flat

table composed of three or four loose planks in the rough, supported

by wooden benches or horses placed transversely beneath. The seats

were of planks or slabs, likewise unsmoothed, constructed by driving

rudely hewn legs into holes bored with a large augur, at a suitable

angle, in the lower surface of the plank or slab. These legs often

projected an inch or so above the surface of the seat. It could

not be said of these rude structures as in Cowper's "Evolution of

the sofa," that "the slippery seat betrayed the sliding part that

pressed it," for between the projecting legs and the innumerable

"splinters" the unhappy occupant was in much greater danger of being

impaled and pinned fast than of slipping off. Perhaps it was better

so, for in view of the great height usually given them, the fall,

for a small child, while it would most surely have been a "laughing

matter," might yet have proved a serious one.... It was certainly a

strange and cruel infatuation which constrained our grandfathers to

think that the proper position for a boy or girl at school was upon

a narrow perch, without back or arm support of any kind, and with

the feet dangling some six or eight inches above the floor.

The picture of the old school bench would not be accurate without

reference to the warping of the plank which was pretty sure soon to

take place, with the result of raising one or other of the diagonal

legs an inch or two from the floor, thus converting the seat,

when filled with its living, aching load, into a tilting board,

provocation of many a trick from the omnipresent mischievous boy of

the school, and resulting in many a blow from the palm or cane of

the irate master, which would, of course, generally descend upon

innocent ears or shoulders.

What a picture did the wooden desks and walls of those old-time

school houses present, worn smooth with the elbows, smeared with

the jackets, variegated with the ink, carved with the jack-knives

and stained with the tears of boisterous and blubbering boys and

rosy-cheeked, hoydenish or timid girls. What burlesque, too, upon

every intelligent idea of education were the processes carried on in

them. From nine o'clock to twelve, and from one till four, six long

hours, as marked by the sun's shadow on the rude dial marked out on

the windowsill, did the work go on.

Murray's Reader, and in the most ambitious districts his Grammar,

Walker's Dictionary, Walkingame's Arithmetic, Goldsmith's Geography

and somebody's spelling-book, with slate and pencil, a scanty supply

of paper and ink, and pen shaped with a keen pen-knife from a quill

picked up from the wayside or plucked ruthlessly from the wing of

some reluctant "squawking" goose, would complete the scholar's

outfit. It is the hour for preparation of the reading lesson. The

school room resounds with the loud hum of a score or two of boys

and girls all "studying aloud" with a most distracting din, and all

the heads and bodies swaying constantly and simultaneously back and

forth as an accompaniment to the voice. This voice in the case of

perhaps a majority would be modulated without the slightest relation

to the contents of the printed page, while the thoughts of the

ostentatiously industrious student would be busy with some projected

game or trick for the coming recess. And yet how often would the

Scotch school master's eye gleam with pride and pleasure when he

had, by dint of persuasion or threat, succeeded in getting every boy

and girl engaged in the horrible, monotonous chant.

Then the recitation--what a scene of confusion and stripes, tears

and bellowings. Perhaps it was the column of spellings. A few,

fitted by nature with memories adapted for that kind of work, would

make their way in triumph to the head of the long semicircular

class. But woe, woe to the dullards and the dunces, under a regime

whose penalty for missing a word a foot and a half long would

be, very likely, two or three strokes on the tingling fingers or

aching palm with the pitiless hardwood ferule, this process being

occasionally varied as some noisy or idling youngster was called up

from a back seat to be visited with a still sterner chastisement

for some trifling misdemeanor.... The writer can recall instances

and experiences innumerable, the infliction being sometimes

accompanied with a caution to tell no tales at home under pain of

a worse infliction. In his own case he well remembers the wrath

of his father, who would have thought it wrong and encouraging

insubordination to listen to any complaints against the master,

when, on occasion of the victim of a tendency to juvenile pranks

being dangerously ill with scarlet fever, and that father being

called on by the doctor to annoint his back with some soothing

lotion, he found said back striped and checked with a network of

"black and blue." It is needless to add that at this point ended

both the writer's experience under that schoolmaster and the

schoolmaster's term of engagement in that district.

As a significant comment upon the moral effects of the regime of

the schoolmasters of the old school the writer may add that one of

his most vivid memories of the mental status produced by the school

training referred to is that of an intense longing for the day when

he should be large enough to repay that old schoolmaster in his

own coin. That day came. The flagellated boy, transformed into a

tolerably lusty youth, found himself face to face with his quondam

tormenter. But his long cherished wrath speedily gave place to pity

for the decrepit, friendless and lonely old bachelor, whose days

were drawing to a close, with no loving hand of wife or daughter to

minister to their feebleness.

THE PIONEER TEACHERS, AND THE TRIALS OF "BOARDING ROUND."

The writer of the foregoing paper pictured roughly the rural

Canadian school of forty or fifty years ago. It may not be without

interest to have that picture supplemented with a glimpse of

rural Canadian life as seen by the schoolmaster of the period.

The "boarding 'round" system afforded him excellent facilities

for observation. The venerable custom of boarding round died, no

doubt, a good many years ago, so far as Canada is concerned....

But thirty or forty years ago it was, in some parts of Canada at

least, almost a matter of course that the teacher should "board

'round." When a school became vacant or a new and ambitious

settlement had reached the pitch of development at which a school

was deemed a necessary sequent to the carpenter's shop, the smithy

and the shoemaker's shanty, one of the first steps was, of course,

to pitch upon a suitable candidate for the scanty honors and still

more scanty emoluments of the village pedagogue. Probably some

influential member of the community had a son or a daughter in the

teens, who was thought pretty well up in "the three R's." If so, it

would usually be deemed quite unnecessary to look farther. In fact

it would, in such a case, be useless for an outsider to contest

the constituency. It never entered the unsophisticated heads of

the trustees to invite competition by advertising for candidates

"to state salary expected." This method of putting up professional

talent in a kind of Dutch auction is an evolution of our present

"best educational system on earth." Our grandfathers went about the

business in a different way. The coming teacher being fixed upon,

the next step was for the candidate himself, or some interested

relative or friend on his behalf, to circulate a subscription sheet.

A form of heading would be prepared somewhat in the following

style:--"We, the undersigned residents of Smithton District, being

desirous of securing the services of Henry Schoolman as teacher of

the district school, hereby agree to engage the services of said

H. S. for the period of six months, and to pay him at the rate of

£1 2s 6d for each and every pupil we hereunto subscribe or send

to said school. We further agree to supply the teacher with board

in proportion to our several subscriptions; also to furnish our

proportions of wood for the use of said school. Signed, etc."

The average juvenile Canadian made, no doubt, a much more merciful,

and often much more efficient, teacher than the ex-soldier, or

broken-down tradesman from the Old Country. One of the first

duties of the newly-fledged teacher would be to go carefully over

his treasured list of subscribers and ascertain, by a careful

arithmetical calculation, the exact number of weeks and days for

which he was entitled to board and lodging at the house of each

of his respective patrons. The next step would be to find out,

by personal or written enquiries, at what time it would be most

convenient for each family to open its doors to him. This process,

and the subsequent installation in each home would, it may well be

imagined, be trying ordeals to the young and bashful pedagogue....

The receptions accorded the poor itinerant would be, of course,

as various as the feelings, dispositions and circumstances of

the householders, or, more strictly speaking, of the presiding

divinities of the parlor and the kitchen, especially the kitchen.

In many cases he would quickly feel at home. The welcome would be

cordial, the hospitality ungrudging, the companionship agreeable.

In such cases the bashful beginner would soon be able to shake off

the intolerably humiliating dread of being regarded as an intruder,

an interloper, or half-mendicant. But in numerous instances, as

may readily be conceived, the situation would be most galling to a

sensitive nature. The over-worked, perpetually tired and fretful

mistress of the house would receive him with an ill-concealed frown

or an involuntary sigh. To her he represented just so much addition,

for so long a time, to her hourly toils and cares, already too heavy

to be borne.

Unwashed specimens of "the heritage of the poor" would swarm in

every corner. The fear and awe which secured him immunity for a time

would soon wear away, and as they were replaced with the familiarity

that breeds contempt, he would be exposed to all manner of

well-meant advances and indignities. The scorn at the roughly-spread

supper table would be a scramble, and the twilight hour, which, if

he happened to have a spice of romance in his composition, he would

fain have consecrated to quiet thought or fancy, would be made

hideous by a juvenile pandemonium, as amidst stripes and cuffs and

yells and tears the unruly flock would finally be got to bed. These,

of course, were the ill-regulated householders, but they exist.

