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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ONTARIO HIGH SCHOOL
3
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
ONTARIO HIGH SCHOOL
BY ^-/^ -
WALTER N. BELL
UKIVESSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1918
BY
W. N. BELL
M-^
To THE Registrar,
University of Toronto:
We beg to report that the thesis of Mr. W. N. Bell on "The Development of the Ontario High School", together with his discussions of the questions set on the Science of Education, Educational Psychology, the History of Education and Educational Systems, and the Educational Administration and Organization of Education, qualify him for the Degree of Doctor of Pedagogy.
^ (Signed) H. T. J. Coleman.
W. E. Macpherson. W. Pakenham. Peter Sandiford.
To the Senate of the University of Toronto:
Gentlemen :
I hereby certify that the thesis above mentioned has been accepted for the Degree of Doctor of Pedagogy, and that Mr. W. N. Bell has complied with all the regulations in accordance with the Statute in that behalf.
(Signed) James Brebner,
Registrar.
1
>
CONTENTS.
Page Chapter I.
Introduction 7
Chapter II.
Laying the Foundations. 1790-1839 11
Chapter III.
Early Schools and Masters 32
Chapter IV. /
Ryerson and Grammar Schools. 1840-1852. . . .' 41
Chapter V.
Secondary Education in the United States 50
Chapter VI.
More Schools — Less Secondary Education . 1853-1855... 54
Chapter VII.
The Failure of Voluntary Support. 1855-1865 61
Chapter VIII.
George Pax ton Young as Inspector and the Act of 1865 76
Chapter IX.
The Admission of Girls. 1865-1868 89
Chapter X.
The Teaching of Natural Science and English 97
Chapter XI.
Act of 1871— The High School. 1868-1873 108
Chapter XII. ^
Introduction of Payment by Results. 1873-1875 120
Chapter XIII.
The Passing of Ryerson and the Council of Public In- struction. 1875-6 134
Chapter XIV.
The Examination Incubus. 1876-1882 140
Chapter XV.
biblicx5raphy 162
Index 163
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
THE purpose of the present work is to trace the growth of the public secondary school in Upper Canada from the Act qf_ 1807, which laid the foundation by establishing the first District Public Schools, down to the time when it developed its present form. The institution being over a century old, it appears to be high time that some connected account of its origin and progress should be written. It is only by looking back over the course that has been travelled, that we can appreciate the secondary school as it stands to-day or can steer our futur^ course in such a way as to avoid the rocks that are sure to be encountered in the future as in the past. This task has not, up to the present time, been undertaken except in the brief compass of an encyclo- paedia article, or disjointedly in the general histories of education.
Among the topics that will require discussion are the evolution of the present curriculum, the financial support and various steps leading to the present division of the burden, the qualifications and training of teachers as well as the pedagogical methods, equip- ment and buildings. Among the questions to be answered are: How and when did grammar schools become high schools? When and under what influences did secondary schools become co- educational? When was the scheme of written examinations adopted, and what has been the influence of this? When and why were collegiate institutes established? Occasional references will be made to the movements in Europe and the United States, which appear to have influenced opinion in this country.
To one who reads the documents that tell the story, it must be evident that the chef d'oeuvre of Ryerson was the public elemen- tary school. Yet, there exists to-day, an instrument of secondary education in this province of which we have every reason to be proud. The Ontario high school, when all the difficulties of its task are considered will compare favourably with that of any country of like social conditipns. However, it may be admitted that the public school is, at the present time, the more efficient school. Not that it is better manned, or better equipped, but because it leaves less to be desired in the performance of its task.
8 Development of the Ontario High. School.
How is this? The reason is that, its task is simple, while that of the secondary school is complex. The latter attempts to do many things, the former one. The Ontario high school still retains its earliest function of a college preparatory school. But it is also a teacher- training school in academic subjects and is co-educational. The preparatory course for teachers and the matriculation course have exhibited some differences in later years, but the difference is not so great but that a pupil who has taken the teacher's course may not matriculate also by adding one or two additional subjects. The curriculum, is, therefore, necessarily to some degree, a com- promise. There is no differentiation for the sexes. Apart from the courses named, there is in general practice no course for the student who wishes neither to prepare for college nor be a teacher, though the Regulations outline such a course. In fact, the student who desires to finish his education in the high school will find himself in one of the classes mentioned in large schools, while in smaller schools the two will be but one. The consequence is that, comparatively very few complete the fourth year of the course without taking the teachers' or the matriculation examination, if they wish to obtain a graduation diploma, as these examinations are the usual means. It is, therefore, seriously open to question if a better course could not be devised for the student who desires a well-rounded secondary education, such a course as would prevent this class from dropping out in large numbers before completion of the fourth year. A commercial course has been developed in recent years which is adding greatly to the usefulness of the schools and widening their appeal to the public.
There is a remarkable uniformity in the high schools in the subjects taught, the equipment, the class of students, and, in fact, in most particulars, from end to end of the Province of Ontario, whether the school be a village institution, the centre of an agricul- tural district or located in a manufacturing town or city. There is growing up a numerous class of junior schools in small places which are called continuation schools. The same uniformity may be seen here. Does this sameness in training produce the differ- entiated efficiency, which national well-being demands to-day? To ask the question is to answer it in the negative. How has this condition come about? There is a social problem behind it. It would be easy to throw the blame upon the Department of Education, but a perusal of the following pages will show that
Introduction 9
it does not He there. Again and again the wise intentions of leaders have been thwarted, and they have been forced to yield to popular clamour or to political expediency. To the high schools and collegiate institutes the farm for ten years back has been sending a larger percentage of pupils than any other class; in 1916, twenty-nine per cent, nearly, the next in order being commerce, with twenty-one per cent. In the continuation schools in 1913, nearly forty-nine per cent, of the pupils were from the farm In the natural course, the majority of these return to the farm, and the danger is that the system has only made them fit rather to become teachers or college students than efficient farmers. In the industrial centres, the majority of the pupils come from the indus- trial and commercial class, yet here, also, is provided the same training precisely as in rural high schools. Little has been done in either case in the way of adjustment. Everywhere the secondary schools have been uncompromisingly literary and theoretical in their work. But there are signs of change. The movement towards technical and practical training appears to be gaining ground. Cities which are growing too large for one secondary school, are extending their facilities by building a technical school instead of another high school. That this will in time result in immense advantage to Canada, no doubt can be entertained. We have only to look to the results in countries that are far in advance of Ontario in the enrichment of opportunity for the young.
Why the continuation school movement has resulted in spread- ing the same high school opportunities farther into the country instead of developing agricultural high schools, is an interesting question. In most parts of the province, the prevailing type of high school is sufficiently accessible to serve the needs of those who really desire to leave the farm, but as the thing has turned out, neither in the nearby village nor in the county town is there a school which has for its primary object serving the needs of the large majority, who have the healthy desire to remain on the farm and to till it more efficiently than their fathers could.
It is by no means, the purpose of the present essay to attempt to answer questions suggested here, but only by a faithful account of the origin and development of the system, to clear the ground in some measure for the answer. If the present scheme of teacher- training, elementary and secondary, is inadequate, as comparison with the plans of older countries might incline one to believe, the
10 Development of the Ontario High School.
solution may be to extend the normal schools and fit them to assume at least, the last two years of the academic education of the elementary teacher. If this were done, such a load would be lifted from the high schools as would enable them to take more seriously the needs and claims of the general student, whose interests I think it is clear have been, if not sacrificed, at least subordinated to those, particularly, of the prospective teacher.
CHAPTER II. LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS, 1790-1839.
THE southern portion and particularly the lake fronts of the region now known as Ontario, were settled by United Empire Loyalists who, after the American colonies separa- ted from England, migrated to Canada in order still to live under the fiag and institutions of the land they loved. The only schools were the result of private enterprise and it was not until the Con- stitutional Act of 1791 organized the country into two provinces, and John Grave? Simco^ arrived as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, that the first steps were taken in the direction of grant aided secondary schools. His ardent patriotism and desire for the improvement of the colony led him to open correspondence with the home government, for the purpose of suggesting the endowment of schools — not as might have been expected — elementary schools, but Public schools after the pattern of English schools of that name. He believed that lower education being less expensive could, in the meantime, be provided by relations and more remotely by school lands but "the higher must be indebted to the liberality of the British Government, as owing to the cheapness of education in the United States, the gentlemen of Upper Canadg. will send their children there, which would tend to pervert their British prin- ciples".
He next proposed a definite scheme: Two schools, one at Niagara (Newark), and one at Kingston, with an allowance of £100 per annum for each, and a university at the capital with a staff composed exclusively of clergymen of the Church of England. His scheme evidently implied a state church. By these means, he hoped to train those of the rising generation who would "take the lead in society under the present constitution and principally fill up the offices of the Government" and so render secure the union with Great Britain.
His scheme of a university met with a cool reception but Secretary Dundas agreed that the schools should be established.
*For this and other references to Simcoe's correspondence with Colonial Secretary Dundas see Hodgins "Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada", Vol. I. Subsequent references to this work appear as D.H.E.
12 Development of the Ontario High School.
However, no immediate provision was made. Writing to the Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Portland, three years after his first appeal, Simcoe said that on consultation with the Church of England Bishop (of Quebec), he had felt authorized to promise £100 per annum to a school at Kingston, a building for which had been erected by the late Lieutenant-Governor Hope, and the missionary there, Mr. Stuart, was willing to take charge tempor- arily. He pointed out the need of a similar provision at Niagara.
The Duke of Portland had other ideas. He thought that the schoolmasters required in the then state of Upper Canada were such as were competent to teach reading, writing, accounts and mensuration. As to a school of a higher order, where the Greek and Latin languages and other branches should be taught, he was of opinion that Quebec or Montreal would be a more proper site.
Ostensibly owing to ill-health, but really by reason of serious differences with Lord Dorchester, Simcoe in 1796 left the scene of his arduous and disinterested labours, with his educational scheme still unrealized, though he stuck to his guns to the last in defence of the establishment of higher schools and a university.
The Hon. Peter Russell, President of the Legislative Council, prosecuted the scheme, sending a petition of the Provincial Legisla- ture in 1797 to the King "humbly imploring his Majesty that he would be graciously pleased to direct his government in this Province to appropriate a certain portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a fund for the establishment and support of a respectable j grammar school in each district thereof and also a college, or ! university, for the instruction of youth in the different branches of liberal knowledge".
The reply expressed the intention to comply with the wishes of the petitioners "in such a way as shall be judged to be most effectual":
First, by the establishment of free grammar schools in those districts in which they are called for; and
Second, in due course by establishing other seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature, for the promotion of religious and moral learning and the study of the Arts and Sciences". President Russell was directed, after consultation, to report as to the amount of Crown lands required to form a fund "out of which shall be allotted salaries for the school masters, to be selected by the Governor." His report set forth the following points among others :
Laying the Foundations 18
1. That an appropriation of 500,000 acres,* or ten townships, after deducting the Crown and Clergy sevenths, would be sufficient to found four grammar schools and a university.
2. That present circumstances called for the erection of two schools: one at Kingston and the other at Niagara (Newark).
3. That for the purpose of building a plain but solid house, containing a schoolroom sufficient to contain one hundred boys, and apartments for the master, large enough for the accommodation of a moderate family, and the reception of from ten to twenty boys, as boarders, the sum of £3,000 for each would be sufficient. Salary and repairs would require £180.
In accordance with these recommendations, ten townships were appropriated, which were found to contain 549,217 acres. But this was the only immediate result. It was not possible to gell the land and a period of ten years elapsed before any action was taken. However, during this decade, several private schools | came into existence, and performed a highly useful, if not an indispensable service. As early as 1786, the Reverend John Stuart, D.D. opened a select classical school at Cataraqui. He (or his son) received for at least one year, 1796, a Government grant of £100 paid by Siiiicoe, just as he was leaving the country. This was the first Government bounty to education in Upper Canada, but the grant was apparently not repeated.
The- most famous of these early schools was that of the Rev. John Strachan, opened at Cornwall. He was lx)rn in Scotland in 1778 and was a graduate of King's College, Aberdeen, of 1796. After two years' teaching in Scotland, he came to Upper Canada on the invitation of the Hon. Richard Cartwright, probably to become tutor to his four sons, though Strachan in later life conveys the impression that it was to organize a college or university. He had been disappointed in regard to a university post in Scotland and probably expected that in the new country he might have a better opportunity. However, he entered upon his task as tutor with enthusiasm, taking a few additional pupils into his school. Such was the beginning of a remarkable pedagogical success.
Being ordained into the Anglican priesthood, though brought up in another faith, he was appointed to Cornwall in 1803, where
*Land was valued at about nine pence per acre in this estimate, so that the whole appropriation would represent a sum of about £18,000.
