_RYERSON'S SCHOOL BILL OF 1846._
The year 1846 will ever be memorable in the annals of school legislation
in Upper Canada, because it established the main principles upon which
all subsequent school legislation was founded. As already pointed out,
the Act of 1843 was largely a failure because it did not provide
adequate machinery for the enforcement of its provisions. No important
school legislation was undertaken during 1845 in anticipation of
Ryerson's report. After making his report, Ryerson drafted a Bill which,
with a few trifling emendations, became the Common School Act of 1846.
It will assist us to an intelligent grasp of future legislation if we
examine this Act with some care.
It first defined the duties of the Superintendent of Schools. He became
the chief executive officer of the Government in all school matters. He
was to apportion among the various District Councils (there were twenty
at this time) in proportion to the school population, the money voted by
the Legislature for the support of common schools (the total Legislative
grant for 1846 was L20,962 to 2,736 schools) and see that it was
expended according to the Act; he was to supply school officers with all
necessary forms for making school returns and keep them posted as to
school regulations; he was to discourage unsuitable books as texts and
for school libraries and to recommend the use of uniform and approved
texts; he was to assume a general direction of the Normal School when it
became established; he was to prepare and recommend plans for
school-houses, with proper furniture; he was to encourage school
libraries, and finally he was to diffuse information generally on
education and submit an annual report to the Governor-General.
The Act established the first General Board of Education.[70] It was to
consist of the Superintendent of Education and six other members
appointed by the Governor-General. This Board was to manage the Normal
School, to authorize texts for schools and to aid the Superintendent
with advice upon any subject which he should submit to it.
[70] The one in existence from 1823 to 1833 was not established by
Parliament but by the Lieutenant-Governor by the authority of the
Imperial Government.
The Act provided for a Normal and Model School. It required each
Municipal District Council to appoint a Superintendent of Schools. No
qualification was fixed for the District Superintendent. It would have
been useless to do so, because there were no men technically qualified
for such positions. The only thing to do was trust to the District
Council to choose the best man available. The District Municipal Council
was also instructed to levy upon the rateable property of the District a
sum for support of schools at least equal to the Legislative grant. They
were to divide each township, town or city into numbered school
sections. They were also given power by by-law to levy rates upon any
school section for the purchase of school sites, erection of school
buildings or teachers' residences in that section.
The District Superintendents became very important officers, and upon
their learning, zeal, integrity and tact must have depended much of the
success or failure of the schools of this period. They were required to
apportion the District School Fund, consisting of the Legislative grant
and Municipal levy, among the various school sections in proportion to
the number of children between five and sixteen years of age resident in
the section, and pay these sums to the teacher on the proper order being
presented; to visit all schools in their Districts[71] at least once a
year and report on their progress and general condition; to advise
trustees and teachers in regard to school management; to examine
candidates for teachers' certificates, and grant licenses, either
temporary or permanent, to those who were proficient; to revoke licenses
held by incompetent or unsuitable teachers; to prevent the use of
unauthorized textbooks; and finally, to make an annual report of the
schools in their districts to the Chief Superintendent.
[71] Five Districts had, in 1846, more than 200 schools each, the
average for the Province being 155 schools for each District.
The Act declared that all Clergymen, Judges of the District Court,
Wardens, Councillors and Justices of the Peace were to be school
visitors, with the right to visit any school or schools in their
districts except Separate Schools. They were given authority to question
pupils, conduct examinations and advise the teachers, or make reports to
the District Superintendent. They were especially charged with the duty
of encouraging school libraries. One remarkable power was conferred upon
them. Any two school visitors of a district were allowed to examine a
candidate for a teacher's license and grant such license if they saw fit
for a term not exceeding one year in a specified school.
There are two simple explanations[72] of this clause in Ryerson's School
Act. He may have wished to interest school visitors in the schools by
giving them some power. He may have wished to create a local power to
act in an emergency if a school became vacant through any cause during a
school term. In many cases the Superintendent lived fifty to
seventy-five miles from the remote corners of his District, and with the
primitive means of communication in use at that time, it was an
advantage to have some local body with authority to license teachers.
[72] Ryerson also gives as a reason his desire to make a gradual
transition from the old system of license by Township Boards to the new
plan of granting licenses only by the District Superintendent. See D. H.
E., Vol. VII., P. 155.