Well does the writer remember some personal experiences in this

delightful phase of the professional life of an earlier day--not

much more than half a semi-centennial distant. The old, dingy

farmhouse, the bare floors, the hard seats, the utter absence of

everything in the shape of books or other literature, the teeming

olive branches at every age and stage of development, the little

"spare" bedroom, whose sole furnishings consisted of the bed and

bedding, on whose hard floor he reclined for lack of chair and table

evening after evening for hours after he was supposed to be in bed,

reading by the feeble rays of a tallow candle the ponderous volumes

of Dr. Dick's philosophies, which had been kindly loaned him by a

friend, and which were devoured with an eagerness begotten of a

genuine hunger, though out of all proportion to the literary merits

of the works.

THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.

Rude and unfinished and uncomfortable as it was, "The Old School

House" would be sure to bring up to many an "old boy" tender

memories, which would be recalled in after years in words somewhat

like those in poetic form as follows:

It stood on a bleak country corner,

The houses were distant and few;

A meadow lay back in the distance,

Beyond rose the hills to our view.

The road, crossing there at right angles,

Untraversed by pomp and array;

Were cropped by the cows in the summer,

I've watched them there many a day.

In memory's hall hangs the picture,

And years of sad care are between;

It hangs with a beautiful gilding,

And well do I love it, I ween.

It stood on a bleak country corner,

But boyhood's young heart made it warm;

It glowed in the sunshine of summer,

'Twas cheerful in winter and storm.

The teacher, O well I remember,

My heart has long kept him in place;

Perhaps by the world he's forgotten,

His memory no touch can efface.

He met us with smiles on the threshold,

And in that rude temple of art,

He left, with the skill of a workman,

His touch on the mind and the heart.

Oh! gay were the sports of the noontide,

When winter winds frolicked with snow;

We laughed at the freaks of the storm-king,

And shouted him on all aglow.

We flashed at his beautiful sculpture,

Regardless of all its array;

We plunged in the feathery snow-drifts,

And sported the winter away.

We sat on the old-fashioned benches,

Beguiled with our pencil and slate;

We thought of the opening future,

And dreamed of our manhood's estate.

I cast a fond glance o'er the meadow,

The hills just behind it I see;

Away in the charm of the distance,

Old school house! a blessing on thee!

_Mr. Canniff Haight_, in Canada of "Fifty Years Ago," gives the

following account of the common school education of his day:--"The

schoolhouse was close at hand, and its aspect is deeply graven in

my memory. It was a small, square structure, with low ceiling. In

the centre of the room was a box stove, around which the long wooden

benches, without backs, were ranged. Next the wall were the desks,

raised a little from the floor. In the summer time the pupils were

all of tender years, the elder ones being kept at home to help with

the work. I was one of a lot of little urchins ranged daily on hard

wooden seats, with our feet dangling in the air for seven or eight

hours a day. In such a plight we were expected to be very good

children, to make no noise, and to learn our lessons. It is a marvel

that so many years had to elapse before parents and teachers could

be brought to see that keeping children in such a position for so

many hours was an act of great cruelty. The terror of the rod was

the only thing that could keep us still, and at that often failed.

Sometimes, tired and weary, we fell asleep and tumbled off the

bench, to be awakened by the fall of the rod. In the winter time,

the small school was filled to overflowing with the larger boys and

girls. This did not improve our condition, for we were more closely

packed together, and were either shivering with the cold or being

roasted with a red-hot stove.... I next sat under the rod of an

Irish pedagogue--an old man who evidently believed that the only way

to get anything into a boy's head was to pound it in with a stick

through his back. There was no discipline, and the noise we made

seemed to rival a bedlam.--_pp. 17, 18._

"As far as my recollection goes, the teachers were generally of a

very inferior order, and rarely possessed more than a smattering

of the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. They were poorly paid,

and "boarded round" the neighbourhood. But it is not improbable

that they generally received all that their services were worth....

The school-houses where the youth were taught were in keeping

with the extent of instruction received within them. They were

invariably small, with low ceilings, badly lighted, and without

ventilation."--_pp. 157, 158._

A SCHOOL TEACHER'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN 1865.

From the Toronto _Mail_ of November 28th, 1888, I select the

following graphic account of the personal experience of a school

teacher in 1865:--

"'Yes," said an old teacher to a representative of the _Mail_

yesterday, "education has been wonderfully revolutionized in Ontario

during the last twenty-five years. It was in January, 1865, that I

first took up the birch, swaying it until I cautiously made up my

mind to quit when the new Act requiring higher qualifications came

into force in 1871. At that time the school houses in my county

were all constructed of logs, and more uninviting buildings than

these were not to be found in the country. It did appear that the

ratepayers were more led to educate their children out of a feeling

of latent and legal compulsion, than out of duty and parental

regard. The life of a teacher in those days was not the high-toned

one of to-day. Let me give my own experience, and when I have

related it you will see how much there is in the complaints and

grumblings of the existing generation of school teachers.

"'A school became vacant in the neighboring township, and I made up

my mind, armed as I was with a first-class certificate awarded me by

the County Board of Examaminers, that I would apply for the position.

"'I went to two influential men in the neighborhood and succeeded in

coaxing them to go with me to the trustees of the school. We arrived

at the section in due time, and after making due enquiries proceeded

to the house of one of the trustees, who had the reputation of

knowing everything worth discovering in the school law of the

period. I felt an awful dread and confusion come over me when in

the presence of that trustee. I was introduced, and I immediately

told my errand. The horny-handed son of toil gave me one of those

inscrutable looks that nearly sunk me to the earth. He coughed

slightly, jerked his head back, put his two hands in the pockets of

his trousers, and immediately proceeded to business.'

"'So yous wants the school, does you?'

"'I do, sir.'

"'Well, I might as well tell ye at once that the teacher we intend

hiring must be better than the present one. He is a curse to the

children of this section, with his grammar and his jography, and all

his other fal da rals. Why, sir; my son Bill comes home the other

night and says he,

"'Father, what is grammar?'

"I says, Bill, I never studied grammar, and you see how I am able to

get along without it. Grammar is no good for ploughing or cutting up

that slash fornent the house."

"Well," says the boy, "would you tell me what our teacher meant by

saying that Berlin is on the Spree?" I then got mad, and says I,

"Bill, never let me hear ye say anything more about these things.

Sure they were never taught to us from the New Testament when I was

in school."

But that is not all, the boy began to say to himself, orthography,

etymology, syntax, and prosody, going over them again and again,

until I says to Moriah, "is the child getting mad, wife!"

No sooner had he heard that than he began to say, "Noun,

adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, noun, adjective, pronoun,

preposition," as before. I then got afeard the child was clean

crazy, and when I was in the act of rising to catch hold of him,

says he, "Father, the earth is not flat, it is a round ball and goes

round."

"Och, och," says I, "that spalpeen of a school master has driven my

son mad."...

So I calls a meeting, and my two colleages, Thomas Ginty and Edward

Crawford, and myself, met at the school house and dismissed the

rascal.

When the leader of education of school section No. 5 ---- stopped,

I turned to my companions, not knowing what qualifications were

expected of me.

The trustee continued:--"Can you read?" "Yes." "Can you cipher?"

"Yes." "Do you know how to count by long division?" "I do." "You

don't know grammar?"

Here was the crucial test. I resolved, however, to get out of it the

best way possible, and replied:--"I don't like grammar, and don't

know much about it," which was true. "Good."

The trustee smiled sweetly and said:--"The school is yours; but,

remember, no grammar or jography, or out you go."

I was taken to the other trustees, and in their presence I was put

through the same examination as above recorded.

The bargain was struck there and then. I was promised fifteen

dollars a month board from house to house, with the condition that

I should put on the fires in winter, and keep the school house

clean--a herculean task in those days.

On the morning that I was to assume my pedagogic duties, I arrived

at the school house about 8 a.m., and at once proceeded to build a

fire. I never can forget the feeling of utter loneliness which came

over me, as I stood opposite a fireplace wide enough to accommodate

an ox. On the walls of the building were three maps, of what

countries I do not now remember, because geography was proscribed

during my _regime_. Daylight was seen through the walls. The seats

were of the most primitive character, while my own desk resembled

more the top of a toboggan slide than the rostrum of one who was

teaching the young idea how to shoot. There was no fence round the

building, the play ground being illimitable in its dimensions and

capacities. In short the whole of the surroundings of this rural

academy congealed all literary aspirations, and it was little wonder

that the boys and girls meeting there, and pretending to be drinking

at the fountain of knowledge, grew up utterly destitute of the first

principles of a rational and suitable education.