\
14 Development of the Ontario High School
his clerical duties gave him ample time to carry on a school, and to this, several of his Kingston pupils came. The originality and success of Strachan as a teacher, is shown in a subsequent chapter. By reason of this, he soon gained a paramount influence with the government in educational matters. Of the structure, that was soon to be reared he could rightfully claim to be the architect.
After the legislature had, for several sessions, discussed the establishment of schools, a decision was finally reached in 1807 when the first District Public School Act was passed. It provided for the establishment of one Public school* in each of the eight districts, and a grant of £100 from public funds for each master. The locations were named as follows:
District. Location.
Western Town of Sandwich.
London Township of Townsend.
Niagara Town of Niagara.
Home Town of York.
Newcastle Township of Hamilton.
Midland Town of Kingston.
Johnstown Township of Augusta.
Eastern Town of Cornwall.
The Amendment Act of 1819 provided that the London District School should be kept in the Village of Vittoria, Norfolk County, and that of Johnstown, in the Village of Brockville. Trustees were to be appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor, not less than five in number, and these were to have power to examine and appoint a teacher, subject to the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. They were also given the power to make rules and regulations for the conduct of the school. The last clause limited the operation of the Act to four years but this was repealed in the following year, and with some amendments, it continued in force until 1853. No annual report was required from the trustees nor was any limit set upon their term of office. The number of trustees actually appointed varied from five in the Johnstown District to eight in the Midland District.
*0i course 'Public' was used in the English sense and the use of the term indicates the point of view. They were commonly referred to as District Gram- mar Schools.
Laying the Foundations 15
It will be noticed that no mention is made of buildings in the - Act. The communities in which the schools were located were ^xpected to provide the accommodations. Difficulties arose in some cases. The London District trustees declared in a petition that having nominated a, ^e^clier, they could find neither school- house nor pupils in T(5wnsend, so they request that the law be amended to allow them to open in the village of Dover, "where a schoolhouse would be built, as apf)ears by the accompanying subscription lately set on foot, and sufficient accommodation pro- cured for those coming from distant parts of the district".
While the House of Assembly was engaged upon the Act establishing the schools, there appeared a Bill for the purchase of philosophical apparatus for the advancement of science. The House in 1806, authorized the expenditure of the considerable sum of £400 for this purpose, and the depositing of the apparatus with some person engaged in education. The whole of it was handed over to Strachan, whose Cornwall seminary immediately became the Public school of the Eastern District. No doubt he had been the father of the Apparatus Act as we learn he was of the V Act of 1807, from the speech of Sir J. B. Robinson, at the ceremony of laying the corner stone of King's College in 1842. "As I well' remember it was at your suggestion and upon the earnest instance of your Lordship, that the statute was procured, to which we are \/ indebted for the District Grammar Schools (called Public in the Act) throughout Upper Canada".* '.%¥W'
Whatever satisfaction there might have been for Strachan in seeing his ideas prevail so absolutely, it was not long before efforts were made in the Legislature to repeal the Act of 1807. For several years Bills were passed in the Assembly for this purpose but were rejected in the Legislative Council and reciprocally the Hon. Richard Cartwright's Bill to perpetuate the schools and remove all uncertainties was passed by the Council, but rejected by the Assembly. What were the grounds of objection to the pro- visions of the Act? First, the inconvenience of location in some cases. A petition of 1812 from the District of Newcastle repre- sented that the appropriation was entirely useless to the inhabitants of this District in general and praying to have the Act repealed and provision made for common schools. A similar petition came from
*See D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 70.
16 Development of the Ontario High School
the Midland District, claiming that though provision for grammar Schools had been made, nothing had been done for "the middling ' or poorer class of His Majesty's subjects". "By reason of the place of instruction being established at one end of the District and the sum demanded for tuition, most of the people are unable to avail themselves of the advantages contemplated by the institu- -^ tion". It was merely "casting money into the lap of the rich". x^^,^ An address per contra dated at Cornwall in 1811 was sent to the Lieutenant-Governor: "We have seen provision made for giving the youth of the Province such a liberal education as may not only qualify them for the learned professions, but also establish firmly in their minds the purest moral and religious principles which shall enable them to give the most salutary direction to the general manners of the Province".
One good result, however, arose out of this contest between the two branches of the Legislature, the House persistent in its efforts to repeal and the Council, to expand the Act of 1807, and that was a gradual understanding that elementary schools were a necessity. This found concrete form in the Common Schools Act of 1816 which provided for partial payment of teachers* salaries out of public funds and thus recognized the justice of supporting primary education.
The law, of course, so long as it restricted each District to one grammar school could bestow only very circumscribed benefits. Most of the people would be beyond the pale of its operation both from distance and poverty. Besides in the address above quoted to the Lieutenant-Governor from Cornwall, no doubt penned by Strachan, there is a frank admission that the schools were intended for the better class. The same view was impressed in a letter from William Crooks of Grimsby in 1818 to Robert Gourlay.* "They (the grammar schools) have been productive of little or no good .'hitherto, for this obvious cause, they are looked upon as seminaries l^jplusively instituted for the education of the children of the more Iwealthy classes of society, and to which the poor man's child is considered unfit to be admitted".
A defence was made by Strachan in the issue of The Christian Recorder of April, 1819. The funds at the disposal of the Legisla- ture would have been of no use if divided amongst the townships for common schools — scarcely £5 each — and a university would
♦Statistical Account of Upper Canada, Gourlay quoted D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 126.
Laying the Foundations 17
have had no students. Hence District schools were the only alternative. But even had circumstances been otherwise, the situation would have suggested District in preference to common schools, for they were calculated to qualify young men for the different professions, and to become feeders for the university when it should be established.
In one or two Districts, the results had not been good, but this was because there was no need in those Districts for the schools. It was intended at first to establish them only at Cornwall, Kings- ton, Niagara, York and Sandwich, but jealousy in the House of Assembly led to extending the privilege to other districts before there were pupils to educate. If there should still (in 1819) be well-founded complaints, the fault must be in those appointed to carry the law into eflfect.
An attempt to improve the schools was made in ;1819 by an V*' Amendment Act which provided for a school in the new District of Gore, at the town of Hamilton. Annual public examinations were to be held in all District (grammar) schools and annual reports to the Lieutenant-Governor were required, setting forth the attendance, subjects taught, the number of scholars that had completed their ediiratinn.^t^. JA concession was made to the poorer class in the
I
'clause authorizing the trustees of each and every (common) school to send "scholars not exceeding tenJn number to be taught g^rati»^^ at the respective District schools^^ To prevent a demand for new
schools where they were not really needed, it was provided that : only £50 should be paid to any teacher hereafter appointed "unless the average number of scholars exceeds ten".
The first general account of the st^te of the schools we get j U from a document prepared in'l826jby Strachan as an address to the Lieutenant-Governor showing why a university should be founded. There were about 340 common schools with 7,000 to 8,000 pupils, '
learning reading, writing, arithmetic and the first principles of religion. Probably the schools were educating as many as 14,000 because the younger children came in summer, and the older ones in winter. There were eleven District Public schools* in which 300 young men were preparing for the professions. They seldom supported more than one master and the time had come "for con-
*A District (Grammar) School was authorized in the Ottawa and the Bathurst Districts in 1823.
18 Development of the Ontario High School
fining themselves to the intention of their first establishment, namely: nurseries for a university".
Up to this point, no means had been evolved of controlling or directing the schools that existed. They were isolated and independent, and the only connection between them and the Government was the appointment of trustees, the sanction re- quired for the appointment of teacher, and the annual report. The germ of central control may be found in the General Board of Exiucation brought into existence in 1823. It was the creation of the Executive Council of Lieutenant-Governor Maitland and its prime purpose was to establish "one introductory school on the national plan in each town of a certain size."* The Lieutenant-Governor was authorized by the Colonial Secretary, Earl Bathurst, to appropriate a portion of the land reserve set apart for a university for the purpose of establishing national schools and in ^order to accomplish this to form a General Board of Education. The sanction of the Legislative Assembly was not obtained unless indirectly in the Common Schools Act of 1824, where the functions of such a board are recognized. Sir Peregriuje Maitland accordingly appointed the following to be a General Board of Education for the Province : Rev. John Strachan^ D.D,, President*; The Hon. Joseph Wells, M.L.C.; The Hon. George H. Harkland, M.L.C.; The Rev. Robert Addison (Anglican clergyman and teacher of the Grammar School at Niagara); Atty.-General John Beverley Robinson and Surveyor-General Thomas Ridout. This Board ceased to exist in March, 1833, and its functions were informally transferred to the Council of King's College (without much change in personnel) in 1833. t
The duties of the Board as outlined by its President at the opening of King's College in 1843 were as follows: All the schools in the colony were placed under its care and the President was required to make occasional visits to the different Districts, to
*These schools in England were under the Church of England and a Canadian copy, called the Central School, was actually established in York. See D. H. E., Vol. I, pp. 174, 179.
tDr. Strachan had very soon made his influence felt in York, of which he was appoiijted Rector in 1812. In 1815 he became an honorary member of the Executive Council, in 1817-18 a full member, 1820 a member of the Legislative Council, and now in 1823, he becomes virtually Superintendent of Education for the Province. As president of the Board of Education, he received a salary of £300.
Laying the Foundations 19
discover the actual state of both common and District schools and confer with the local educational authorities; to recommend proper school books and introduce a uniformity of system throughout the whole country.
The President of the General Board did not visit the schools in person until 1828, nor have we any details of returns made to him until 1827. Some interesting points from the returns of this year are incorporated in the individual account of the schools in Chapter III. Strachan's official report to Lieutenant-Governor Colborne for 1828 is, therefore, the first conspectus we have of the schools, resting upon inspection by a comp)etent authority. It contains also, some valuable suggestions. In several schools the attendance was thin and discouraging, but in others instruction was well conducted and the system such as to merit approbation. Among the prosperous schools he could not forbear mentioning those of the Gore, Midland and Eastern Districts. In the two latter several of the pupils had made great progress in mathematics. At Cornwall, a boy was produced by the master, the Rev. Dr. Urquhart, hardly twelve years old, who demonstrated in a very satisfactory manner one of the most difficult propositions in Euclid. The total attendance was 372. but in some schools girls were ad- mitted. He expressed the hope that this condition would not continue "as the admission of female children interfered with the government which is required in classical seminaries". In order to secure uniformity, the President outlined a course of study, the introduction of which the Board thought would be highly beneficial. It assumed boys of from seven to nine years in the first year. These would have the Eton Latin grammar and Corderius, Selectae e Profanis, besides spelling, English grammar, writing and arith- metic (chiefly mental). Geography and civil and natural history, elocution and French are added in the second year, Greek and algebra in the third, use of globes, book-keeping and Euclid in the fourth, trigonometry, navigation, dialling and astronomy in the fifth. The course outlined in Latin and Greek included all the authors read in the leading English Public Schools as well as prose and verse composition in both languages. There was a valuable suggestion in the report contained in a reference to a neighbouring state, where no school district could participate in the education fund unless it raised a sum equal to that which was to be granted, in addition to the requirements for buildings, fuel, etc. The
20 Development of the Ontario High School
amounts raised locally, were raised by an assessment self-imposed, by the inhabitants of the district. This is interesting, as a similar plan was adopted by Ryerson, many years later.
Meanwhile a practical suggestion of Strachan's to realize upon a portion of the huge original land grant had been carried out, and in accordance therewith about 225,000 acres of productive Crown Reserves were exchanged for an equal amount of the wild and at the time valueless, school reserve. These lands were estimated to be yvorth ten shillings an acre. This exchange made it possible for Strachan to go on with his cherished scheme of a university and he submitted in March, 1826, an elaborate review of the educational state and needs of the country* already mentioned on page 17 and a detailed scheme of the organ- ization of the university. He spoke of the lack of opportunity in both Canadas to secure instruction in law, medicine and divinity^, and, therefore, candidates for these professions were compelled to go to the United States where education was secular and where the text-books and teaching lauded their own institutions and continually depreciated British institutions. There were only twenty-two clergymen in Upper Canada — that is, of course, Anglican — and it was essential that the future clergy should be trained within the Province.. "The wants of the Province are becoming great, and however much disposed the elder clergy may be to bring forward young men to the sacred profession, they have neither time nor means of doing it with sufficient effect. There can be nothing of that deep theological and literary inquiry which would be found among young men collected at the university, and here it is not irrelevant to observe that it is of the greatest I importance that the education of the colony should be conducted by \ the clergy.'' The Bishop of the Diocese would doubtless be ap- pointed visitor and it was essential that the principal and professors except those of law and medicine, should be clergymen of the Established Church, and "no tutor, teacher or officer, who is not a member of that church should ever be employed in the institution". He was immediately despatched to England by Lieutenant- Governor Maitland and the result was the issue of a Charter in 1827 on the religious lines suggested, just as if the Church of England were the Established Church in Canada as in England. It is not difficult to understand the storm that the charter aroused *See D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 211.