It is a matter for regret that at the present time the various officials
mentioned here as school visitors, as well as parents generally, are so
seldom seen inside the public schools. True, we now have trained
teachers, and teaching has so far become a profession that few school
visitors would care to question pupils, but the very presence in the
school-room from time to time of educated men and women, and especially
those occupying public positions, has a beneficial effect upon both
teachers and pupils. Pupils feel that the work of the school must be
important if it is worthy of the attention of busy and successful men.
Teachers are encouraged to make a good showing and are often hungry for
the few words of sympathy and encouragement that would naturally
accompany such visits. The school can never fully realize its function
as a social institution unless the best citizens take an active interest
in it. This was uppermost in Ryerson's mind when he penned that part of
his report relating to individual efforts in promoting the welfare of
the school.[73]
[73] See Report in D. H. E., Vol. VI., p. 208.
The Act of 1846 defined in detail how school trustees were to be
elected. In all previous Acts the whole Trustee Board was elected
annually. This gave to the Board no continuity of corporate life. One
Trustee Board might have certain plans and make a certain bargain with a
teacher. The new Board might have different plans and repudiate the
contracts of its predecessor. Ryerson's Bill solved the difficulty by
having trustees elected for three years, one to retire annually.
Trustees' duties were not materially different from those of trustees
to-day except in one or two particulars. They had to raise by a rate
bill upon parents of pupils attending school such sums as were required
over and above the two school grants for payment of the teacher's salary
and the incidental expenses of the school; they were required to make
provision by which the children of indigent parents were exempted,
wholly or in part, from school rates; and they were required to select
school books from a list sanctioned by the Department of Education. In
Ryerson's draft bill he proposed that the rate bill should be levied
upon the property of the section. This would virtually have given free
schools. The Legislature of 1846 amended this clause and made the rate
bill assessable only upon parents of children in actual attendance.
Ryerson says of these rate bills:[74] "The evils of the present system
of school rate bills have been brought under my notice from the most
populous townships and by the most experienced educationists in Canada.
When it is apprehended that the rate bill in a school section will be
high, many will not send their children to the school at all--then there
is no school; or else a few give enough to pay the teacher for three
months, including the Government grant; or even after the school has
commenced, if it be found that the school is not so large as had been
anticipated, and that those who send will consequently be required to
pay more than they had expected, parents will begin to take their
children from school in order to escape the rate bill as persons would
flee from a falling house! The consequence is that the school is either
broken up, or the whole burthen of paying the teacher falls upon the
trustees, and often as a consequence a quarrel ensues between them and
the teacher. I have been assured by the most experienced and judicious
men, with whom I have conversed on the subject, that it is impossible to
have good schools under the present rate bill system. I think the
substitute I proposed will remedy the evil. I know of none who will
object to it but the rich and the childless and the selfish. Education
is a public good; ignorance is a public evil. What affects the public
ought to be binding upon each individual composing it. In every good
government and in every good system the interests of the whole society
are obligatory upon each member of it."
[74] See D. H. E., Vol. VI., p. 76.
This rate bill, as authorized in 1846, was, however, an improvement on
the old one which was levied upon parents according to the actual time
of the child's attendance, whereas the Bill of 1846 levied a tax upon
the parents of children in actual attendance for at least two-thirds of
the whole school term, whether the children attended regularly or
irregularly.
Teachers' duties were defined by the Act much as they are to-day.
District Model Schools were authorized on the same condition as in the
Act of 1843. The clauses in the Act of 1843 relating to the formation of
Separate Roman Catholic or Protestant schools were also embodied in the
Act of 1846.
Now, what are the distinguishing features of this School Act that
reflect credit upon its author? It would be idle to pretend that there
were not in Upper Canada many able men who saw the weaknesses of the
school system as clearly as Dr. Ryerson. Ryerson's claim to distinction
rests upon the fact that he organized a system that _worked_. He not
only co-ordinated the several parts of the system, but put life into
it. This was no easy task. The people were very jealous of their power
of local control, and yet unless this local control could be subjected
to some central control, improvement was hopeless. It was here that
Ryerson did what no other man had done. He lessened local, and
strengthened central, control, and did it so gradually, so wisely, and
so tactfully, that local prejudices were soothed and in many cases the
people scarcely recognized what was being done until the thing was
accomplished. We must not suppose that all this was completed by the
legislation of 1846. It began then, but its complete evolution was the
work of a quarter-century.