The children arrived, and I immediately began to assert my authority

as the head of the institution. I made a short speech, telling the

children that nothing would be taught in my school but reading,

writing and 'rithmetic, adding that the ten commandments would be

included in the curriculum. I got along famously that day with the

pupils, and as I was told afterwards, when my charges went home

and told their parents the new order of things, I was universally

pronounced the greatest teacher of the age. I lodged that night with

Trustee Fallis, my examiner. He was delighted with the reports given

by Bill of my mode of teaching, and in a moment of confidence told

me that the school was mine as long as I liked to keep it. I humbly

thanked him, and retired to my room, where I found Bill, the heir

of the house, in innocent slumber. Bill did not by any means prove a

pleasant bed-fellow. Occasionally his feet were found where his head

should be, and he repeatedly called out, "No grammar! Hurrah!" Next

morning I rose, and after breakfast majestically strode through two

feet of snow to the log school house, and then put in another day's

grinding.

At four o'clock the trustees met and handed me a badly written and

worse spelled manuscript, which on perusal I found to be the list

of houses I was to board at during the coming three months.... Now,

sir, continued the dominie, I put in a whole year of that kind

of work; listened to all the gossip of the neighborhood, slept

occasionally on the floor, nursed all the babies of the section, and

just as I thought that my position was secure, disaster overcame me.

One of the trustees had a daughter of prepossessing appearance, and

I could not resist the temptation of falling in love with her. When

the news got abroad that I was paying attentions to her, the section

began to talk adversely of myself. Complaints were soon heard as to

my teaching. Some said that I was teaching grammar on the sly, and

that I was partial to some of the children. The result of it all was

that a meeting of the board took place, and, despite the protests of

Thomas Ginty, I was, in the language of modern times, "fired."

"Now," continued the old teacher, "the moral of what I told you is

this:--Compare the log school house, its internal arrangements and

play grounds, with those of to-day throughout the whole country, and

you have the greatest exemplification possible of the progress made

by Ontario during the last quarter of a century. There is scarcely

a section now but has its brick school house, with surroundings

attractive and neat. The teacher is given ample opportunity to

cultivate the minds of his pupils to the highest pitch possible,

at least as far as requisite for the general affairs of life. The

old prejudices against teaching anything else but the three R's are

gone. You have the walls of the buildings ornamented with maps,

charts and other appliances. Text-books are provided of the most

modern character, while a rigid system of examinations acts as

an incentive to the teacher and makes him an instructor in fact

and reality. Lastly, we have an intelligent and cultured class of

teachers, and taking all things into consideration, they are well

paid, and still better, their services are year by year becoming

more appreciated. A better class of people now act in the capacity

of trustees, and as years roll by a still more intelligent class

will be found in these positions.

REMINISCENCES OF EDUCATION IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON IN 1852.

In conversation with a Reporter of the _Hamilton Times_ in 1888, Mr.

James Cummings, who, after thirty-seven years service on the City

Board of Education, thus related his early educational experience:--

"At the time I first became connected with the board in 1852,"

said Mr. Cummings, "education was at rather a low ebb, not only in

Hamilton, but throughout the country. Dr. Ryerson had just commenced

his excellent common school scheme and in 1847, had established a

training school for teachers in Toronto. Hamilton had decided to

adopt the common school system and the reorganization of the schools

was just being effected. Previous to that time the education of

the children of the better class was almost wholly in the hands of

private school teachers. There were a few small school rooms in

the different wards, but they were wretched places, where usually

fifty children were crowded into a small room reeking with fetid

atmosphere. On the site of the present Cannon street school was a

small frame grammar school, at which many of the present leading

citizens received the ground-work of their education. A great reform

was inaugurated here in the year 1852. Under the new Ryerson Act

of 1850 trustees were clothed with new powers, and we immediately

proceeded to reorganize the schools here on the new plan. Tenders

were let for the erection of the present Central school and for ward

schools in different parts of the city. Mr. (now Dr. J. H.) Sangster

was appointed head master, and to him was entrusted the appointment

of teachers, and he was made responsible for the efficiency of

the schools. He had been a teacher in the Ryerson model school in

Toronto, and he appointed as his assistants thoroughly trained

graduates of that excellent institution. This was the founding of

Hamilton's excellent common school system. It kept improving from

year to year and soon closed out the private schools. Larger ward

schools were erected, and since that day Hamilton has taken a high

position educationally in the Province."

EDUCATION IN THE COUNTY OF SIMCOE, 1852-1872.

Dr. Ryerson was invited to open the new Public School in the town of

Barrie in 1872. Before the ceremony was proceeded with a letter was

read from Judge (now the Hon. Senator) Gowan, who was unable to be

present, referring to his long services in the cause of education in

the County of Simcoe. He said:--

"Ever since I came to this country, nearly thirty years ago, I

have been connected with the school system, having held the office

of Trustee of the Grammar School, and the position of Chairman of

the Board of Public Instruction from its first institution till

superseded by recent enactment, and, with the exception of my

friend, Mr. Dallas, I am the only member of the original Board now

living.

"I have seen the gradual improvement in the school system, and

the improvement in the schools in this country from very small

beginnings to the present advanced and most prosperous condition,

so you will understand my disappointment in not being able to be

present on the interesting occasion of laying the corner-stone of

the Public School house of Barrie, by the Chief Superintendent of

Education.

"My position as Secretary and Treasurer of the Grammar School,

and Chairman of the Board of Public Instruction, in this, the

largest county in Ontario, brought me in constant communication

with the Education Office in Toronto; and I can say that the able,

zealous, and wise administration of the school law by Dr. Ryerson

and his assistant, Dr. Hodgins, has, here at least, had a happy

effect--fostering the increase of schools, securing their better

management, giving them efficient teachers, and providing the means,

within easy access to all, of securing a good common education to

the youth of this country, and a very superior education in the

Grammar Schools."

Mr. (now Judge) Boys, gave a sketch of the educational history of

Barrie as follows:

"Twenty years ago there was no Public or Common School, not,

however, without school accommodation, as we were then included in

what was known as School Section No. 1 of the adjoining Township of

Vespra. We had no building specially set apart as a school house,

but a rented room then sufficed to carry on the daily teaching

embraced within the section.... Twenty years ago one teacher took

charge of all our scholars--both male and female--and if there is

any doubt as to his labor having been great, there can be none as to

his salary having been small, for he subsisted on a sum of £60 per

annum.

"In January, 1854, Barrie became possessed of a school of its own,

and built a school house of frame 24 × 36, just about large enough

to fill up one room in the building we are now erecting. It was,

no doubt, at the time it was built, amply large, yet I find, from

the record of the school, that such was the growth of the town

by September, 1854, non-residents were refused admittance to the

Barrie school on the ground of its over-crowded state, the average

attendance of males being seventy--the females were then taught

in another building by a female teacher. This state of things

continued for nearly a year, when a separate school was established

for Barrie, which brought some relief to the over-crowded building.

But it was evident that more school accommodation would have to

be supplied, and I see by the minute book of the school, that a

new school house was talked of so far back as January, 1855. The

new school house, however, never came. The difficulty at last was

settled by an enlargement of the old building, which then assumed

the appearance it now presents. With the enlarged school house,

supplemented by some rented rooms, the schools of Barrie have ever

since continued to the present time. It took time to convince our

people of the imperative necessity there was for a large outlay in

providing a new school house. But the ratepayers became convinced

at last, and gave their hearty approval to an expenditure which

will enable us, during the next year, to erect a school building

suitable to the place, and one worthy of the trouble you, sir, have

taken to be present at its official commencement. During the time

I refer to, a Grammar School building of brick was erected and

enlarged, and a Separate School building put up.