Laying the Foundations
21
in a House of Assembly where the fight against the oligarchy and its handling of public lands and public offices was already fierce. Among the able leaders were Marshall Spring Bidwell, William Lyon MacKenzie, Dr. W. W. Baldwin, John Rolph, lawyer and Cambridge graduate, and Peter Perry. Not only did the rising storm threaten the proposed university, but also the District Grammar schools and, in fact, swept away the General Board of Education, which, as already shown, without (Erect legislative authority, had been erected for the express purpose of establishing Church of England common schools generally, and was actually put in charge of a portion of the land reserve for this purpose.
It is not surprising that in;.Jl829»/a select committee of the House was appointed to enquire into "the present state of educa- tion in this Province, and to report what changes are expedient in the present system of District and Common Schools, etc." This was moved by John Rolph. Through the reports of this Committee we are in a position to view the state of the grammar schools from a new angle and to apprehend the public feeling towards them. The returns made to the <^mm^tj^^qL1^2^ of which William Buell was chairman are here tabulated:
|
Districts. |
No. of pupils. |
In the Languages |
In Eng. Gram. and Math. |
In Read'g Spelling, Etc. |
|
Eastern |
34 20 17 44 30 31 33 29 29 24 |
19 ~ n 25 5 15 10 19 2 2 |
8 7 6 10 13 16 12 10 18 12 |
7 |
|
Ottawa |
13 |
|||
|
Bathurst |
||||
|
Johnstown Midland Newcastle Home |
9 2 |
|||
|
Gore |
1 |
|||
|
Niagara |
1 |
|||
|
London |
9 |
|||
|
Western |
10 |
|||
|
Totals |
291 |
108 1 121 |
51 |
Of these part of the Gore school as well as that of London is com- posed of females. There were about twenty-five girls in attendance and in only one school, that of the Gore District was any attention paid to the educating of ten pupils gratis as provided by the Act of 1819. Part of the exercises in the Home District school were
22 Development of the Ontario High School.
of a religious nature and confined to the doctrines of the Episcopal
Church. The report was condemnatory, so far as the grammar
schools were concerned. For the most part they were very m-
efficient, and the causes were: Improper appointment of many
of the trustees, the appointments favouring particular religious
i views; improper selection of teachers due to Boards constituted
j of such trustees "many of the schools being apparently converted
into stepping-stones to the Episcopal Church"; neglect of trustees
to inspect and report conscientiously on the state of the schools;
in some cases the high tuition fees; the chief retarding cause,
however, was the state of the country where there were com-
/ paratively few persons able to send their sons away for their
/■ I education, and the cost of educating them in the United States,
'■■ I where a more extensive course could be had, was very little greater.
I . Many were, accordingly, educated there.
From the returns sent in by the masters who would be in- terested in making as favourable a showing as possible, it was seen that only 108 boys were receiving instruction which could not be imparted in the common schools, and this at a cost of £1,000 to the Province besides tuition fees.
The committee objected to reports being sent to the President of the General Board instead of to the Lieutenaut-Governor as provided by law and also to £300 per annum being paid to the same official "under whose management an undue prejudice in favour of Church establishment is prominent". This was a needless waste of money, and should in future be applied to increase the general school fund.
The recommendations of the committee were "that a per- manent institution should be provided — ^founded on liberal princi- ples, where the youth of the land could resort for instruction in the higher branches, free from sectarian influence, on terms equally low with those offered by neighbouring states, and that the District Schools be abolished and that the monies appropriated to each be given to four schools in each district to encourage superior teachers." This report was unanimously adopted by the House of Assembly and an address in conformity to it presented to Sir John Colborne, the newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor.
The recommendation to provide a higher institution was almost immediately implemented, and it was fortunate for the Province that at this time the liberal-minded statesman just named
Laying the Foundations 23
was at its head. As governor of the Island of Guernsey, he had resuscitated there the School of Queen Elizabeth, otherwise called Elizabeth College, and he proposed to the Legislature the founding of a similar school in York by enlarging the District Grammar school, known as The Old Blue School.* The main features of the pro- posal were that a liberal endowment should be provided and a staff of highly-trained masters brought out from England. The Legis- lative Council, though it concurred "in tlie establishment of a preparatory seminary" did not concur with the Upper Canada College Bill passed by the House of Assembly in 1830 on the ground that Sir John Colborne had declined to lay before them the in- structions he had received from the Colonial Secretary, in the matter. However, the Lieutenant-Governor lost no time in carrying out the intentions of the Bill and entrusted the selection of the chief master to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Principal must have a first-class degree in classics and mathematics, and would receive £600 per annum and a house with the privilege of taking boarders. There were to be two classical masters and a mathematical master who were to receive £300 and a house, also with the privilege of boarders. Russell Square, on King Street, was the site selected, and in May, tenders for the buildings were advertised for.
The school opened under the title of Upper Canada College on the 8th of January, 1830, with the Rev. J. H. Harris, D.D. of Clare College, Cambridge, in charge. He is described as having a strong dislike of verbiage and display, and of great firmness, decision and energy. The Rev. T. Phillips, late of the Home District Grammar School was Vice- Principal, and there were seven other masters. The buildings not being completed. The Old Blue School was refitted and used in the interim. The substantial endowment came out of the 250,000 acres of Crown lands which had been exchanged for a like amount of the less valuable school lands, and consisted of nearly 64,000 acres.f
The wisdom of this solution of the difficult university problem is apparent when the situation of the country is considered. A
♦This was identical with the Royal Grammar School, a designation given it in the Public Accounts of 1827-28. Presumably the General Board had given it this title, perhaps as indicating its departure, in the matter of religious instruction, from the secondary schools, though the point is not clear.
tSee D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 289.
24 Development of the Ontario High School
university proper could have drawn merely a handful of students, so small were the existing secondary schools and the expense of a scheme so ambitious would have been prohibitive, in view of the still low price of lands. The heat engendered over the sectarian university charter was thus given space and time to dissipate. The immediate requirements for higher education were amply satisfied. It is not pertinent to the present purpose to trace the history of Upper Canada — or Minor College, as it was sometimes called — since it stood apart from the general scheme of secondary schools; but, since it was made a pattern, which the grammar schools were instructed to follow, it will be necessary to notice its curriculum as shown in Dr. Harris' report of the first year's work. It was of the rigid classical type. Latin and Greek were at first made obligatory for every boy and occupied in the First or lowest Form, nineteen hours weekly; and varying slightly in amount through the Forms, seventeen hours in the Sixth. The following table will indicate the relative time weekly in hours given to the main subjects:
Writ, and Arith. Math. French
9 7i ■ 5i
3 (Writ.)
|
Forms |
Classics |
|
First |
19 |
|
Second |
18i |
|
Third |
m |
|
Fourth |
15 |
|
Fifth |
16h |
|
Sixth |
17 |
|
2 |
|
|
6 |
|
|
5i |
4 |
|
5 |
61 |
|
8 |
3 |
It was soon evident that a rigid classical diet was not suited to many who would seek admission to the school. Indeed a petition by Robert Baldwin and others, addressed to the Lieutenant- Governor, was presented in the first year of the school's existence, calling for alterations in the course so as to enable those who desired, to have their sons educated "in such branches of an English education as will qualify them for discharging with effi- ciency and respectability the scientific and other business of tradesmen and mechanics". The demand was practically granted in the provision that after the Third Form, pupils intended for business might omit classics. These constituted the Partial Form. This can only be regarded as a wise concession seeing that for the first few years of its existence this college was the only second- ary school in York, the capital and business centre of the Province.
Principal Harris contended that the text-books, methods and courses of the District Grammar schools should correspond with
Laying the Foundations 25
those of Upper Canada College, as the lack of uniformity was a serious handicap to boys who came in from those schools to the college to finish. His recommendation must have been made with meagre knowledge of conditions in the grammar schools. It was much like telling a country general store to follow the business methods of a big city departmental. However, as the college stood in place of the Provincial university pro tempore, he was justified in expecting that to some extent the District Grammar schools would be preparing pupils for his finishing. King's College imposed practically the same programme upon the grammar schools a few years later. An insight into the expense of attendance at the college may be gained from William Lyon MacKenzie's Sketches of Canada and the United States, 1833. He complains that the exactions are too high. The college fees were, he says, £8, besides extra charges for firewood and contingencies. Board, lodging, washing and mending, ranged from £35 to £42, with £3 10s. entrance money to buy bedding. He declares that the fees were ten times as high as the less amply endowed seminary of Quebec.
With so splendid an endowment and in addition, a grant from the Government of £200 for 1830, £500 for the next three years, and after that £1,000 per annum, with an able staff and commo- dious, well-equipped buildings, Upper Canada College afforded the strongest possible contrcist to the poor struggling grammar schools, and it may have been this contrast, as well as the temper of the time, that brought to a head the prevailing dissatisfaction with these schools in a stronger form than appeared in 1829.
The objection of sectarian favouritism was prominent, and disclosed itself concretely in a petition from the United Presbytery of Upper Canada to the House of Assembly in 1830. They stated that education in general was in a deplorable state, that the bene- volent designs of the Legislature had failed in effecting the object in view and the reason was that, the appointment of trustees from one communion only had destroyed public confidence. This J3eing the case the petitioners and their congregations which were numer- ous and large, were deprived of the benefits they had a right to expect. They ask that other schools be provided to be placed under their superintendence. The petition is signed by William Bell, Clerk; and William Smart, Moderator. Although the petition was addressed to the House of Assembly, it was apparently passed on to the Legislative Council and a committee of that body
26 Development of the Ontario High School
found that "after the minutest enquiry there was not the slightest foundation for the allegations of the petitioners". They point to the Act of 1807 as exacting no conformity to any particular creed in either teacher or trustee. The schools having been in existence for twenty-two years, in them most of the youth of the Province, who were filling the several professions, were educated. The schools had been open to every creed without distinction, and in the original selection of trustees, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians as well as Anglicans had been appointed. However, the trustees had nothing to do with the education of the children unless it could be shown that teachers had been selected exclusively from one denomination. Then follows a list of thirty-eight teachers of whom eleven were Presbyterians or Church of Scotland, one Congregational, twenty-one English Church and five turning to that communion, although four of them started as Presbyterians and one as a Methodist.
The Presbytery regarded this answer as proving their case: (i) Because the Committee of the Legislative Council had avoided the main ground of complaint. They had not published a list of trustees to show that the Presbytery's claim was unfounded. This they certainly would have done, if it would have disproved the contention of the petitioners; (ii) Because the list of teachers given in the reply shows that many who were not originally Epis- copalian, after they came under the influence of the exclusive system, took orders in the Church of England. They reiterated their statement that the present trustees were almost exclusively of the one denomination.
Thus a committee of the House of Assembly and the church court of the Presbyterians had each brought the same indictment against the grammar school system, though neither claimed that any religious test was applied to the pupils, nor that Episcopalian doctrine was inculcated except in the Royal Grammar School at York.
A Select Committee of the House of Assembly was appointed in 1831 with William Morris,* as chairman to enquire into the School Lands. Their report first called attention to the fact that no buildings had been erected for the District Grammar schools, as contemplated when the land grant was first made. The existing schools were supported to the extent of £100 each per annum out
*Afterwards President of the Executive Council.
Laying the Foundations 27
of the public treasury. The country should not longer be deprived of the advantages of the land endowment. If the whole school reserve were sold at even ten shillings per acre, there would be a sufficient fund to yield an income which would provide an annual payment of £400 to each of the Public Schools, £2,000 to the College (Upper Canada) at York, besides £50 to each of the 132 Common Schools. The Committee was averse to giving any extensive endowment out of this fund to King's College until the District Grammar schools had been adequately provided. On this report being brought to the attention of the Executive Council, they pleaded in defence that the Royal Instructions of 1798 could not be carried out: First, from the fact that the lands originally chosen were not judiciously selected; and secondly, owing to the low price of land. This was due to the fact that up to 1828 millions of acres were in course of grant by the Crown for almost nothing, and more than half the population were entitled from various causes to gratuitous grants. The suggestion is made that the residue of School Lands estimated at 240,000 acres be placed under the control of the General Board of Education.
A Committee of the House was again appointed in 1832, under the chairmanship of Mahlon Burwell,* whose interest in education appears to have been both keen and persistent. Their reportf stated that the system of grammar schools, excellent as it was in 1807-8 with a population of only 50,000 was quite inadequate for 300,000. There was a demand for superior attainments in the various professions, and unless opportunities were afforded for superior schools, the colony would fall behind the age. They recommended that the management of the grammar schools as well as the superintendence of both grades of schools be placed under a Board of Commissioners; that each District Board of Trustees be incorporated with the General Board of Education. Through prudent management of the grant lands, 324,000 acres of which they assumed were still at the disposal of the Legislature for the support of grammar schools, a substantial schoolhouse of brick or stone should be erected with a master's residence. They recognized only the deduction of 225,273 acres for King's College and considered that the 66,000 (previously estimated at 64,000)
*Burwell represented Middlesex in the House of Assembly for many years, entering in 1813.
fSee H. E. P., Vol. II, p. 47.