If we ask through what agency Ryerson was enabled to secure this gradual
executive strength that makes our educational machinery so effective the
answer must be--the Legislative grant. The Legislature placed the grant
at the disposal of the Superintendent for him to apportion among the
Districts. Here was a lever of wonderful power, and Ryerson was quick to
perceive its possibilities. If Districts wished a grant they must
conform to certain requirements. If school sections wished a grant from
the District Superintendent, they, too, must satisfy certain
requirements as to textbooks, qualified teachers, building and
equipment.
No doubt the Prussian system gave Ryerson many hints on this subject,
but he knew that the Canadian spirit was very different from the docile
German spirit fostered by generations of benevolent paternalism. I
think, too, there can be no reasonable doubt that he received many
practical hints on this point from the workings of Her Majesty's
Committee on Education formed by the Imperial Parliament. The history of
the world presents no more significant illustration of how an outside
body may come to exercise an effective control over various kinds of
schools than is presented by the history of the schools of Great Britain
and Ireland and their control by Her Majesty's Government through
parliamentary grants.
That the leaders of Canadian public opinion in the years following 1846
saw all that was involved in Ryerson's gradual strengthening of central
control of educational affairs is made abundantly clear by the leading
editorials in the press of that period. The Toronto _Globe_, which had
been established in 1844 by the Browns, was already in 1846 the leading
exponent of advanced liberal ideas in Upper Canada. As the _Globe_ had
been bitterly opposed to Lord Metcalfe, and had resented Ryerson's
defence of him, it was not to be expected that Ryerson's appointment as
Superintendent of Education would be satisfactory to that journal, or
that his educational plans would be leniently criticised. Indeed, the
_Globe_ editor's first objection to Ryerson's Bill of 1846 was to the
great powers conferred upon the Superintendent and to the irresponsible
nature of his Commission. The following is from a _Globe_ editorial of
April 14th, 1846;[75] "We have read a draft of the new School Bill for
Upper Canada brought in by Mr. Draper. We have not been able to go over
all its claims, but it contains one objectionable principle, viz.: the
appointment and dismissal of the Superintendent is vested in the
Governor-General personally and not in the Governor-General with the
advice of his Council, as it ought to be. The whole funds from which the
school system is to derive support are raised by the people of Canada,
and the disposal of them should be subjected to the control of the House
through the Executive Council.... The powers of the Superintendent are
very great and embrace many points such as the selection of proper
books, etc. A Board of seven Commissioners to assist the Superintendent
is named, but the Governor may appoint them, or not, and the
Superintendent may take their advice, or not, and he has also power to
prevent interference at any time, for he is only to receive advice on
all measures which he may 'submit to them.' The whole of this extensive
institution, if the Bill passes, will be lodged in the Governor-General
personally and in the Superintendent, and they may work it for any
purpose that suits their views." On July 14th, 1846, the editor of the
_Globe_ again criticises the School Bill, because the Superintendent
reports to the Governor and not to the Governor-General-in-Council.
[75] See bound volume of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto.
These articles are interesting and important. Why was Ryerson's
appointment vested in the Governor and not in the Executive Council? The
answer not only throws valuable light upon the way that Ryerson himself
viewed his office and its relation to the public, but it incidentally
shows how imperfectly responsible government was established in Upper
Canada in 1846. We should gasp with astonishment in Canada to-day if it
were proposed to vest the appointment of any public officers in the
Governor-General personally. We allow our Governors no personal freedom
in the conduct of public affairs. But in 1846 that idea was not wholly
accepted. There still lingered a feeling that the Crown had certain
vaguely-defined prerogatives, which might be exercised without let or
hindrance from Councillors. And many who recognized that the British
Crown had little individual freedom of action in public affairs in
Britain could not see that the same status ought to be established for
the Crown's representative in a colony. Or, to put it in another way,
the people did not see how a colony could be self-governing without
being wholly independent.
Ryerson wished his appointment to be vested in the Governor, rather than
in the Executive Council, because he thought that by such an arrangement
he was a servant of the country and not of any political party. He
thought that a Superintendent of Education ought, like a judge, to be
placed beyond the accidents and turmoil of politics. No doubt that was
an illogical position. Indeed, time showed it to be so, and that full
recognition of the principle of responsible government required a
Minister of Education responsible directly to the Legislature. We can
only speculate as to what would have been the effect upon our schools
had Ryerson's position been looked upon as political and had he been
forced to vacate his office with every change of government. It seems
doubtful whether our schools would have improved as rapidly as they did
under the conservative, but truly progressive, policy of Ryerson.