"To-day, with your kind assistance, we have inaugurated a system

of Public School accommodation which, with our school known as the

Barrie School, Separate and High Schools, will ultimately provide

for the educational wants of the neighborhood. I use the expression

'inaugurated a system,' because I hope and trust that our efforts

in this direction will not be slackened on the completion of this

building.... We believe this building will be worthy of the honor

you have done us in coming here to-day, we also believe at some

future day, we shall have a system of Public School accommodation

worthy of the life-long and successful efforts you have made to give

to Ontario an almost perfect system of education. It is seldom that

public men are asked to assist in building a monument to themselves,

but I have asked you to do so on this occasion, for I look upon

buildings of this nature as memorials of your well-directed public

work during the last thirty years, and when you have gone to your

long home, and the envy--aye--and the malice of your enemies are

forgotten, your name associated with the noble work you have

accomplished, will be handed down from generation to generation, and

each school section throughout the country will contain a monument

to your memory, as enduring as the foundations of this continent."

CHAPTER VI.

PERSONAL CHAPTER RELATING TO THE REV. DR. RYERSON.

In Dr. Ryerson's personal sketch of his early history he gives the

following particulars as to his student and teacher life:

I was born on the 24th of March, 1803, in the Township of

Charlotteville, near the Village of Vittoria, in the then London

District, now the County of Norfolk.... The district grammar-school

was then kept within half-a-mile of my father's residence, by Mr.

James Mitchell (afterwards Judge Mitchell), an excellent classical

scholar; he came from Scotland with the late Rt. Rev. Dr. Strachan,

first Bishop of Toronto. He treated me with much kindness. When I

recited to him my lessons in English grammar he often said that he

had never studied the English grammar himself, that he wrote and

spoke English by the Latin grammar. At the age of fourteen I had

the opportunity of attending a course of instruction in the English

language given by two professors, the one an Englishman, and the

other an American, who taught nothing but English grammar. They

professed in one course of instruction, by lectures, to enable a

diligent pupil to parse any sentence in the English language. I was

sent to attend these lectures, the only boarding abroad for school

instruction I ever enjoyed. My previous knowledge of the _letter_

of the grammar was of great service to me, and gave me an advantage

over other pupils, so that before the end of the course I was

generally called up to give visitors an illustration of the success

of the system, which was certainly the most effective I have ever

since witnessed, having charts, etc., to illustrate the agreement

and government of words.

This whole course of instruction by two able men, who did nothing

but teach grammar from one week's end to another had to me all

the attraction of a charm and a new discovery. It gratified both

curiosity and ambition, and I pursued it with absorbing interest,

until I had gone through Murray's two volumes of "Expositions

and Exercises," Lord Kames' "Elements of Criticism," and Blair's

"Lectures on Rhetoric," of which I still have the notes which I

then made. The same professors obtained sufficient encouragement to

give a second course of instruction and lectures at Vittoria, and

one of them becoming ill, the other solicited my father to allow me

to assist him, as it would be useful to me, while it would enable

him to fulfil his engagements. Thus, before I was sixteen, I was

inducted as a teacher, by lecturing on my native language. This

course of instruction, and exercises in English, have proved of the

greatest advantage to me, not less in enabling me to study foreign

languages than in using my own.

While working on the farm I did more than ordinary day's work,

that I might show how industrious, instead of lazy, as some said,

religion made a person. I studied between three and six o'clock in

the morning, carried a book in my pocket during the day to improve

odd moments by reading or learning, and then reviewed my studies of

the day aloud while walking out in the evening.... A kind friend

offered to give me any book that I would commit to memory, and

submit to his examination of the same. In this way I obtained my

first Latin grammar, "Watts on the Mind," and "Watts' Logic."

My eldest brother, George, after the war, went to Union College,

U. S., where he finished his collegiate studies. He was a

fellow-student with the late Dr. Wayland, and afterwards succeeded

my brother-in-law as Master of the London District Grammar School.

His counsels, examinations, and ever kind assistance were a great

encouragement and of immense service to me.

I felt a strong desire to pursue further my classical studies, and

determined, with the kind counsel and aid of my eldest brother, to

proceed to Hamilton, and place myself for a year under the tuition

of a man of high reputation both as a scholar and a teacher,

the late John Law, Esq., then head master of the Gore District

Grammar School. I applied myself with such ardour, and prepared

such an amount of work in both Latin and Greek, that Mr. Law said

it was impossible for him to give the time and hear me read all

that I had prepared, and that he would, therefore, examine me on

the translation and construction of the more difficult passages,

remarking more than once that it was impossible for any human mind

to sustain long the strain that I was imposing upon mine.[58] In

the course of some six months his apprehensions were realized, as

I was seized with a brain fever, and on partially recovering took

cold, which resulted in inflammation of the lungs by which I was so

reduced that my physician, the late Dr. James Graham, of Norfolk,

pronounced my case hopeless, and my death was hourly expected.

[58] Having written to the late Hon. Samuel Mills for his

recollections of these school days, Mr. Mills replied as follows:

"I have a distinct recollection of having had the honor of being

at the Hamilton Grammar School with yourself in the years 1823 and

1824, and that the late John Law was head master at the time. He

was considered a highly educated and accomplished scholar, and was

so well qualified for the position he held, that the school had a

provincial reputation and was patronized by many parties living at

a great distance by sending their sons to it; and the very fact

of your attending the school gave éclat to it, as you were then

considered a well educated young man, far in advance of the rest of

us. Your studies, if my recollection serves me right, were confined

entirely to reading Latin and Greek, and I know Mr. Law and the

whole school looked upon you as being a credit to it."

After a severe illness Dr. Ryerson happily recovered.

His narrative states that, "the next day after my recovery, I

left home and became usher in the London District Grammar School,

applying myself to my new work with much diligence and earnestness,

so that I soon succeeded in gaining the good-will of parents and

pupils, and they were quite satisfied with my services,--leaving the

head master to his favorite pursuits of gardening and building!

In 1872, Dr. Ryerson wrote to Mr. Simpson McCall, of Vittoria and

asked: "Will you have the kindness to let me know what is your own

recollection as to the attendance at the school, especially in the

winter months, and the impression of the neighborhood generally

as to its efficiency during the two years that I taught it?" Mr.

McCall replied as follows: I can assure you that I have a vivid

recollection of the London District School during the winters of

1821 and 1822, being an attendant myself. I also remember several of

the scholars with whom I associated, viz: H. V. A. Rapelje, Esq.,

late Sheriff of the County of Norfolk; Capt. Joseph Bostwick, of

Port Stanley; James and Hannah Moore.

The number generally attending during the winters of those two

years, if I remember correctly, were from forty to fifty.

The school while under your charge was well and efficiently

conducted, and was so considered and appreciated throughout

the neighborhood at the time; and after you left the charge of

the London District School it was generally regretted in the

neighborhood.

I remember hearing this frequently remarked not only by pupils who

attended the school under your tuition but also by their parents.

"During two years I was thus teacher and student, advancing

considerably in classical studies, I took great delight in "Locke on

the Human Understanding," Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy,"

and "Blackstone's Commentaries," especially the sections of the

latter on the Prerogatives of the Crown, the Rights of the subject,

and the Province of Parliament."

In an address before the Ontario Teachers' Association in 1872,

Dr. Ryerson said: "As it has of late been stated, so confidently

and largely, that he had yet to learn the elements of his native

tongue. Such had been the representations on the subject, that he

had begun to suspect his own identity, and to ask himself whether

it was not a delusion that he had in boyhood not only studied, but,

as he supposed, had mastered Murray's two octavo volumes of English

Grammar and Kame's Elements of Criticism and Blair's Rhetoric, of

which he still had the notes that he made in early life; and had

been called to assist teaching a special class of young persons in

English Grammar when he was only fifteen years of age; and whether

it was not a fancy that he had taught, as he supposed, with some

degree of acceptance and success, what was then known as the London

District Grammar School for two years, and had subsequently placed

himself for a year under an accomplished scholar in order to read

Latin and Greek. Somewhat disturbed by these doubts, he thought he

would satisfy himself by writing to the only two gentlemen with whom

he was now acquainted, who knew him in these early relations. In

reference to these statements he would read the correspondence on

the subject." (See the foot notes appended.)

THE REV. DR. RYERSON AS A TEACHER.