28 Development of the Ontario High School
acres granted to Upper Canada College should be restored, as having been outside the original purpose. A separate grant should be made to this College.
If it should be found impossible to meet the expanse of building as suggested out of the endowment, then the alternative plan is suggested of requiring the Districts to provide buildings out of their own funds, which the Committee optimistically thought the Districts would be glad to do. Vain hope! Not for many years did the local authorities take measures to provide the buildings and then not gladly.
As to supervision and methods, the Committee approved the principles suggested by Dr. Strachan, namely:
1. Vigilant superintendence over masters and scholars by a local Board of Trustees. The headmaster might properly have a seat at such Board.
2. A system of instruction suited to the wants and wishes of the country.
3. Some portion of the teacher's income should depend on the prosperity of the Institution.
4. Corporal punishment except for immoral conduct should be discountenanced as far as possible.
The Committee recommended that Upper Canada College be in- corporated with King's College and so leave the Home District with their own District school and with the same advantages as the other District schools.
In 1833 a third report of a Select Committee, with Mr. Burwell again chairman, was made. In this, the Committee took stronger ground regarding the grant to Upper Canada College. Some portion of the lands had been sold and the proceeds advanced as a loan to support the College. This was at the disposal of the Legislature and should be invested for the grammar schools. They questioned the authority of King's College Council to expend funds on Minor College while the university was still non-existent, and strongly disapproved this course. They showed how parsi- moniously the grammar and fcommon schools had been treated; that "less is granted by the 'Provincial Legislature for educating the youth of 300,000 people than is required to defray the contin- gent expenses of one session of Parliament", or "one shilling per annum for each scholar". The pittance granted was unjustly distributed, e.g., the Midland District with a population of 40,000 gets the same grant £250 as the Ottawa District with 5,000. The
Laying the Foundations 29
reports of the Select Committees of 1829, 1831, 1832 and 1833 taken together present a rather formidable case against the adminis- tration of both grades of schools and are important in that they are the result of many discussions both in and out of the House, and of suggestions made in memorials addressed to the House at various times and therefore must represent the feelings of the people generally. However, though Mr. Burwell drafted a Bill in line with the recommendations of his committee, "embracing all the benefits of the Scotch and New York systems", no action was taken. Two years later in a memorial to Sir John Colborne on the subject of the grammar schools, he said they had remained as they were first established in 1807 though the population had increased six- fold and its wealth more than twenty-fold. In the memorial mentioned, he urged (i) the equitable distribution in the way of endowment of the lands which had early been set aside for this purpose, provision for proper schoolhouses and masters' residences and enlarged schools in populous centres; (ii) inspection over these schools to insure efficiency and, also, to connect them with the common schools in one system.
That secondary education had stagnated will be evident from a comparison of the total attendance given by Strachan for 1828, and that given by the official reports for 1838. At the former date it was 372, and ten years later was 311. There were only thirteen grammar schools, the largest with thirty-six pupils in a Province whose population must have approximated 400,000. During the decade numerous petitions had been addressed to the House of Assembly, complaining of the state of school buildings, or requesting special grants to purchase equipment or pay additional teachers. The condition of the buildings may be judged from the descriptions given in the next chapter. It is safe to say that those not described were no better, some of them were worse, and the Home District school was altogether an exception. Yet the example of Upper Canada College shows that long before 1839, the point we have reached, it was possible to handle the School Lands in such a way as to make them productive and so to have done much towards bettering the wretched accommodation of the grammar schools. As to curricula there was considerable diversity. All agreed in having more or less of classics. The more ambitious programmes (Niagara, Bathurst, Gore) name most of the tradi- tional school authors. Two mention Greek Testament. Only one school (Johnstown) claimed science under the name of natural
30 Development of the Ontario High School
rp p
hilosophy. J In the Newcastle school, the full complement of ten pupils'^re'feceiving gratuitous instruction under the law of 1819, in the Talbot District only three, and in the other schools none at all. The chairman of the Talbot Board of Trustees probably furnished the true explanation in the remark that the provision had "hitherto proved nugatory, partly owing to the fact that those who might be desirous to avail themselves of it, cannot afford Jo pay^for the board of JheJlL children in the^ neigbjjourhood of the
school, and partly owing to tHe inefficient state of the common schools which do not furnish candidates for such gratuitous in-
struction[\i They deplored the Baclcwar3~'sTate of education throughout the Province, a state of affairs calling loudly for "ener- getic measures for the improvement of the common schools and such other steps as may remedy the evil". To be sure, the decade under review was not propitious for any enlargment of popular privileges in education or anything else. But the grammar schools, it has been shown, were popularly regarded as being linked up with the oligarchy and the church that monopolized the Clergy Reserves. There was not much hope for education until responsible govern- ment was gained.
The publication of Lord Durham's Report probably induced the action that was almost immediately taken. This famous document was published in February, 1839. Of the educational facilities of the Province, it spoke scathingly. Most of the land intended for the support of grammar schools had been diverted to the endowment of the university. "Even in the most thickly peopled districts there are but few schools and those of a very inferior character". In response to an address of the House of Assembly, Sir George Arthur appointed a commission in May, 1839, to investigate the several departments of the Government. The Committee on Education of the commission was composed of Rev. John McCaul, LL.D. (afterwards President of the University of Toronto), the Rev. H. J. Grasett, D.D., Dean of Toronto, and Samuel B. Harrison, the Civil Secretary (afterwards Judge of the Home District). The commission advocated the laying down of a uniform system for the grammar schools, the examination of teachers, having reference both to academic and professional qualifications, an assistant where the attendance was thirty, and a uniform plan of building, containing accommodation for the master and his family and for resident pupils. They believed, also, j that a certain number of pupils should be entitled to free education,
Laying the Foundations 31
that a quarterly report should be laid before King's College Council, i and that the schools should be visited at least once biennially by the Inspector-General of Education. This official was to be chairman of a Provincial Board of Commissioners having control of common schools but supervision also of grammar schools.
Before this report was available, an Act to "Provide for the/ Advancement of Education" had been passed (1839). The pre- amble says that "the advancement of education will be better promoted by devoting a portion of the annual revenues of the University of King's College to the support of Upper Canada College and of the grammar schools for several years to come, than by the erection of a university in the present state of education in the Province". The Act changed the official designation from 'District Public School' to 'Grammar School', although they had been known by this title almost from the first. It set aside 250,000 acres for the support of grammar schools. This may be considered as the equivalent of the unconveyed balance of the original grant of 1798, a large portion which had been devoted to King's College and a smaller portion (see p. 28) to Upper Canada College, but up to the date of the Act nothing had been derived from the remainder by the grammar schools. A grant of £200 was authorized to assist in the erection of buildings, but was to be contingent upon the provision of an equal sum by the locality concerned. The Council of King's College was empowered to manage the land endowment and to make rules and regulations for the government of the schools. Two additional grammar schools were authorized in each District in any town or village, ' in which the inhabitants provided a suitable schoolhouse, and a grant of £100 each, provided the attendance was not below sixty and that the new schools were at least six miles distant from the original district school. An additional clause empowered the Council to extend this aid to four grammar schools, if they thought it wise to do so.
Brief regulations were accordingly issued by King's College Council under which trustees were to nominate head-masters and submit names with particulars to the Council, thus superseding the Lieutenant-Governor in respect to confirming appointments of masters. They also granted £50 per annum for an assistant in each school. Before passing to the next stage of development, some account must be given of the working of the schools and their local history. This forms the subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER III. EARLY SCHOOLS AND MASTERS.
THE school of Strachan at Cornwall, though not the earliest, soon became the best known. In its comprehensive programme with its admixture of the practical with the literary, as well as in its equipment of apparatus (see p. 15) the school far outstripped its rivals. The principal subjects taught, as we learn from the account of a public examination held on July 31st, 1805, were the Latin classics, arithmetic, bookkeeping, elements of mathematics, of geography and of natural and civil history. The master was the school. He had a singular faculty of winning the complete hearts of his pupils, engaging their lively interest in every exercise.
Bishop Fuller, one of Strachan's pupils, speaks of his originality in method, e,g., that of "having the boys question one another on certain of the lessons. This made them quick at seizing the leading points in the lessons, ready at shaping questions and deeply in- terested." The Rev. Dr. Scadding mentions his attention to the science of common objects. "We doubt if in the most complete of our modern schools, there was ever awakened a greater interest or intelligence in relation to such matters Who that had once participated in the excitement of its natural history class can ever forget it, or in that of the historical or geographical exercises?"
At this school were educated many of the men who filled leading positions and whose names are well known. On one occasion his old boys, many years after leaving school, gave him a testimonial of their esteem in the form of a "most beautiful and costly candelabra" and an address signed by the following: Sir J. B. Robinson, Sir J. B. Macaulay, Very Rev. Dean Bethune, Right Rev. Bishop Bethune, Hon. Chief Justice McLean, Hon. Justice Jones, Hon. W. B. Robinson, Hon. G. S. Boultoh, Rev. W. Macaulay, Judge George Ridout, Surveyor-General Chewett, Col. Gregg, Captain Macaulay, R.A., Inspector-General Markland, Sheriff McLean, Messrs. T. G. Ridout, P. Vankoughnet, S. P. Jarvis, J. Radenhurst and others. This is an imposing list. It is to be remembered, however, that Strachan had few competitors during his Cornwall regime. With his restless energy and enthus-
Early Schools and Masters 33
iasm and especially his tact in adapting his subjects and methods to the practical needs of the young country, it is only reasonable to suppose that he drew the cream of the ambitious youth of the whole colony. Indeed, he said himself that young men came to it from all parts of both provinces.
In 1812 he was made Rector of York and was succeeded at short intervals by four masters, all ministers, but not till 1827 did the school again have a permanent head of outstanding ability. In that year the Rev. Hugh Urquhart, King's College, Aberdeen, was appointed. He held the post till 1840. Among his pupils were Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald, Hon. Philip Vankoughnet, Judge J. F. Pringle, Judge D. S. McQueen, the Rev. J. F. S. Moun- tain, John and William Molson, Bankers.
The building erected in 1806 certainly contributed nothing to the fame of the school. It was of wood, a cold bare unpainted room, in 1839 described by the trustees as having the appearance of an old bam, with windows six feet from the floor, filled up with long desks, at each of which eight or ten boys sat — the seats being common benches without backs. It was superseded only in 1856.*
In the first account given by the trustees to, the General Board of Education in 1827 Urquhart reported that Ovid, Sallust, Caesar and Nepos were the Latin Authors read, but one boy was reading Virgil. This pupil had finished the first book of Euclid and was about to begin a course in algebra All the Latin boys were exercised twice a week in geography and four times a week in arithmetic. Five pupils were spelling words of four or five letters and two confined their attention to writing and arithmetic. An assistant had recently been engaged.
The school of the Rev. Dr. Stuart of Cataraqui (afterwards Kingston) has already been mentioned. When the District Public schools were established Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John White- law, became master The school was prosperous under his direc- tion. In 1814 there was talk of his withdrawing and a letter signed "Junius" appeared in the Kingston Gazette of June 25th of that year indicating that the school had "exceeded the most sanguine expectation. Youths not yet sixteen have gone as far as equations in algebra — by no means imperfectly — and are well versed in the principles of geometry and the theory and practice of plain trigonometry. Their progress in Latin and Greek is not less ♦S^cdTh. E., Vol. I, p. 231.
34 Development of the Ontario High School
surprising". The war had depleted the attendance and the proximity of block houses and troops rendered the situation disagreeable, and hence the possibility of Whitelaw's withdrawal.* In 1817 Mr. Whitelaw announced a course of lectures in chemistry, mineralogy and geology, illustrated by experiments. Samples of all procurable minerals were to be shown. These were evening lectures, thirty-six in number and the fee was three guineas. This was his last year in Kingston for in the Kingston Gazette of June 12th, 1817, appears a card of his successor, the Rev. John Wilson, M.A., of Queen's College, Oxford. He "begs to inform his friends and the inhabitants of the District that every branch of classical literature, and the elements of mathematics will be taught according to the system adopted in the Public Schools and Universities of England. Every attention will be paid to morals of pupils and to their instruction in English reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, etc." In 1830, Whitelaw became master of the Niagara District school. He was accounted a good classical scholar but with a scientific bent also.