There is abundant evidence that there were many in Upper Canada who
wished to see the position of Superintendent closely connected with
politics. A _Globe_ editorial, Jan. 6th, 1847, commenting on Ryerson's
report, says: "We expected that when our new Superintendent stepped into
his ill-gotten office he would immediately take measures to make
himself acquainted with the replies to such questions as the following:
First, the situation, condition and number of schools and school-houses
of all kinds in the Province. Second, the manner in which school
trustees, town, county and district Superintendents had discharged their
several duties. Third, the desire manifested by parents generally for
the education of their children. Fourth, the competency and efficiency
of the teachers, their salaries, etc. Fifth, the kind of school books
used, the school libraries and other apparatus for teaching. Had such
questions been proposed and answered, the Superintendent would have had
something to base a report upon. It was but natural to suppose that an
officer whose sole prospects of success are in the confidence and
co-operation of the people would have taken some steps to gain that
confidence and co-operation, that he would have been desirous by direct
communication with superintendents, trustees, experienced teachers and
influential persons in the Province of ascertaining their views and of
obtaining their suggestions as to the best means of promoting the
interests of the noble department over which he had been called to
preside. But no, it is true he was devising a system of education for
Canada, but what had the wants or wishes of the people to do with it?
The serfs must receive anything I, their lord and master, may import
from the cringing subjects of despotic monarchies. We are more and more
convinced from the examination of this report that Mr. Ryerson is not
competent for the situation which he occupies."
This is manifestly unfair. Ryerson knew from previous experience and
without any further special investigation, the answer to every one of
the five questions propounded above. In 1848, just after the
Baldwin-Lafontaine administration was formed, and before the
newly-formed ministry had met Parliament, there was more or less
discussion about dismissing Ryerson from his position as Superintendent
of Education. The _Globe_ of April 29th, 1848, says: "Will any man,
except a few of his own clique, say that Egerton Ryerson should be
Superintendent of Education under a Liberal Government? We apprehend
none. He has done nothing wrong since his appointment, it is said. We
say he has. He spent many months on the Continent of Europe and in
Britain in amusement or recreation, professing to get information about
things which every person knew already.... We have had hints of the
Prussian system being applicable to Canada and we feel convinced that
he, who sold himself to the late Administration, would have readily
brought all the youth of Canada to the same market and placed them
under the domination of an arbitrary and coercive power. He had sold
their fathers for pelf, why not sell the sons also? Was he not in league
with that party which would retain the Province in vassalage to the old
Compact which he had so heartily denounced in former times? Is he not a
member of that Methodist Committee which bargained away to a worthless
Ministry the Methodist votes for L1,500 to Victoria College? These are
most memorable events in the annals of political corruption.... But we
care not if there had been no ground for complaint since 1844. We know
that Egerton Ryerson sold himself body and spirit to Lord Metcalfe and
that he broached doctrines of the most unconstitutional kind,
threatening those who were but asking the common rights of British
subjects with the vengeance of the whole Empire. The man who holds such
views is unfit to be at the head of the country's education. He would
convert the children of the Province into the most pliable tools of an
arbitrary system."
These articles show clearly that the party press was not disposed to
judge Ryerson by his work as Superintendent of Education. They claimed
that because he championed Lord Metcalfe in 1844 he was a partizan, and
if a partizan in 1844 he must still be one in 1848.
Besides a certain amount of political prejudice, Ryerson had to overcome
the many points of friction caused by an attempt to work the Bill of
1846, and when we consider the ignorance and incompetence among those
upon whom the administration of the Act rested, and the prejudices
against the Act by many who were supremely selfish, we have to admit
that a less courageous man would have utterly failed. Many trustees
could neither read nor write. In some cases the District Municipal
Councillors who were parties to school administration were equally
ignorant. District Superintendents of schools were not always fitted for
such a responsibility. Perhaps half the whole body of teachers made up a
motley assortment of impecunious tramps. The Superintendent's report for
1847 shows that out of 2,572 schoolhouses only 133 were of brick or
stone, and that 1,399 were made of logs; 1,378 had no playground, and
only 163 were provided with water-closets. With many superintendents,
trustees, and teachers miserably incompetent, with buildings and
equipment woefully inadequate, it required a stout heart to undertake a
reformation.