As to Dr. Ryerson's influence as a teacher, Rev. Dr. Ormiston thus

referred to it at the Ontario Teacher's Convention in 1872. He said:

"The teacher has a reward peculiar to his work--a living, lasting

memorial of his worth. The feelings of loving reverence which we

entertain for those who have awakened our intellectual life, and

guided us in our earliest attempts at the acquisition of knowledge,

are as enduring as they are grateful. I shall never forget, as I can

never repay, the obligations under which I lie to the venerable and

honorable Chief Superintendent, Dr. Ryerson, not only for the kindly

paternal greeting with which, as principal, he welcomed me, a raw,

timid, untutored lad, on my first entrance into Victoria College,

when words of encouragement fell like dew-drops on my heart, and for

the many acts of thoughtful generosity which aided me in my early

career, and for the faithful friendship and Christian sympathy which

has extended over nearly thirty years, unbroken and unclouded, a

friendship which, strengthened and intensified by prolonged and

endearing intimacy, I now cherish as one of the highest honors and

dearest delights of my life; but especially for the quickening,

energizing influence of his instructions as professor, when he

taught me how to think, to reason and to learn. How I enjoyed the

hours spent in his lecture-room--hours of mental and moral growth

never to be forgotten! I owe him much, and but for his presence here

to-day, I would say more of what I think and feel of his character

and worth. He has won for himself a place in the heart of many

a young Canadian, and his name will be ever associated with the

educational advantages and history of Ontario. May he be spared for

many years to see the result of his labors, in the growing prospects

and success of the common schools and educational institutions of

this noble and prosperous province, whose best interests he has

patriotically done so much to promote."

In 1882, after Dr. Ryerson's death, Dr. Ormiston thus referred

to his experience at Victoria College, then under Dr. Ryerson's

presidency. He said:--

"In the autumn of 1843, I went to Victoria College, doubting much

whether I was prepared to matriculate as a freshman. Though my

attainments in some of the subjects prescribed for examination

were far in advance of the requirements, in other subjects I knew

I was sadly deficient. On the evening of my arrival, while my

mind was burdened with the importance of the step I had taken,

and by no means free from anxiety about the issue, Dr. Ryerson,

at that time Principal of the College, visited me in my room. I

shall never forget that interview. He took me by the hand; and few

men could express as much by a mere hand-shake as he. It was a

welcome, an encouragement, an inspiration, and an earnest of future

fellowship and friendship. It lessened the timid awe I naturally

felt towards one in such an elevated position--I had never before

seen a Principal of a College--it dissipated all boyish awkwardness

and awakened filial confidence. He spoke of Scotland, my native

land, and of her noble sons, distinguished in every branch of

philosophy and literature; specially of the number, the diligence,

the frugality, self-denial and success of her college students. In

this way he soon led me to tell him of my parentage, past life and

efforts, present hopes and aspirations. His manner was so gracious

and paternal--his sympathy so quick and genuine--his counsel so

ready and cheering--his assurances so grateful and inspiriting, that

not only was my heart _his_ from that hour, but my future career

seemed brighter and more certain than it had ever appeared before.

"Many times in after years have I been instructed, and guided, and

delighted with his conversation, always replete with interest and

information; but that first interview I can never forget, it is as

fresh and clear to me to-day as it was on the morning after it took

place. It has exerted a profound, enduring, moulding influence on

my whole life. For what, under God, I am, and have been enabled to

achieve, I owe more to that noble, unselfish, kind-hearted man than

to any one else.

"As a teacher he was earnest and efficient, eloquent and inspiring,

but he expected and exacted rather too much work from the average

student. His own ready and affluent mind sympathized keenly with

the apt, bright scholar, to whom his praise was warmly given, but

he scarcely made sufficient allowance for the dullness or lack

of previous preparation which failed to keep pace with him in

his long and rapid strides; hence his censures were occasionally

severe. His methods of examination furnished the very best kind

of mental discipline, fitted alike to cultivate the memory and to

strengthen the judgment. All the students revered him, but the best

of the class appreciated him most. His counsels were faithful and

judicious; his admonitions paternal and discriminating; his rebukes

seldom administered, but scathingly severe. No student ever left his

presence, without resolving to do better, to aim higher, and to win

his approval."

THE REV. DR. RYERSON AND HIS NATIVE COUNTY OF NORFOLK.

Mr. P. K. Olyne, in the _New Dominion Monthly_ for July, 1869, in an

article on "Norfolk, or the Long-Point County," thus referrs to its

settlement and to the boyhood there of Dr. Ryerson:--

"After undergoing many hardships which were only a foretaste of

what they had to endure in the future, a company arrived in the

Long Point region about the year 1780. This was then a solitary

wilderness. These pioneer Loyalists went to work with zeal

unsurpassed in clearing away the forest, in building roads and

erecting houses as commodious as it was possible to erect out

of rude materials. Among those who first came to the Long Point

country, worthy of particular notice, were Colonel Ryerson, Colonel

Backhouse, Walsh and Tisdale. In the pioneer home of Joseph Ryerson

might have been seen a remarkably bright lad. Being extremely fond

of books, he spent his spare moments in studying. So regular was his

habits in this respect, that when a neighbour would drop in and ask

for Egerton, the answer was sure to be: "You will find him in such

a place, with a book." Notwithstanding he was placed in a position

where opportunities for gaining an education were very meagre

indeed, yet he overcame all obstacles--obstacles that he could not

forget in after life, and which, like a true patriot, he set himself

to remove. How much Dr. Egerton Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of

Education, has done for the educational interests of Canada the

reader is left to judge for himself. Of late the Doctor has made a

practice of visiting the home of his childhood annually. Not always

by rail and stage has he accomplished the journey from Toronto,

but still clinging to the sport of his youthful days he would set

forward in an open boat, and paddling it himself along the shores of

the lakes would finally reach the place so dear to him, and which,

no doubt, brought afresh to his memory many recollections both

joyous and sad.

"A rude log schoolhouse was constructed by the early settlers as

soon as they could do so conveniently. A fire-place extended along

nearly a whole side of the building. Logs of considerable length

were rolled into this in cold weather for fuel, before which rude

benches or hewed logs were placed as seats for the instructor and

pupils. The close of the teacher's term was denominated "the last

day." It was customary on this occasion for the children to turn

the pedagogue out of doors by force, and for this purpose some

whiskey was generally provided as a stimulant. Such was the state

of educational institutions in the days of young Ryerson. What

advancement has education made since? We trace it step by step as

onward it has advanced, until to-day Norfolk can proudly boast of

institutions and teachers second to none of the kind in the world."

In 1851, Dr. Ryerson sent to each County Council specimens of maps,

charts, natural history, prints, etc., to the value of $30, the

Council of the County of Norfolk, acknowledged the gift in a very

hearty manner. In reply to the County Council, Dr. Ryerson said:--

From the Municipal Council of my native county, I have never

experienced unkind opposition, but have been encouraged by its

patriotic co-operation: and it affords me no small satisfaction,

that that same Council is the first in Upper Canada to acknowledge

the receipt of the documents and maps referred to--that the

resolution of the Council was seconded by an old school-fellow,[59]

and couched in terms to me the most gratifying and encouraging; and

that my first official letter of a new year, relates to topics which

call up the earliest associations of my youth, and are calculated to

prompt and impel me to renewed exertions for the intellectual and

social advancement of my native land.

[59] Mr. I. W. Powell, M.P.P., father of Colonel Powell,

Adjutant-General of Canada.

To the County Board of Public Instruction he said:

"I hope the poorest boy in my native County may have access to a

better common school than existed there when I was a lad. What

I witnessed and felt in my boyhood, gave birth to the strongest

impulses of my own mind, to do what I could to place the means and

facilities of mental development and culture within the reach of

every youth in the land."

"I am more than gratified, I am profoundly impressed, that such

efforts are made for the interests of the young, and of future

generations in the County of Norfolk. That county is dear to me by a

thousand tender recollections; and I still seem to hear in the midst

of it, a voice issuing from a mother's grave, as was wont formerly

from the living tongue, telling me that the only life worthy the

name, is that which makes man one with his fellow-men, and with his

country."

In September, 1864, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to the trip in his

frail skiff to his native county of Norfolk in the preceding month:

"In my lonely voyage from Toronto to Port Ryerse the scene was

often enchanting and the solitude sweet beyond expression. I have

witnessed the setting sun amidst the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps from

lofty elevations, on the plains of Lombardy, from the highest

eminence of the Appenines, between Bologna and Florence, and from

the crater summit of Vesuvius, but I was never more delighted and

impressed (owing, perhaps, in part to the susceptible state of

my feelings) with the beauty, effulgence, and even sublimity of

atmospheric phenomena, and the softened magnificence of surrounding

objects, than in witnessing the setting sun on the 23rd of June,

from the unruffled bosom of Lake Erie, a few miles east of Port

Dover, and about a mile from the thickly wooded shore, with its

deepening and variously reflected shadows. And when the silent

darkness enveloped all this beauty, and grandeur, and magnificence

in undistinguishable gloom, my mind experienced that wonderful sense

of freedom and relief which come from all that suggests the idea of

boundlessness--the deep sky, the dark night, the endless circle, the

illimitable waters. The world with its tumult of cares seemed to

have retired, and God and His works appeared all in all, suggesting

the enquiry which faith and experience promptly answered in the

affirmative--

With glorious clouds encompassed round

Whom angels dimly see;

Will the unsearchable be found;

Will God appear to me?