At Niagara, then called Newark, in 1792, the Rev. Robert Addison set up a private classical school and was mentioned by Simcoe in a letter to the Duke of Portland in 1795, as being willing to undertake the office of master at a salary of £100 per annum. The Rev. John Burns, a Presbyterian was probably the first master of the Niagara District Grammar school, though the claim has been made for Richard Cockerell. This is not probable as he is mentioned by the Christian Recorder (Dr. Strachan, ed.) as having established an excellent mathematical school in Niagara about 1812. There is apparently no authentic record of the earlier years of the Niagara school: The Rev. Thomas Creen was ap- pointed master in 1822. He was a classical scholar, educated at Glasgow University. In 1823 the attendance was eighty-five and the dependence of the school upon the presence of the regiment is shown by the fall to only eighteen when it was withdrawn in 1827. "In 1823 the report of the Niagara District school, T. Creen, teacher hopes in rather magniloquent language that literature, at once the blessing and ornament of society, will flourish here with increasing bloom and shine in its generous lustre. To open 7th July."t Dr. John Whitelaw, formerly of the Kingston District ~~*See D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 88.
t"The Early Schools of Niagara", Camochan.
Early Schools and Masters 35
schgol became master in 1830 and continued till 1851. His in- terest in the natural sciences has been mentioned and an old pupil describes him as being very particular about giving them "a thorough grounding in Latin and Greek and this grounding was sometimes secured by to us very painful methods. The room was divided by a board partition; there was one stove, which very imperfectly heated the room, being half in one room and half in the other."*
In a financial sense, the mastership appears to have been a missionary undertaking as we may see from a glimpse of conditions in 1839. Out of the government grant of £100, he paid £30 rent and £40 for an assistant. The fees were accordingly high, being £4 per annum.
Of the London District school very little can be learned. It was directed to be located by the Act of 1807 in the Township of Townsend, but the trustees in a petition in 1808 prayed to have the location changed to the village of Dover. The trustees were accordingly authorized to change the location at their discretion and the people of Dover, confidently expecting the school, put up a building by public subscription at a cost of £100, but because it was not finished in time, owing to delay in getting a supply of nails from Fort Erie, the trustees fixed the location in the village of Vittoria. In 1819 this was sanctioned by statute. Apparently James Mit- chell was the first, or an early teacher. He was brought out as tutor in the family of the Hon. Robert Hamilton of Kingston around 1803. He is described as a man of ability and learning.! Perhaps the most famous pupil of this school was Egerton Ryerson until he was fourteen. Subsequently after taking a course of lectures "given by two professors who taught nothing but English Grammar, t he returned at the age of eighteen to become an usher, and remained two years, leaving, as he says, the Head Master to his favourite pursuits of gardening and building. The school was removed to the town of London in accordance with a statute passed in 1837 and the master then was Francis Wright, B.A. Four years later he was succeeded by the Rev. Benjamin Bayly, B.A. (Dublin), who held the position for nearly forty years, (see p. 47). The original home of the school still stands — an old
*The Early Schools of Niagara", Carnochan. tSee D. H. E., Vol. I. p. 155. IBurwash — "Egerton Ryerson," p. 4.
36 Development of the Ontario High School
frame structure on the north side of King Street, adjoining the grounds of the County Buildings.*
The Old Blue School of York was the third building to shelter the Home District Grammar school. The first master was the Rev. Dr. George Okill Stuart, who was also the first Anglican rector of the town. He held the school in a portion of his own house situated on the south-east corner of King and George Streets. The schoolroom was a one-storey extension, built of rough boulders sheeted with half-inch boards, the dimensions being 50 by 25 ft. Classes opened on June 7th, 1807. Among the names of the first pupils are many well-known, including Cawthra, Hamilton, McDonnell, Jarvis, Boulton, Hayes, McNab, Stanton, Ridout, Robinson, etc. At the end of 1812 Dr. Stuart sold his property and removed to Kingston, where his father had held the first school (see p. 33) and in the beginning of 1813 Dr. Strachan succeded to both charges. He converted a building used as a bam into a schoolhouse. It stood on the north side of King Street, about one hundred feet east of Yonge Street. "The progress of the King Street school was phenomenal. Success had crowned the early designs of the master and the limited accommodation soon com- pelled a flight to more commodious quarters". f And so the timber on a six acre lot bounded by Adelaide, Church, Richmond and Jarvis Streets was felled and a fine building erected in the summer of 1816. It was of heavy timbers, dovetailed, and covered with half-inch clapboard sheeting, in size, 70 by 40 feet. It stood on the south-west corner of the lot, was of two storeys and with its gables east and west. Two years after, the exterior was painted a dull slate blue with white trimming, the expense being met by means of the proceeds of a course of lectures on natural philosophy delivered by Dr. Strachan, and from that time was known as the Blue School. Inside, however, the woodwork was innocent of the painter's brush and soon took on a 'dark sienna look'. The interior space was simply divided. The main door opened into a lobby, the east side of which was partly taken up with a staircase leading to the second storey which was used only for public exam- inations and lectures. From the lobby a door opened into the main room, sixty by forty feet. The benches and desks were ranged
*See Transactions of the London and Middlesex Historical Society, Part V, p. 30.
tSee D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 105.
Early Schools and Masters 37
along the south and north sides, the boys being faced to the walls. In the centre stood a long box stove capable of taking cord wood. Four square pine pillars supported the expansive ceiling. Such was the room in which the greatest schoolmaster of those times moulded the coming leaders of the capital. Originality of method which had made the Cornwall School famous was here extended for the master "was disembarrassed of the traditions which often rendered the education of a young man a cumbersome, unintelligent and tedious thing". "The object aimed at was the speedy and real preparation for actual life",* Parliamentary debates were of frequent occurrence. On special occasions speeches of British statesmen were learned and delivered, the speakers being duly ranged on benches facing each other. In the upper Reading class competitive readings were given every Monday and the best readers were recorded in the register. In a programme of a public examination given in 1816, the first debate was on the question: Who is the greatest benefactor of the present age? Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Lord Nelson, Mr. Wilberforce, the Duke of Welling- ton and Dr. Jenner had their claims successively advanced by the youthful orators. A parliamentary debate of 1740 was also repro- duced on a Bill for preventing merchants from raising the wages of seamen in time of war, and thereby inducing them to avoid His Majesty's service.
In the schoolroom, the attractive personality of Dr. Strachan, the gift of tact and resourcefulness, and the unerring judgment of boys, won for him the same ascendancy as in the wider world out- side where he apparently attained every main object he pursued except one, namely the anglicizing of the Provincial University.
He was succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Armour who, in turn, gave place to the Rev. Dr. Phillips, a graduate of Cambridge and an accomplished scholar. He introduced English Public School traditions of the strictest type and hence was elected in 1830 as Vice- Principal of Upper Canada College. The school was then closed and the land sold to assist the building fund of the new Upper Canada College. In 1836 it emerged again, under Charles N. B. Cosens, who was also taken into the new College and was succeeded by Marcus C. Crombie. As was to be expected, the school had a hard struggle for many years, overwhelmed as it was by the superior attractions of its powerful rival. An interesting *Dr. Scadding's 'Toronto of Old', quoted in D. H. E., Vol. I, p. 107.
38 Development of the Ontario High School
glimpse is given of Crombie's method of teaching in the trustees' report of 1839. "The interrogatory form is principally used as, by it, when questions are promiscuously put, the master is certified whether the pupil understands what he has learned or not. A rule and an example, when learned, must be given for every branch of knowledge that is acquired". This report is signed by Bishop Strachan, the Hon. Wm. Allan and Col. James Fitzgibbon.
Probably the first school in the Johnstown District was that established by Asa Starlcwather, an American teacher, in 1788, to educate the children of the half-pay officers of Jessup's Rangers. The school stood on Lot 28, first concession of the township of Augusta. The following is a copy of the agreement to pay the teacher for drawing up the lease :
'"The subscribers have agreed to pay Mr. Asa Starkwather, One Dollar and a Half for Drawing a lease to be signed by Capt. Alex. Campbell, and to be shown to the proprietors at their next meeting.
December 7, 1790.
Said lease to be drawn for the necessary privilege of land, wood, etc., situated around the schoolhouse standing Lot 28, first concession, Augusta.
John Jones. Oliver Sweet. Elijah Bottum.* Benoni Wiltsie. Ziba PhiUips. Henry Cross.
Then follows a list of subscriptions for the school.
£ 5. d. Daniel Smith, Bonef for eight bushels com. David Bissel, Jr., Bone for Four Pounds. . . .
David Bissel, Sr 5
George Comwallis, Bone for
David Bissel, Sr., Bone
H. Mcllmoyle
|
0 |
0 |
|
9 |
9 |
|
13 |
10 |
|
3 |
3 |
*0f these Elijah Bottum was appointed a trustee of the District (Grammar) School in 1807.
tA Bone was an I.O.U.— (French ' bon ')•
Early Schools and Masters 39
Andrew Suiter, 20 bus. India Com.
Samuel Smades, Note for 13/5 in March wheat.
H. Cross, Bone 19/10. This building was of logs, the seats being rough planks. A more commodious frame building was soon erected on a lot about a mile below Maitland. In 1807 the District (Grammar) school was kept here and was attended by pupils from great distances. It had a serious rival in the Cornwall school of course, and if the parents were rich enough they sent their sons there. The earlier masters were hired by the year. Holidays were few, as a petition from the trustees to the Magistrates in Quarter Session shows. They desire to have the master, Mr. Pitt, released from his week of road work because "we hire him by the year, consequently if you force him to work on the road we must pay him for one week (annually) in which he will be absolutely useless to us".
The Rev. John Bethune was appointed in 1814 and in addition to carrying on the school was the Anglican pastor of Brockville and Augusta. Among his pupils were the Jessups of Prescott, the late Dr. Jessup walking to school along the river road, as it was about half-way between Brockville and Prescott. He taught all classes from the alphabet up. Exercises still in existence show that among the higher branches were : surveying, geometry, English composition, Latin and Greek; Dr. Jessup's copies of the Iliad and Odyssey show that the study of Greek was not neglected. George Malloch, afterwards Judge of the District of Johnstown and later of the Counties of Leeds and Grenville, succeeded Bethune.*
The school was moved to Brockville in 1820 under authority of an Act of 1819, and appears to have been kept in a building on James Street where the Horton Public Library stands. This building was described in 1838 as an old frame building, very cold and inconvenient. A later master was the Rev. Rossington Elms, who had been the Anglican rectonof a charge near the village of Athens in 1829. He was an efficient teacher though strict and somewhat severe. He is described as a gentleman in dress, habits and speech. The card of the school read as follows:
"Board and Tuition £30. Each Boarder will provide for his washing and is expected to be supplied with a Bed and Bedding, Towels and a Silver Spoon. Theological pupils
*From an account supplied by Principal A. J. Husband, Esq., B.A., of Brock- ville Collegiate Institute.
40 Development of the Ontario High School.
boarding with the Principal will pay £50 and will receive separately from the other pupils such instruction in Divinity as the Ecclesiastical Authorities may appoint with the addition of Hebrew and Chaldee. For instruction in Spelling, Reading, English Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, History and Writing, £4 per annum. For instruction in Greek, Latin, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Composition, £5. Hours of attendance from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with intermission of half an hour. Vaca- tions, 4 weeks at Midsummer, 3 weeks at Christmas and 1 week at Easter.
It has been found impossible to get reliable accounts of any of the other District Grammar schools, but those described may safely be taken as representative of early conditions. The buildings and equipment were in general, very poor, the attendance was limited, the fees high, and the quality of work done very uneven.
CHAPTER IV.
RYERSON AND GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
1840-1852.
AFTER the General Board of Education passed out of exist- ence in 1833 the Grammar Schools ceased to be inspected and until 1840 were allowed to, pursue their quiet life, unvexed by any form of central control. In the latter -year King's College Council, whose head was Dr. Strachan, exercised its statutory right to regulate the schools (see p. 31) and the year aiter issued a complete set of ' Regulations for the Government of Gram- mar Schools in Upper Canada'.* The Programme was to be drawn up by the head-master in accordance with the prescribed curriculum, in the construction of which the Council followed the recommendation of Dr. Harris (see p. 24). It was essentially the same as that of Upper Canada College though not quite so elaborate. A Preparatory Form was provided for, intended for boys of tender years, the subjects in which were Latin accidence reading and spelling, writing and arithmetic! Then six Forms for those pursuing the ordinary course and a Partial Form com- posed of those who did not receive instruction in Latin and Greek. The only subject for this Form, not prescribed for any of the others was elements of natural philosophy. French was n t required, probably from the lack of teachers of the subject. There was a copious amount of Latin and Greek, however, for all the Forms and all were to memorize verses from the New Testament regularly which were to be recited at the opening of «chool on Mondays, while the last lesson on Fridays was to be the elucidation of the Holy Scriptures. Each day was to be closed with prayer*. The forms of prayer are those still given in the Ontario school registers. The hours of attendance were five, except Wednesday and Saturday, which were to be half-holidays. The vacations were a week at Christmas, three days at Easter, a week at Whitsuntide and a month at Midsummer. A maximum was set for tuition fees at £1 105. per quarter in the Preparatory Form, and £2 55. in the
*See D. H. E., Vol. 4, p. 64.
tSee p. 19 for Strachan's Grammar School Curriculum.