Ryerson had two temperamental qualities that stood him in good stead; he
had an idealist's faith in humanity, believing that men would choose the
higher if it could once be shown them; he had besides an infinite
capacity for hard work and for taking pains. This is fully shown by the
way he met the many objections to his Bill of 1846. The bitterest
opposition came from the Council of the Gore District, now the County of
Wentworth, a District from which more progressive ideas might have been
expected. On the 10th November, 1846, this Council[76] petitioned the
Legislative Assembly against Ryerson's Bill. They objected to a
Provincial Board of Education and to a Chief Superintendent. They wished
to have re-enacted the School Bills of 1816 and 1820. Among other things
the petition says: "With respect to the necessity of establishing a
Normal, with elementary Model Schools in this Province, your
memorialists are of opinion that however well adapted such an
institution might be to the wants of the old and densely populated
countries of Europe, where service in almost every vocation will
scarcely yield the common necessaries of life, they are altogether
unsuited to a country like Upper Canada, where a young man of such
excellent character as a candidate is required to be to enter a Normal
School and having the advantage of a good education besides, need only
turn to the right hand or to the left to make his service much more
agreeable and profitable to himself, than in the drudgery of a common
school, at an average of L29 per annum [the average in Upper Canada for
1845]; nor do your memorialists hope to provide qualified teachers by
any other means in the present circumstances of the country than by
securing as heretofore the services of those whose physical disabilities
from age render this mode of obtaining a livelihood the only one suited
to their decaying energy, or by employing such of the newly-arrived
immigrants as are qualified for common school teachers, year by year as
they come amongst us, and who will adopt this as a means of temporary
support until their character and abilities are known and turned to
better account for themselves."
[76] See copy of petition in D. H. E., Vol. VII., pp. 114-116.
This petition was sent to every District Council in Upper Canada. Some
districts agreed with it, some were indifferent and some wholly opposed
its spirit. Colborne District Council took a very different attitude.
They praised the Chief Superintendent, warmly approved of a Normal
School, and found much to admire in the legislation of 1846. The
following from their report will serve as an illustration:[77] "As the
Normal and Model Schools begin to yield their legitimate fruits, and as
the blighting effects of employing men as school teachers who are
neither in manners nor in intellectual endowments much above the lowest
menials, shall press less and less heavily upon the mental and moral
habitudes of the rising generation, the great benefits to be derived
from the present Common School Act, and its immense superiority over
all former school laws of Upper Canada, will become more and more
confessed and appreciated. Already that public apathy which is the
deadliest enemy to improvement is slowly yielding to the necessity
imposed by the present school law upon the trustees and others of
acquiring extended information, of entering with a deeper interest into
all matters connected with Common Schools and of joining with school
visitors, superintendents and municipal councillors in a more active and
vigilant oversight of them."
[77] See copy of memorial in D. H. E., Vol. VII., p. 117.
Ryerson saw that public opinion must be educated. The problem was a
wider one than the education of the rising generation in the
schoolhouses. The fathers and mothers and all who made public opinion
must be awakened. This work Ryerson did in a characteristic manner. He
had been a missionary preacher of the Gospel; he now became an
educational missionary. He sent carefully-prepared circulars to
Municipal Councils, to District Superintendents, to school trustees and
to teachers. He established at his own financial risk, and without
accepting a penny of the profits for his labour, an educational journal
as a means of communication with the general public. In the autumn of
1847 he spent ten weeks in visits to the twenty-one Districts into which
Upper Canada was at that time divided. He called District Educational
Conventions, lasting each two days. To these were invited teachers,
District Superintendents, School Visitors, Municipal Councillors and the
general public. The Warden was generally secured as chairman. During the
day, Ryerson discussed the School Act and its operation. He found that
often the people had been misled and that trustees who had never made
any attempt to enforce the Act had laid the blame for their poor school
upon the Act of 1846. In almost every case a frank discussion face to
face with the parties concerned removed unreasonable prejudices and made
friends for the new Superintendent. In the evening, Ryerson gave a
public lecture. His subject in 1847 was "The Advantage of Education to
an Agricultural People." No subject could have been more appropriate to
secure the sympathy of the mass of the people and to give the lecturer
an opportunity to show what he hoped to do for Upper Canada.