"My last remark is the vivifying influence and unspeakable pleasure

of visiting scenes endeared to me by many tender, and comparatively

few painful recollections. Amid the fields, woods, out-door

exercises, and associations of the first twenty years of my life,

I have seemed to forget the sorrows, labors and burdens of more

than two score years, and be transported back to what was youthful,

simple, healthy, active, and happy. I can heartily sympathise with

the feelings of Sir Walter Scott when, in reply to Washington

Irving, who had expressed disapprobation in the scenery of the

Tweed, immortalized by the genius of the border minstrel, he said:

"'It may be partiality, but to my eyes these gray hills and all this

wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like

the very nakedness of the land. It has something bold, and stern,

and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich

scenery of Edinburgh, which is ornamented garden land, I begin to

wish myself back again among my honest gray hills, and if I did not

see the heather at least once a year I think I should die.'

"Last autumn I lodged two weeks on the farm on which I was born,

with the family of Mr. Joseph Duncan, where the meals were taken

daily in a room the wood-work of which I, as an amateur carpenter,

had finished more than forty years ago, while recovering from a long

and serious illness."[60]

[60] The island within Long Point, which Mr. Ryerson's father

obtained from the Crown, but which then belonged to him, was marked

on old maps as Pottshawk Point, but designated on later maps, and

more generally known, as "Ryerson's Island."

CLOSING OFFICIAL ACTS AND UTTERANCES OF DR. RYERSON.

An entire revision and consolidation of the laws relating to public

and high schools took place in 1874, in which Dr. Ryerson took a

leading part. But the revision related chiefly to details and to the

supply of former omissions in the law.

The last important official act of Dr. Ryerson was to arrange

for the educational exhibit of the department at the Centennial

Exhibition in 1876. That was most successfully carried out; and,

at the close of that exhibition, the following highly gratifying

"award" was communicated to the then venerable ex-chief, after

he had retired from office. The award was made by the American

Centennial Commission, and was to the following effect:

For a quite complete and admirably arranged exhibition,

illustrating the Ontario system of education and its excellent

results; also for the efficiency of an administration which has

gained for the Ontario Department a most honorable distinction

among government educational agencies.

This award was quite a gratification to the now retired chief of the

Department, then in his seventy-third year, and amply repaid him, as

he said, for many years of anxious toil and solicitude, while it was

a gratifying and unlooked-for compensation for all of the undeserved

opposition which he had encountered while laying the foundations of

our educational system.

In a letter to a friend toward the close of his official career,

Dr. Ryerson thus explained the principles upon which he had

conducted the educational affairs of the Province during his long

administration of them. He said:--

During these many years I have organized and administered the

Education Department upon the broad and impartial principles which I

have always advocated. During the long period of my administration

of the Department I knew neither religious sect nor political party;

I knew no party other than that of the country at large; I never

exercised any patronage for personal or party purposes; I never

made or recommended one of the numerous appointments of teachers

in the Normal or Model Schools, or clerk in the education office,

except upon the ground of testimonials as to personal characters and

qualifications, and on a probationary trial of six months.

* * * * *

I believe this is the true method of managing all the public

departments, and every branch of the public service. I believe it

would contribute immensely to both the efficiency and economy of

the public service. * * * It would greatly elevate the standard of

action and attainments and stimulate the ambition of the young men

of the country, when they know that their selection and advancement

in their country's service depended upon their individual merits,

irrespective of sect or party, and not as the reward of zeal as

political partisans in elections or otherwise, on their own part, or

on that of their fathers or relatives.

The power of a government in a country is immense for good or ill.

It is designed by the Supreme Being to be a "minister of God for

good" to a whole people, without partiality, as well as without

hypocrisy, like the rays of the sun; and the administration of

infinite wisdom and justice and truth and purity.

* * * * *

I know it has been contended that party patronage * * * is an

essential element in the existence of a government. * * * The

Education Department has existed--and it is the highest public

department in Upper Canada--for more than thirty years without such

an element, with increasing efficiency and increasing strength, in

the public estimation, during the whole of that period. Justice, and

virtue, and patriotism, and intelligence are stronger elements of

power and usefulness than those of rewarding partisans; and if the

rivalship and competition of public men should consist in devising

and promoting measures for the advancement of the country and in

exercising the executive power most impartially and intelligently

for the best interests of all classes, then the moral standard of

government and of public men would be greatly exalted, and the

highest civilization of the whole country be advanced.

In a series of letters published in defence of his administration of

the Education Department in 1872, he thus pointed out the character

of his difficult and delicate task. He also gave a brief glance at

what had been accomplished by the Department since he took office in

1844. He said:--

The Department of which I have had charge since 1844, and during

several administrations of government, is confessedly the most

difficult and complicated, if not the most important, of any

department of the public service. Since 1844, it has devolved on me

to frame laws, and to devise, develop, and administer a system of

public instruction for the people of this Province. That system has

been more eulogized by both English and American educationists, and

more largely adopted in other British colonies, on both sides of the

globe, than any other system of public instruction in America.

The system of popular education in Ontario has opened a free

school to every child in the land, and proclaimed his right to

its advantages; it has planted a school house in nearly every

neighborhood, and in hundreds of instances, made the school house

the best building in the neighborhood; it has superseded the topers

and broken-down characters, so common as teachers of a former age,

by a class of teachers not excelled in morals by the teachers

of any other country, and who, as a whole, compare favorably in

qualifications with those of any State in America; it has achieved

a uniformity of excellent text-books, earnestly prayed for by

educators in the neighboring States, and has spread throughout

the land books of useful and entertaining knowledge to the number

of nearly a million of volumes; it is the nearest approach to a

voluntary system of any public school system in the world; and it

has developed larger resources than that of any other State in

America, in proportion to the wealth and number of inhabitants.

This unparalleled success is due to the Christian feeling, the

energy, patriotism and liberality of the people of this Province;

but it has been imposed on me to construct the machinery,

devise the facilities and agencies by which so great a work

has been accomplished, and to do what I could to encourage my

fellow-countrymen in its promotion.

The administration of laws generally is by learned judges, by the

pleadings of learned counsel, and the deliberations of selected

juries; but the administration of the school law and system is

through the agency of several hundred elected councils, and

nearly twenty thousand elected trustees,--thus embodying, not

the learned professions, but the intelligence, common sense,

feelings and interests of the people at large in the work of school

administration and local self-government.

REASONS FOR DR. RYERSON'S RETIREMENT AS CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF

EDUCATION.

In "The Story of My Life," I gave the following reasons, amongst

others, which induced Dr. Ryerson to propose a change in the

headship of the Education Department. I said: "For many years after

confederation Dr. Ryerson felt that the new political condition of

the Province, which localized, as well as circumscribed, its civil

administration of affairs, required a change in the management of

the Education Department. He, therefore, (as early as in 1868,

and again in 1872) urged upon the Government the desirability

of relieving him from the anomalous position in which he found

himself placed under the new system. The reasons which he urged

for his retirement are given in a pamphlet devoted to a 'defence'

of the system of education, which he published in 1872, and are as

follows:--

"When political men have made attacks upon the school law, or the

school system and myself, and I have answered them, then the cry

has been raised by my assailants and their abettors, that I was

interfering with politics. They would assail me without stint, in

hopes of crushing me, and then gag me against all defence or reply.