42 Development of the Ontario High School
others. Masters were enjoined to make quarterly reports to parents and yearly reports to the Council.
Whether any of the thirteen schools in operation in 1841 at- tempted to conform to this elaborate curriculum or not, we have no means of knowing, since as we have said, there was no inspection. At most, it was probably rather an ideal to be looked up to with resjDect than a practical scheme. Indeed the authority of King's College Council to impose regulations of this character was dis- puted. It was regarded as conflicting with powers conferred on trustees by the Act of .1807. Objection was taken by several trustee boards. Amongst these the board of the Gore district divided on the question, four favouring submission, and three objecting. The dissenting minority stated their case thus: "We object to the management and control of Grammar Schools, instituted and endowed for the benefit of every individual in the country without regard to sect, denomination or party being invested in a Body of so partial and sectarian a character as that of the Council of King's College and because we can perceive evident marks in the steps which that Body have already taken, of a desire to grasp the patronage of those schools, gain the control over them and organize them upon a particular system, not adapted to the wants, conformable to the wishes, or available for the benefit of a large portion of the people of the Province". As a result of the agitation the power of making regulations was taken away from King's College Council by tiie Act of 1841 which repealed the Act of 1839 as a whole, but re-enacted all the other provisions except that it reduced the number of pupils necessary for an additional school in any District from 60 to 50.
The Common School Act of 1841 has an important bearing upon the subject in hand since it provided for the appointment of a Superintendent of Education. It had become apparent that, in order to erect a system of public schools, primary and secondary, a competent architect was required who should devote himself exclusively to this great task. The earlier solution was soon abandoned, namely, the appointment of an Assistant-Superin- tendent as the expert, with the Provincial Secretary as the titular head. The Rev. Robert Murray, Presbyterian minister at Oak- ville was first appointed, but soon despaired of being able to perfect a scheme and his friends persuaded him to accept the chair of mathematics in King's College in 1844. It was important that
Ryerson and Grammar Schools 43
the new official should be not only an able administrator, but a man of vision. To secure the smooth and efficient running of the business as it stood was the least part of his duties. In a new country rapidly advancing in population and wealth, new problems and new dispositions must constantly be met and managed. Such a man was found in the Rev. Dr. Egerton Ryerson, at the time head of Victoria University. Self-nominated, if you will — for when Lord Sydenham told him that he might be more usefully employed for the country than in his then limited sphere, he had replied that he knew of no position likely to be at the disposal of the Government except the superintendency of common schools — he entered upon the task in 1844 at the earnest request of the Governor-General, the 'Canada Gazette' naming him Assistant Superintendent for that part of the Province formerly Upper Canada.* In the Act of 1850 the official is named Chief Superin- ' tendent of Education for Upper Canada. Under the Act of 1841 no mention was made of grammar schools in relation to the' Superintendent, but in the Act of 1850 he is required to report annually the condition of the grammar schools as well as of] common schools.
In correspondence previous to his appointment, he had indicated his opinion of the state of education and his conception of the functions of the office. "The educational condition of the country at large is deplorable and should be considered in a system of public instruction, commencing with the Common School and terminating with the University; being connected and harmonious throughout, and equally embracing all classes, without respect to religious sect or political party". He entertained the idea of libraries and the exposition of principles by publications and addresses and these means of influencing public opinion he after- wards used with great force and eloquence and with the most untiring energ>^ He professedly viewed himself as the champion of the rights of the common people and equal opportunities for all religious denominations. Hence it is not difficult to understand that his attention should have been almost wholly directed to the development of the common school. This was the arena upon which must be fought the battle against obscurantism and clerical- ism jn high places and local parsimony and indifference, until the common schools should be free, universal, and non-sectarian.
*Murray had been in charge of education in both Upper and Lower Canada.
44 Development of the Ontario High School
With his zeal for equal rights and his open hostility to privilege of an5^ kind he perhaps could not help regarding the grammar schools as of minor importance. Nevertheless, we have an opportunity of seeing that in contrast to the university he attached a certain importance to secondary education and appears to have had an early intention of making this branch more generally useful to the country.
In a paper by Ryerson written in support of MacDonald's University and Grammar School Bills, in which it was proposed to add to the revenue of the grammar schools to permit of teaching agriculture and for the purchase of 200 acres of land for a model farm in connection he says: " In addition to this a practical Agricul- tural School is contemplated in each District which will serve the whole purpose of being a model farm for the study of farmers and a place of both scholastic and agricultural training for their sons and should each District Council send some enterprising young farmer to the Provincial Normal School to attend lectures in agricultural chemistry and kindred subjects as well as to receive requisite instruction for the office of an agricultural teacher, a corps of native teachers would soon be^raised up."
A course of lectures on agricultural chemistry was instituted at the Normal School and Lord Elgin offered two prizes for excel- lence in this course, while the grounds around the school in 1853 were used for experimental plots. However, the Bills referred to above, were withdrawn, and nothing further was heard of the scheme of model farms, which, of course, may have been thrown out to test public opinion. Ryerson referred to the Baldwin and the Draper University Bills as not looking beyond university education, in which not more than one in a thousand can be immediately benefited, "but" he goes on to say, "the establishment and main- tenance of grammar and agricultural schools come home to the mass of the people and are not confined to the rich and few." The objection is taken, "that such a Literary Provincial University is more important to the people than are the proposed District and Agricultural Schools." The answer is, "we depreciate not the importance of Literary Collegiate University education; but the educational statistics of any country will prove that the education of nine young men out o^ ten will terminate with the Grammar School, for the one who will proceed from thence to the University. The importance of the former, therefore, in comparison of the latter,
^\
Ryerson and Grammar Schools 45
is as.te» to one. To what are we indebted but to Grammar Schools for the education of all our judges in the various courts of Upper Canada? And to the same secondary institutions are we indebted for most of the parliamentary leaders. Yet some parties have, all at once, become so profoundly learned, and so transcendental in their views of what one newspaper calls "the exact sciences" that they can scarcely condescend to look upon a Grammar School at all; nor can they seem to endure any other mode of teaching agriculture than by a professor at a university". He goes on to say that many great leaders have been more indebted to the firm foundation laid in the secondary schools than to their university training.
That he had a clear idea of the state of the grammar schools in Upper Canada he showed in the same document. "And it is one of the most admirable features of the present University measure that it proposes to give to District Grammar Schools their proper position and efficiency. Some of them are now little better than Common Schools; as a whole they are inefficient and in- efficiently provided for. The present measure proposes to make them as important and useful to Upper Canada as are the Gymnasia to Germany, what the Communal Colleges are to France; what Eton, Rugby, etc., are to England, and what the High Schools and Academies are to Scotland and the United States." Ryerson's ideal as thus outlined was ill-considered and contradictory. Gym- nasia, or strictly classical schools for the higher classes, and the English Public Schools, represent an ideal exactly the opposite to his professed principles and of course absolutely impossible in Canada, in a general scheme. But whatever his ideals, the small I advance made in more than twenty years from his accession in 1844 to Young's Report in 1867 justifies the assertion that as Strachan had sacrificed the secondary school to the University, so did Ryerson sacrifice it to the common school.* Following out * Ryerson's idea of importance as based upon attendance, if the secondary schools are ten times as important as the University, so are the common schools ten times as important as the inter- mediate institution, seeing that under the best conditions only one in ten of common school pupils take a secondary school course. Perhaps there are other things to be considered besides mere
*See "Canada and its Provinces" — "Ontario: Art. Ryerson and Secondary Education".
46 Development of the Ontario' High School
numbers, but at any rate, this argument of Ryerson's will help to explain why he turned his attention so exclusively to the common schools. They were not free, nor sufficiently numerous. The buildings were mostly of the rudest construction of hewn logs filled between with mud or plaster. Of the 2,572 schools of 1847, only 133 were of better material and only 163 were provided with the most necessary outhouses. Teachers were picked up from any- where, with any or no qualifications, put through a form of examina- tion by trustees, often themselves without any education, and then placed in charge.
Ryerson in his earlier reports had little to say about the gram- mar schools. He had prepared blank forms for their reports. In his report of 1848 he still regards these schools as beyond his jurisdiction. He says: "It may perhaps be thought out of place for me to make any remarks touching the District Grammar Schools". He goes on to say that as they absorb considerable money they might with advantage be placed under more popular control by associating them with the District Model Schools. Both would be strengthened and the grammar school being open to teachers would become more extensively known.
The next year in the November number of his Journal of Education which was the excellent means he used, following the example of Horace Mann, to promulgate his theories and plans, he indicates that from the first he had contemplated secondary schools of various types as in Germany. After completion of the elementary school course, "those whose parents might be able and disposed would proceed, some to the Real School, to prepare for the business of a farmer, an architect, an engineer, a manufacturer or mechanic, others to the Grammar School to prepare for the Univer- sity and the Professions. " "Each teacher would have his appro- priate place and no one fnan in the same day would be found making the absurd and abortive attempt of teaching a, b, c's, reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography (in all their gradations) , together with Latin, Greek and mathematics." Division of labour and an efficient system of inspection are the next points, the latter being a cause of. great improvement in Holland. The organization and system of instruction in the grammar schools ought to have reference to the colleges to which they are intended to be introductory. At the time they were a "compound of every- thing". So long as they taught everything that is taught in
Ryerson and Grammar Schools 47
common schools how could they accomplish the purpose of classical schools, preparatory to the college? Those who sent their children to the school either to acquire an English education or the elements of classical learning, would be alike disappointed. Besides where common and grammar schools are near each other, there will be rivalry and this bearing upon the common schools. Ryerson gives as his excuse for his usual course of discussing nothing "relating to any class of Seminaries in the Province not managed under the provisions of the Common School law." He then suggests : (a) Inquiry into the state of the grammar schools, thirty or forty of which, stimulated by sixty University Scholarships had matri- culated only eight students at the last Convocation; (6) a course of studies (he overlooks the fact that King's College Council had provided an elaborate one) and rules of discipline, fixing a standard of admission; (c) governmental inspection. It is interesting to note that the Principal of the London District Grammar school, the Rev. Ben Bayly, resented this slighting reference in a letter to the Journal of Education and explained the small number of matriculants as due to the unsettled state of the University. As to admitting girls and teaching from the a, b, c, upwards, he declares emphatically that for eight years during which he has had charge of the grammar school, although he has always had an assistant, he "has never admitted a female pupil nor any boy who has not been previously instructed in the elementary branches of English education." Another correspondent commenting on the same deliverance of the Superintendent gives the characteristics of the grammar schools as, an air of exclusiveness — high tuition fees — small number of scholars — teachers behind the age — trustees indifferent to their trust. "The teacher required to be proficient in languages and mathematics has been called upon to give much of his attention to very young scholars, sons of the more wealthy, who would have been better at a common school."
In his Report of 1850* Ryerson says, "Pupils who are learning the first elements of an English education are sent and are admitted to the grammar school because it is thought to be more respectable than the common school and especially when fees are made com- paratively high to gratify this feeling and place the grammar school beyond the reach of the multitude. The grammar school, instead of attempting to do the work of the humblest common schools,
*See D. H. E., Vol. IX, p. 172.
48 Development of the Ontario High School
should be the first step of promotion from its highest classes. But this cannot be done until the grammar schools are placed as much under the control of local authorities as are the common schools. Each grammar school might be made the high school of the county or town within which it is situated". This report is in- teresting in several particulars. The feature of exclusiveness is officially admitted, though he had denied it the year before. It is seen that the drawback, which necessarily attached to the grammar schools for the first quarter of a century of their history, namely, having to conduct preparatory classes, had not been overcome and this second point results at least in part from the first; and thirdly, this appears to be the first official use of a name soon to be applied to secondary schools and borrowed from the United States, no doubt, though originally from Scotland. A fourth point must be noted. The grammar schools were not under local control to the extent that the common schools were. It will be remembered that the Act of 1807 gave the Lieutenant-Governor the power to appoint trustees and these therefore, would not be subject to any local control. They were not, as yet, bound to respect local wishes, as none of the revenue except tuition fees came from local sources. This Act also gave the trustees power to make rules and regulations so that when King's College Council prescribed Regulations in 1840 and 1841, there was, as already shown, considerable confusion and doubt.
King's College Council had certainly not effected any real improvements in the state of the schools, and as new central machinery was under construction to manage common and normal schools, the secondary schools soon came under the same control. In 1846, a Provincial Board of Education was appointed with the following duties:
1. To establish a Normal School.
2. To prescribe text-books, plans, forms and regulations.
3. To aid the superintendent with their counsel and advice. The Common School Act of 1850 provided for a Council of Public Instruction and the former board was merged into this and their duties were given in a more extended form. Following this, three years later, an important Grammar School Act was passed, which, among other important provisions, brought the grammar schools under the same control as the normal and common schools.
Ryerson and Grammar Schools 49
The permission to open additional schools in the several Dis- tricts had been acted upon in many cases. The minimum number of pupils required to justify a new school had been changed by amendments from sixty to fifty, from fifty to thirty, and finally from thirty to twenty. At the opening of the King's College regime, there were only thirteen schools. The rapid increase will be seen by the table given :
Year
Schools
|
1842 |
1845 |
1848 |
1850 |
1852 |
|
25 |
31 |
33 |
57 |
60 |
The first jump from thirteen to twenty-five was due for the most part to the organization of new Districts. There is nothing to, show that the increase in numbers was accompanied by any rise in the quality of the work done. ' In fact, such evidence as there is in official documents points the other way. However, on the whole, the schools were yet to reach a lower ebb before real progress was made. The circumstances leading to a further decline in quality accompanied, also, by a further expansion in numbers is the subject of a later chapter. In the meantime, for purposes of comparison, we take a brief glance at similar schools in the United States.
CHAPTER V. SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
IT will be helpful at this point in appreciating the state of the secondary education in Upper Canada, to glance briefly at the situation across the border. This will have greater significance than a consideration of conditions in England or any European country because the environment and social and industrial condi- tions were similar on both sides 'of the line', though, of course, the more populous States were a century or more older than Upper Canada. Secondary schools in the United States were successively known as grammar schools, academies and high schools. The grammar schools belong to the colonial period and were known in Massachusetts as Latin grammar schools. The curriculum was at first exclusively classical and derived from the grammar school of England.* Their function was preparatory. They were 'fitting schools' and thus were wholly subservient to the college for which they prepared pupils. These schools were supplanted by the academy which rose towards the end of the eighteenth century. "The earlier academies were not bound up with the college system in the same way as the grammar schools; they were not primarily 'fitting schools'. They were instead, institutions of an indepen- dent sort, taking pupils who had already acquired the elements of an English education and carrying them forward to some rather indefinite rounding-out of their studies."t ' ' The notable thing about the academies as distinguished from the grammar schools was that they went on adding subjects to the programme at their own sweet will, wholly regardless of what the colleges were doing". However the entrance requirements of the college, as always in Ontario, had much to do in determining their standards of scholarship. Up to 1800, Latin, Greek and arithmetic were the only subjects required for admission to the leading American colleges. Five other sub- jects made their appearance in college requirements before 1850 as follows: geography, 1807; English grammar, 1819; algebra, 1820;
*See " Rise of the High School in Massachusetts", Inglis, p. 2, where a comparison of the programme of Winchester about 1600, and of Boston Latin School 1789 is made, in neither of which is there anything but Latin and Greek.
f'The Making of Our Middle Schools", Brown, pp. 230, 232.
Secondary Education in the United States. 51
geometry, 1844; ancient history, 1847. Harvard College led in each case ekcept in English grammar, where Princeton took the lead. The academies, in addition, introduced natural science, commencing by a stress upon mathematics and linking up with mathematics, astronomy. Natural philosophy followed. In 1818, Phillips Exeter Academy taught in the Classical Department, besides the classics the following:
First Year — Ancient and modern geography, arithmetic.
Second Year — Arithmetic, English grammar, and declamation.
Third Year — English grammar and declamation, algebra, and composition.
Advanced Class — Algebra, geometry. In the English department, the innovations were more in evidence. In the first year were English grammar (which, by the way, had been given a definite direction by Lindley Murray's Grammar, published in 1795) including exercises in reading, in parsing and analyzing, in the correction of bad English; punctuation and prosody; arithmetic; geography, and algebra through simple equations. In the second year appeared geometry and plane trigonometry, logic rhetoric; declamation and exercises of the forensic kind. In the third year we find surveying; navigation; elements of chemistry, and natural philosophy with experiments; elements of modern history; moral and political philosophy. There were special requirements for admission to the English department. The candidate must be at least twelve years of age, must have been well instructed in reading and spelling and must have a knowledge of arithmetic through simple proportion, and be able to parse simple English sentences. A similar distinction was made in Ontario between classical and non-classical entrants wheji the uniform Entrance examination was introduced, the requirements for the former being less exacting than for the latter as will appear in due course.
Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover academies are two of the few academies that have survived the rise of the public high school and occupy a position parallel to that of the Public Schools of England. These were endowed and independent of the State and it may be said that most of the academies were the outcome of private benevolence, though in some cases there were public land and money grants. The academies were incorporated institutions apd there was, of course, no civic or governmental control, but the
52 Secondary Education in the United States
governing body was usually a board of trustees, originally appointed by the benefactors and with provisions for self-perpetuation. But however great an advance the academy was over the old grammar school, there was an important respect in which it failed to suit the aggressive new- world democracy. It was beyond civic control. The trustees were not elected by the people but vacancies were filled by co-optation. Hence in case of prevalent dissatisfaction the people had no means of procuring reforms, and we must remem- ber that, where the academy existed, it was the only local means of secondary education. "The historical fact, is that a great wave of objection to this system swept over our country, which resulted in the formation of educational institutions under direct public control. The earlier product of this movement was the state university. A later product was the public high school".* The pioneer high school was the English High School of Boston, founded in 1821, though it was first named the English Classical School. It was renamed during the mayoralty of Josiah Quincy, and the circumstances point to his having borrowed the new title from the Edinburgh High School, a school not only of great age and prestige, but, what would commend it to American sentiment of the time, had been for long under the control of civic authorities. A few years later several other high schools were opened in Massachusetts and soon the movement spread to other States. In 1852, Massa- chusetts had sixty-four high schools while in 1856 Ohio had ninety- seven. It would not be justifiable, however, to suppose that all these were secondary schools in the strict sense. No doubt many were in the same state of inefificiency as some of the Canadian schools already described, and took up most of their time with, elementary work. Dr. Harris went so far as to estimate that there were only forty high schools in the whole country as late as 1860. In this, he no doubt adopts a very exacting standard. jttt
Since the early colonial days, a very great change ^ad come over society in America. It was inevitable that the idea of social classes should prevail at first, transplanted from the old land. Society was divided into three distinct classes. Grammar school education was the privilege of "the quality" and no need was felt to exist of anything but the merest beginnings for the other classes. The revolution liberated the idea of equality and its corollary equal rights and thus the academy arose as an independent institution, ♦Brown: "The Making of Our Middle Schools", pp. 279, 280.
Secondary Education in the United States 53
giving a training complete in itself and open to all who could pay the fees. The middle class, as Brown graphically represents it* is no longer a horizontal line between two others, but an incline touching both the line below and that above. The growth of the democratic ideal of civic control and the rapid increase in wealth produced an almost complete fusion of the strata and so the latter condition of society is aptly represented as one continuous oblique line. On this line the individual is either on the way up or down. Modem American education is, therefore, organized as a ladder which in Huxley's picturesque phrase, has its foot in the gutter and its top in the university.
It will be true to say that the Classical grammar school idea persisted in Ontario practically up to the end of the period so far discussed. No counterpart of the academy had arisen. How is this to be accounted for? Partly by the fact that the political connection with England and a more conservative temper kept alive, and to a certain extent still keep alive, socia' distinctions; and partly to an apparent lack of initiative in the realm of education. It is true that some few academies came into existence, such as the Bath Academy at Ernestown, and the Grantham Academy at St. Catharines, but the object of these was to supplement, and not to supersede, the grammar schools. These academies were con- trolled by joint-stock companies, the latter being regularly chartered for the purpose of giving advanced education. Both arose out of a recognition of the defects of the public system (to dignify it with an undeserved term). The Bath Academy opened in 1811 under Barnabas Bid well, who had been a college tutor in Massachusetts. His son and pupil was the noted Marshall Spring Bidwell. Grant- ham Academy was opened in 1829 under two instructors, and was incorporated in 1830.
In fact, instead of a wider and more efficient institution arising to replace the grammar schools these themselves, with a few exceptions, soon lost all claim to be regarded as secondary schools, falling back into inefficient common schools. The causes for this degradation will be our next concern.
*0p. cit., p. 348.
CHAPTER VI. MORE SCHOOLS— LESS SECONDARY EDUCATION. 1853-1855.
THE Act of 1853 opens a new era. A bill with similar purposes was proposed three years before by Francis Hincks, but this was withdrawn and the reformative Act was passed under the sponsorship of the Hon. W. B. Richards, Attorney-General. The disabilities of the grammar schools, which this Act was designed to remove, were chiefly the lack of power of local author- ities to assess for the support of grammar schools, the lack of local control over the trustees, who were appointed by the Crown, and the lack of any standard of qualification for teachers. There were two financial clauses, the one constituting a grammar school Fund of all moneys arising from the sale of lands set apart for the encour- agement of grammar schools, which was to be invested in Govern- ment securities and the income of which the Superintendent of Education was charged with the responsibility of justly apportion- ing; the other, enabling municipal councils to levy assessments for the further support of grammar schools. It is important to note that this clause was permissive only. In the case of the common schools, also, the fight for free schools, which was waged so hotly resulted in a clause in the Act of 1850 permitting local assessments.* Equally important was the clause transferring the power to appoint trustees from the Crown to the County Councils, who were directed to appoint "not less than six or more than eight fit and proper persons" as a Board of Trustees for each grammar school within the county, two retiring from office each year. Previously there had been one board for all the grammar schools in a county. The schools were thus made a more local concern and it was expected that ntiore local sympathy would be enlisted. In the clause defining its powers the local board was given full power to appoint and remove masters, without higher sanction, but it was provided that no teacher, except a university
*The annual school meeting was empowered to decide by majority vote whether any school should be supported by rates upon parents or by assessment of the property of the school section.
More Schools — Less Secondary Education 55
graduate could be appointed unless he had previously obtained a certificate of qualification from a committee of examiners, one of whom was to be the head-master of the Normal School. Thus far the Act secured the benefits of larger grants, county control and some kind of uniformity in the teaching power, besides the possi- bility of local rate assistance, all of which could not but result advantageously. There followed a clause, however, that looked perhaps innocent enough, but was the source of such serious abuses as to nullify in more than half the schools the benefits of the Act as a whole. That was the power given trustees to unite the common school of any municipality with the grammar school. Such united schools were to be under the control of a joint board. The character of the union schools resulting from the application of this permission will appear as the narrative advances. The Act also distinguished the school located at the county seat as the senior grammar school and charged the head-master with the duty of making meteorological observations and keeping a journal of these, the county to provide the necessary instruments, and gave the new Council of Public Instruction* power to make Rules and Regula- tions for the schools.
Under the authority of this Act elaborate regulations were issued by the Council of Public Instruction in July of the following year. After reciting the 5th and 11th Sections of the new Act, the Rules and Regulations run: "From these provisions it is clearly the function of Grammar Schools not to teach the elementary branches of English but to teach the higher branches and especially to teach the subjects necessary for matriculation. The regular periods of admission for pupils commencing the classical studies shall be immediately after the Christmas and Midsummer vacations but the admission of pupils in English studies or of those who have commenced the study of Latin may take place at the commence- ment of each term. The examination for admission shall be conducted by the head-master. The standard of attainment on entrance shall be:
1. To read intelligibly and correctly any passage from the common reading book.
*The Provincial Board of Education by the Common School Act of 1850 had been superseded by the Council of Public Instruction, which was given control over the Normal School and power to make Regulations for the Common
Schools.
56 Development of the Ontario High School
2. To spell correctly the words of an ordinary sentence.
3. To write a fair hand.
4. To work readily questions in the simple and compound rules of arithmetic and in reduction and simple proportions.
5. To know the elements of English grammar and to be able to parse any easy sentence in prose.
6. To be acquainted with the definitions and outlines of geo- graphy. ".
As to promotion, pupils were to be advanced according to their attainments and no faster. The religious exercises about which there was some controversy consisted of prayer and scripture reading at the opening and closing, but no pupil was required to be present against the will of his parent. The head-master was "to avoid corporal punishment except when it shall appear to him to be imperatively required and he must keep a record of offences and punishments". Pupils must come clean in their persons and clothes.
The four terms were as follows: From the 7th of January to Easter; Easter to the last Friday in June; from the second Monday in August to Friday the 15th of October; from Monday after the 15th of October to the 22nd of December. The daily exercises were not to exceed six hours of actual work. Every Saturday was to be a holiday or if preferred, the two half days as formerly. Public half-yearly examinations were to be held.