"So deeply did I feel the disadvantage and growing evil of this

state of things to the department and school system itself, that

I proposed, four years ago last December, to retire from the

department, and recommended the creation and appointment of a

Minister of Public Instruction. My resignation was not accepted, nor

my recommendation adopted; when, two months later, I proposed that,

at the commencement of each session of the legislature, a committee

of seven or nine (including the Provincial Secretary for the time

being) should be elected by ballot, or by mutual agreement of the

leading men of both parties, on the Education Department; which

committee should examine into all the operations of the department

for the year then ending, consider the school estimates, and any

bill or recommendations which might be submitted for the advancement

of the school system, and report to the house accordingly. By many

thoughtful men, this system has been considered more safe, more

likely to secure a competent and working head of the department,

and less liable to make the school system a tool of party politics,

than for the head of it to have a seat in Parliament, and thus

leave the educational interests of the country dependent upon the

votes of a majority of electors in one riding. This recommendation,

submitted on the 30th of January, 1869, has not yet been adopted;

and I am left isolated, responsible in the estimation of legislators

and everybody else for the department--the target of every attack,

whether in the newspapers or in the Legislative Assembly, yet

without any access to it or to its members, except through the

press, and no other support than the character of my work and the

general confidence of the public."

DR. RYERSON'S LETTER OF RESIGNATION IN 1868 AND REPLY TO IT.

The salient points of Dr. Ryerson's letter of resignation, dated

7th December, 1868, and addressed to Hon. M. C. Cameron, Provincial

Secretary, are as follows:--

"I have the honor to submit to the favourable consideration of the

Lieutenant-Governor in Council what, some three weeks since, I

submitted to the individual members of the Government, namely, that

"The Department of Public Instruction shall be under the management

of a member of the Executive Council, to be designated 'Minister

of Public Instruction,' who shall be an _ex officio_ member of

the Toronto University and of the Council of Public Instruction,

and who, in addition to the powers and functions vested in the

Chief Superintendent of Education, shall have the oversight of

all educational institutions which are or may be, aided by public

endowment or legislative grant, to inspect and examine, from time to

time, personally or any person appointed by him, into the character

and working of such institution; and by him shall all public moneys

be paid in support or aid of such institutions, and to him they will

report at such times and in such manner as he shall direct....

"Our system of public instruction has acquired such gigantic

dimensions, and the network of its operations so pervades every

municipality of the land, and is so interwoven with our municipal

and judicial systems of government, that I think its administration

should now be vested in a responsible Minister of the Crown, with a

seat in Parliament; and that I should not stand in the way of the

application to our varied educational interests of that ministerial

responsibility, which is sound in principle and wise in policy.

During the past year I have presented a report on school systems

in other countries, with a view of improving my own; and the

Legislative Assembly has appointed a Select Committee for the same

purpose. I have, therefore, thought this was the proper time to

suggest the modification and extension of the Department of Public

Instruction....

"While, in addition to the duties imposed upon me by law as Chief

Superintendent of Education, I have voluntarily established a system

of providing the municipal and school authorities with libraries,

text-books and every description of school furniture and school

apparatus--devising and developing their domestic manufacture. I

have thus saved the country very many thousands of dollars in the

prices as well as the quality of the books, maps, etc., etc. I can

truly say that I have not derived one farthing's advantage from

any of these arrangements, beyond the consciousness of conferring

material, intellectual and social benefits upon the country."...

To this letter the Government of the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald

replied, through Provincial Secretary Cameron, on the 30th of

January, 1869, as follows:--

"In acknowledging your letter of the 7th December last, placing your

resignation of the office of Chief Superintendent of Education in

the hands of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and suggesting

that the Department of Public Instruction should be placed under the

more direct management of the Government, through a Minister, to be

designated 'the Minister of Public Instruction,' holding a place

in the Executive Council and a seat in the Legislative Assembly,

thus bringing this department, in common with all other branches

of the Government, within the control of the people through the

responsible advisers of the Crown. I am directed by His Excellency

the Lieutenant-Governor, to thank you for the valuable suggestions

contained in your letter, and to request that you will continue to

discharge those important duties, which you have performed for a

quarter of a century with so much credit to yourself and benefit to

the people of this Province, until His Excellency's advisers shall

have more fully considered your suggestions, and matured a measure

for placing your department under the direct supervision of a member

of the Executive Council.

"The services that you have rendered your country, and your now

advanced age, fully warrant your asking to be relieved from the

further discharge of your arduous duties; but knowing your vigor of

mind and energy of character, His Excellency ventures to hope that

compliance with the request now made will not prove too great a tax

upon your energies, or interfere seriously with any other plans you

may have formed for the employment of the remaining years of a life

devoted to the moral and intellectual improvement of your fellowmen."

To this letter Dr. Ryerson replied on the 30th January, 1869, as

follows:--

"I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of

this date conveying the most kind expression of his Excellency the

Lieutenant-Governor in regard to myself and my past humble services,

and the request that I would continue in my present office until His

Excellency's advisers should be able to mature a measure to give

effect to the recommendations of my letter of 7th of December last

respecting the direct responsibility of the Education Department to

Parliament, and the creation of the office of Minister of Public

Instruction to be filled by a responsible Minister of the Crown,

having a seat in Parliament. The more than kind reference to myself

on the part of His Excellency has deeply affected me, and for which

I desire to express my most heartfelt thanks.

"I beg to assure you for the satisfaction of His Excellency that I

will subordinate every inclination and contemplated engagement, to

the great work of the Education Department and the system of Public

Instruction, as long as I have strength and may be desired by the

constituted authorities to do so.

"I have found that the apprehensions first expressed by the Hon.

M. C. Cameron, as Chairman of the Education Committee of the

Legislative Assembly during the late session, that connecting the

Department of Public Instruction with the political Ministry of the

day might draw the system of Public Instruction into the arena of

party politics and thus impede its progress, is largely shared in by

thoughtful men, and that my recommendation has been coldly received

generally, and strongly objected to in many quarters.

"Under these circumstances I have been led to review the whole

question; and aided by the experience which the recent session of

the Legislature has afforded, I would respectfully suggest that,

until a better system can be devised, a committee of say seven or

nine members of the Legislative Assembly (to be presided over by the

Provincial Secretary) be elected by ballot, (or if not by ballot, by

the mutual agreement of the leaders of both parties in the House,)

at the commencement of each session, to examine into the working,

and report upon all matters relating to the Education Department

and its administration, as well as upon any measures which might be

suggested for the promotion of Public Instruction. The Provincial

Secretary, being _ex officio_ Chairman of such Committee, would

be able to bring before it any thing that had required the

interposition of, or had been brought before the Government during

the year and meriting the attention of the Committee. The Committee

being chosen by ballot, or by mutual agreement on both sides of

the House, would preclude the character of party in its mode of

appointment, and give weight and influence to its recommendations.

In this way the Education Department, necessarily so identified with

matters affecting popular progress and enlightenment would, it its

whole administration be more directly responsible to Parliament and

through it to the people than any other Public Department is now,

and that without being identified or connected with any political

party, and on the occasion of a vacancy in the Administration of the

Department, a selection and appointment could be made free from the

exigencies of party or of party elections, upon the simple and sole

ground of qualifications for the office and with a view of promoting

the interests of public education irrespective of sect or party."

DR. RYERSON'S LETTER OF RESIGNATION IN 1872 AND REPLY TO IT.

On the 10th of February, 1872, Dr. Ryerson addressed a letter to the

Hon. Edward Blake, then Premier of Ontario, in which he said:

"After much deliberation, I have thought it advisable to address

you in respect to my long desired retirement from the Education

Department, of which I have had charge longer than any Judge has

ever occupied the Bench in Canada, and to a greater age....

"The infirmities of age must compel me to retire before long; and

I have thought my immediate or early retirement would enable the

Government to exercise its discretion more freely in regard to the

Department, and system of Public Instruction....

"In case you concur in what I have above intimated, I would suggest

the creation of the office of Minister of Public Instruction, and

the appointment of yourself to it, as is the Premier in Lower

Canada, bringing the University, U. C. College, Institutions of Deaf

and Blind, as well as the Normal, High and Public Schools, under

direct governmental supervision.

"In the practical administration of the Education Department an

abler, more judicious and reliable man cannot be found than Dr.

Hodgins, who has been in the Department twenty-seven years--who was

first educated to business in a retail store in Galt, and afterwards

in a wholesale establishment in Hamilton with the Stinsons--clerk

in the same establishment with Mr. Charles McGill, M.P., and was

offered to be set up in business by the Stinsons or admitted as

a partner within a year or so if he would remain, but he chose

literature and went to Victoria College in 1840, where I found him;

and on account of his punctuality, thoroughness, neatness, method,

and excellent conduct, I appointed him on trial first clerk in my

office in 1844; and having proved his ability, I wrote to him when

I was in Europe, to come home to his widowed mother in Dublin, and

spend a year in the great education office there, to learn the whole

system and management--I having arranged with the late Archbishop

Whately and other members of the National Board, to admit Mr.

H. into their office to study the principles and details of its

management and of the Normal and Model Schools connected with it.

Mr. Hodgins did so at his own expense, and losing the salary for

the year; at the end of which he returned to my office with the

testimonials of the Irish National Board, as to his diligence and

the thorough manner in which he had mastered the modes of proceeding

in the several branches of that great Education Department. He also

brought drawings, of his own make, of the Dublin Education Offices,

Normal and Model Schools. Then since you know that Mr. Hodgins

having taken his degree of M. A., has proceeded regularly to his

degree of law in the Toronto University, and has been admitted to

the Bar as Barrister at Law. He is, therefore, the most thoroughly

trained man in all Canada for the Education Department; and is

the ablest, most thorough administrator of a public department of

any man with whom I have met. I think he has not been appreciated

according to his merits; but should you create and fill the office

of Minister of Public Instruction, you may safely confide the

ordinary administration of the Education Department to Dr. Hodgins,

with the title of my office.

"In the meantime you can make yourself familiar with the principles

and branches, and modes of its arrangement. Whatever you may find

to approve of in my policy and course of procedure, I have no doubt

you will have the fairness to avow and the patriotism to maintain,

whatever may be your views and feelings in regard to myself,

personally; and if you find defects in, and can improve upon, my

plans or proceedings, no one will rejoice at your success more than

myself. I enclose a printed paper, which will afford information of

the details of the Department....

"I may add that should I retire from my present office, I would

have no objections, if desired, to be appointed Member of the

Council of Public Instruction and give any assistance I could in its

proceedings as the result of my experience."

* * * * *

In his reply, dated 12th of February, 1872, Mr. Blake said:--

"I have your note of the 10th instant, marked private, proposing

your retirement and the reconstruction of the Education Office,

and enclosing copies of a former official correspondence on the

same subject. At this late stage of the session, and under the

present pressure of public business, there is no probability of

our giving this matter the consideration which it deserves, and it

must therefore be postponed till the recess, when, if you will have

the goodness to put yourself in communication with the Provincial

Secretary, as on the former occasion, the subject will receive the

early and earnest attention of the Government."...

* * * * *

Nothing further was done in this matter until 1876, when Dr. Ryerson

finally retired from office on full salary, after having filled his

responsible post for nearly thirty-two years.

A FEW WORDS, PERSONAL TO THE WRITER OF THIS RETROSPECT.

Having been intimately concerned in all of the events and

educational matters to which I have referred in the foregoing

Retrospect, it may not be out of place for me to add a few words of

a personal character in conclusion.

At the end of this year I shall have completed my more than 45

years' service, as chief of the staff of the Education Department of

Ontario.

For over 40 years I enjoyed the personal friendship of the

distinguished man whose memory we honor here to-day--32 years of

which were passed in active and pleasant service under him.

The day on which he took official leave of the Department was indeed

a memorable one. As he bade farewell to each of his assistants in

the office, he and they were deeply moved. He could not, however,

bring himself to utter a word to me at our official parting, but

as soon as he reached home he wrote to me the following tender and

loving note:--

171 VICTORIA STREET, TORONTO,

MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 21ST, 1876.

MY DEAR HODGINS,--I felt too deeply to-day when parting with you

in the Office to be able to say a word. I was quite overcome

with the thought of severing our official connection, which has

existed between us for thirty-two years, during the whole of

which time, without interruption, we have labored as one mind and

heart in two bodies, and I believe with a single eye to promote

the best interests of our country, irrespective of religious sect

or political party--to devise, develop, and mature a system of

instruction which embraces and provides for every child in the

land a good education; good teachers to teach; good inspectors to

oversee the Schools; good maps, globes, and text-books; good books

to read; and every provision whereby Municipal Councils and Trustees

can provide suitable accommodation, teachers, and facilities for

imparting education and knowledge to the rising generation of the

land.

While I devoted the year 1845 to visiting educating countries and

investigating their system of instruction, in order to devise

one for our country, you devoted the same time in Dublin in

mastering, under the special auspices of the Board of education

there, the several different branches of their Education Office,

in administering the system of National Education in Ireland, so

that in the details of our Education Office here, as well as in our

general school system, we have been enabled to build up the most

extensive establishment in the country, leaving nothing, as far

as I know, to be devised in the completeness of its arrangements,

and in the good character and efficiency of its officers. Whatever

credit or satisfaction may attach to the accomplishment of this

work, I feel that you are entitled to share equally with myself.

Although I know that you have been opposed to the change, yet could

I have believed that I might have been of any service to you, or to

others with whom I have labored so cordially, or that I could have

advanced the school system, I would not have voluntarily retired

from office.[61] But all circumstances considered, and entering

within a few days upon my 74th year, I have felt that this was the

time for me to commit to other hands the reins of the government of

the public school system, and labor during the last hours of my day

and life, in a more retired sphere.

[61] This remark evidently refers to the oft expression of my

dissent from Dr. Ryerson's views in regard to the important

change which he had proposed to the Government for the future

administration of the Education Department. It was one of the very

few subjects on which I had occasion to differ from the views of my

venerated friend.

But my heart is, and ever will be, with you in its sympathies and

prayers, and neither you nor yours will more truly rejoice in you

success and happiness, than

Your old life-long Friend and Fellow-laborer,

E. RYERSON.

J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esq., LL.D.

While in England, in reply to a retrospective letter from me at the

close of that eventful year, Dr. Ryerson wrote as follows:--

"LONDON, December 12th, 1876.

"DEAR HODGINS,--

. . . . . . . . . .

"Had we been enabled to work together, as in former years, we would

have done great things for our country, and I could have died in the

harness with you. But it was not to be so.... I have no doubt it

will be seen that the hand of God is in this, as it has been in all

our work together for more than thirty years.

"Your ever Affectionate Friend,

"E. RYERSON.

"J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esq., LL.D."

Under these circumstances how can I, therefore, regard without

emotion the events of to-day? They bring vividly to my recollection

many memorable incidents and interesting events of our educational

past known only to myself. They also deeply impress me with the

fleeting and transitory nature of all things human. The Chief and

sixteen counsellors, appointed and elected to assist him, (besides

more than twenty persons connected with various branches of the

Department) have all passed away since my first connection with

the Department in 1844.[62] His great work remains, however, and

his invaluable services to the country we all gratefully recall

to-day, while his native land lovingly acknowledges these services

in erecting this noble monument to his memory. Truly indeed and

faithfully did Egerton Ryerson make good his promise to the people

of this Province, when he solemnly pledged himself, on accepting

office in 1844--

"To provide for my native country a system of education, and

facilities for intellectual improvement not second to those of any

country in the world."

God grant that the seed sown and the foundations thus laid with such

anxious toil and care--and yet in faith--may prove to be one of our

richest heritages, so that in the future, wisdom and knowledge, in

the highest and truest sense, may be the stability of our times!

J. G. H.

Toronto, 24th May, 1889.

[62] These sixteen were:--

1. The Right Reverend Michael Power, D.D.

2. Hugh Scobie, Esquire.

3. Hon. Samuel Bealey Harrison, Q.C.

4. The Reverend Adam Lillie, D.D.

5. James Scott Howard, Esquire.

6. The Reverend John Jennings, D.D.

7. The Very Reverend Henry James Grasett, D.D.

8. The Hon. Mr. Justice Morrison.

9. The Reverend John Ambery, M.A.

10. The Right Reverend Thomas Brock Fuller, D.D.

11. The Reverend J. Tabarat, D.D.

12. The Reverend John McCaul, LL.D.

13. The Reverend John Barclay, D.D.

14. The Honorable William McMaster.

15. The Reverend Samuel S. Nelles, D.D., LL.D.

16. The Most Reverend John Joseph Lynch, D.D.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected

without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have

been retained as printed.

Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where

the missing quote should be placed.

In the table of contents the page number for the Title and Prefatory

note has been changed from i. to iii. to match the book.

Page 17: "and the difficultiee with which he had to

contend"--changed to "difficulties".

Page 22: "this was the ----le gift which Dr. Ryerson devoted"--The

dash (----le) has been inserted where there was a blank area in the

printed book.

Page 64: "the social and religions virtues"--"religions" changed to

"religious".

End of Project Gutenberg's Ryerson Memorial Volume, by J. George Hodgins