As to the religious exercises, the action of the Governor-General in refusing sanction of this part of the Regulations, though the whole requirement was the reading of the Scripture without comment, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, shows how sensitive the public mind was and how ready to suspect intentions to interfere with the freedom of conscience. A similar clause had been sanctioned in the case of the common school Regulations but here it is to be remembered there was no danger of controversy between Catholic and Protestant as the common school was professedly Protestant and the Catholics had the right to provide their own separate schools. The Council of Public Instruction, although they had expressly stated that this clause was recommendatory only, in order to avoid misunderstanding, now left the religious exercises entirely under local control.
Ryerson sent out the usual number of circulars to all parties concerned and if any failed to observe the law or regulations it was not the fault of the Superintendent, who added to information
More Schools — Less Secondary Education 57
fatherly advice and admonition. In the circular to county councils he urges them to appoint only persons acquainted with the work of the grammar schools and adds: "May I most earnestly entreat your Council to spare no pains to select both from Clergy and Laity without regard to sect or party persons thus qualified." Though a measure of local control was secured by this section of the Act, it is important to note that it was not as thorough-going as it might have been. County councils had wide areas of jurisdiction and were thus charged with appointing trustee boards in all the minor municipalities in the county having grammar schools.
An ambitious programme of studies was formulated by the Council of Public Instruction, and the Principal and Vice- Principal of the Normal School, Thomas J. Robertson, M.A., and the Rev. Wm. Ormiston, were appointed to inspect for the year 1855, under authority of an Act of the same year empowering the Council of Public Instruction to expend £250 annually for inspection and to appoint inspectors. Their instructions are interesting. In addi- tion to the externa (detailed), the text-books, staffs, salaries, etc., they were to report under the head of discipline if the pupils change places in their several classes or if they are marked at each lesson. Under methods of instruction, whether mutual or simultaneous or individual or mixed; if mutual, the number of monitors, their attainments, etc. If simultaneous, i.e., by classes, in what sub- jects. To what extent the intellectual or the mere rote method only is used; whether the suggestive method is employed; whether the elliptical method is resorted to; how attainments in the lessons are tested. In the elements of natural philosophy and chemistry, whether apparatus is used or not. From this point on, much importance will attach to the reports of the inspectors, who from the first have been expert educationists and often of marked ability, sound judgment and keen interest in their duties. Such a thing as perfunctory inspection has been almost unknown, so that whatever advantages secondary education could gain from methodical and regular inspection has been gained.
The new programme of studies was at once issued by the Council of Public Instruction, and was declared to be based upon the two educational axioms: (1) That a course of study should be adapted to exercise and improve the various intellectual powers of children according to the natural order of their development. (2) That the subjects of study should be so arranged that the
58 Development of the Ontario High School
knowledge of the first prepares the mind for the acquisition of the second, and the second for attaining the third and so on. For purposes of comparison the programme is inserted along with that of 1865 at the end of the next chapter. As the new programme and the regulations did not appear till July of the year 1854 it could not be expected that they would have exerted much influence on the schools by the end of the year so that the Superintendent's report for 1854 must be regarded as exhibiting the state of the schools before the reorganization. There were sixty-four county grammar schools with 4,287 pupils (this is probably more than twice the number in attendance at any one time).
30% were unable to read.
24% were unable to write.
36% of the schools did not teach Greek.
20% of the schools did not teach any natural science.
40% of the schools were not opened and closed with prayer. These figures may be taken to indicate that fully half of the total of 4,287 pupils were doing common school work, since 30 per cent, were at the very threshold of school work. An absence of any recognized system in management, curriculum, or standard of attainment was noted. Each school was an independent unit. The first two union schools reported were those of Napanee and Perth, these places setting an example that was hastily, almost precipitately followed, with such disastrous consequences in many places, as to amount to the extinction of the grammar school.
In the Superintendent's Report of 1855, the surprising state- ment is made that the attendance had declined to 3,726 pupils. The actual number at the time of the inspectorial visits was 1,695 so that the Superintendent's figures include all the pupils entering at the opening of each of the four terms and takes no notice of the withdrawals. The falling off by over 500 may be taken as the first salutary effect of the new Regulations, especially of inspection, since it would indicate elimination of the unfit at entrance. Munici- pal aid amounted to £1,630 which was the new source of income, whereas Government grants and fees amounted respectively to £6,549 and £5,121. Inspector Robertson for the Eastern section reported on 27 schools. Of these six were good and seven tolerable. There were 895 on the roll, an average of 33 a school. Latin was taught in all the schools but one. Greek was taught in only 12 schools, physical science in only 17 schools. With a few exceptions,
More Schools — Less Secondary Education 59
the style of teaching was by no means intellectual. Too much dependence was placed upon text-books and the recitation of lessons committed to memory. Two schools only, had chemical apparatus. Insp)ector Ormiston for the Western section reported that in many cases these schools had assumed the functions and sustained the character of mere common schools. Of the 37 schools only 27 were in operation. Hamilton and Caledonia were closed. Of the headmasters, five were not graduates. He agrees with Robertson that the teaching was not intellectual and the chief aim was to impart information. Of the 800 pupils, 400 were studying classics, 300 were studying algebra and geometry and 90 French. A majority of the schools were less than five years old. The Toronto grammar school had partially trained a large number who had gone to Upper Canada College. From forty to fifty pupils had been prepared to enter various colleges. It is interesting to note the distribution of these matriculants. It is given as follows: The University of Toronto, 20; Trinity, 18; Victoria, 4; Queen's, 2; and some went to American colleges. In eight schools, female pupils were admitted. The schoolhouses were by no means com- mendable. "In most cases the premises present a dull, unthrifty appearance, destitute alike of ornament, and convenience, without fence, shed or well, tree, shrub or flower; while within an entire lack of maps, charts, and apparatus is the rule." The average head- master's salary was $700, There were more clergymen on the boards than any other calling. Inspector Ormiston concludes with a very important suggestion, putting his finger upon the greatest financial weakness in the new law, that municipal councils be required, as well as authorized, to raise the requisite money on the estimate of the trustees or that the boards themselves be invested with the same powers as are now possessed by the trustees of common schools for the purpose of raising funds for the erection, repairs, and maintenance of the schools.
A few new buildings were erected about this period. The Wellington District granted £150 and the Town and Township of Guelph £145 towards the erection of a District grammar school, as reported in the Journal of Edtication for March, 1849. In October, Whitby was about to commence a new grammar school building "on a liberal scale". The town council of Vienna author- ized the erection of a new house at a cost of $2,300 in May, 1851. A more ambitious building was put up in Chatham in 1854 towards
60 Development of the Ontario High School.
which, the County of Kent appropriated $4,000 in addition to the $1,600 already in the hands of the board of trustees, thus affording a fine precedent for county councils of the present day. The argument used was that a good grammar school at Chatham would be a great benefit to the whole county. "The internal arrangements combine a schoolroom of large dimensions, two class-rooms with a teacher's residence and sleeping apartments for the pupils". This, in some measure, seems to realize the ideal laid down in 1807, and in this scheme we have the rationale of the plan of a number of the oldest school buildings in the Province. The large central room was the "school room" — assembly room, that is, while the two smaller rooms to left and right were the class rooms, into which were drawn ofT classes for special recitation.
CHAPTER VII. THE FAILURE OF VOLUNTARY SUPPORT. 1855-1865.
THE Act of 1853 and the Regulations based upon it continued in force for about ten years, a period long enough to afford a fair trial and to make apparent the weak points. In 1865, a Grammar School Improvement Act was passed and a new code of Regulations issued, so that this date affords us a convenient stopping place from which to view the progress of a decade. The population increased from 1,129,600 to 1,485,900* and the grammar school attendance from 3,726 to 5,754; i.e., while the increase in population was 31 per cent., the increase in attend- ance was 54 per cent. There was also, a marked increase in the number of schools, which in the comparative table at the end of the present chapter will be seen to have been from 64 to 95 or 48 per cent. This rapid increase was not an unmixed good, as will appear in our examination of inspector's reports for the period in question. These reports are worthy of the serious attention of those who wish to apprehend the true state of the schools. A provincial inspector of the requisite training and experience and some educational vision can, and has been, a strong force for progress. The careful examination of the schools of a whole province furnishes a standard of the possible as well as of the average, under the system. The reports of Professor George Paxton Young have been regarded as epochal, but there were reports both before and after his term of office, not unworthy of their company. The first of these have been dealt with in the preceding chapter. The criticisms of greatest importance in the succeeding reports were, first, the unwise and rapid establishment of grammar schools in small villages; second, unsuitability of the school premises; third, the abuse of the privilege given by the law to form union schools; fourth, the lack of local public support. These defects were apparent to the Chief Superintendent by the time the second inspectors' (1856) report was sent in to him and were repeated with growing emphasis every year of the decade. * Approximations only, exact figures not being available.
62 Development of the Ontario High School
In his Report of 1856, the Superintendent says that the multi- plication of feeble and inefficient grammar schools is an evil rather than a good; that it is much better to have one or two first-rate schools in a county thah half a dozen poor and sickly ones. He adopts Inspector Ormiston's minimum of ten pupils, studying the languages and other distinctively higher subjects, as requisite to the establishment or maintenance of a school. Surely this limit was low enough. Such tiny hamlets as Matilda, Bath, Consecon, Bond Head, Mount Pleasant and Scotland had each its grammar school during this period. As to the second defect, school premises, Ryerson thus clearly sets forth the dilemma which the unfortunate grammar school faced: "The powers and resources are wholly insufficient to enable them to provide proper schoolhouses, or furnish them, or secure competent salaries to masters. In several instances county, city, or town councils have honourably responded to the applications of the Board of Grammar School Trustees, in pi'oviding means for the erection and furnishing of grammar school- houses, and for making up the salaries of masters; but in most instances these applications have been unsuccessful. County councils have objected to levy a rate on the county, or to make a grant from county funds, in aid of a Grammar School, upon the ground that if aid were granted to one, it must be granted to each of the Grammar Schools established in the county; that the city, town, or village where a Grammar School is situated should provide for its support; that the few country pupils who may attend a Grammar School, contribute to the support of the school and to the advantage of the city, town, or village within the limits of which it is situated, and the whole country should not, therefore, be taxed on account of the attendance of such pupils. On the other hand, the municipal council of a city, town, or village objects to levy rates or make grants in behalf of the Grammar School, because it has no voice in the management of such school, since the county council appoints the board of trustees. It is thus that the Grammar School so partially and remotely connected with the county in regard to interest and severed from the city, town, or village in respect to control, obtains no aid from the municipal council of either. It is true when the boards of Grammar and Common Schools unite and form one board, such united board possesses the powers of both boards separately and can thus provide for the support of both the Grammar and Common Schools. But it is yet
The Failure of Voluntary Support 63
problematical, and I think very doubtful, whether the union of Grammar and Common Schools is advantageous to either and is not, in the majority of instances, injurious to both. If it is proper to have public Grammar Schools at all, as all will admit, it is proper to provide for their efficiency. I believe the boards of trustees, with scarcely an exception, have employed all the means in their power to render the Grammar Schools entrusted to their charge, as efficient as possible; but they have no power to raise a sixpence for the erection and furnishing of the schoolhouse, or for the pay- ment of their master or masters, except by the fees of the pupils. It is impossible that the Grammar Schools can improve and flourish under such circumstances, or that they can otherwise than flag and languish in comparison of Common Schools." He thought that no improvement was possible until the schools were controlled by the municipality in which they were situated and their trustees invested with power to demand local rate support.
This is the Report of 1856, and the Act of 1853 did not come into force until January 1854, so that it is a little remarkable that the Superintendent in the space of a bare two years finds legislation, for which he must have been largely responsible, so full of flaws. At the end of the period under review, in his circular to Boards of Trustees, dated December 1865, the Superintendent says: "During more than ten years, I have employed my best exertions to get the great principle of our Common School system applied to that of the Grammar School, namely: the principle of each municipality providing a certain proportionate sum, as a condition of sharing in the school fund provided by the Legislature". He must, therefore, have taken new ground very soon after the Act of 1853 went into operation. However, the ability to make a rapid change of front was one of the features of Ryerson's generalship. We have here, also, an evidence of the strength of public opinion in reference to secondary education. The old hostility had not entirely died out. The grammar schools were still in some measure regarded as the special care of the well-to-do. The extent to which municipal aid had been voluntarily granted appears in the returns of 1864. Of the 101 grammar schools in existence (95 in actual operation) some aid was granted to 49 but the other 52 had to depend on fees and the fund grant alone. However, this comparison looks more favourable than it actually is when the details are examined. Of the 49 favoured schools, 14 were locally assisted only for building
64 Development of the Ontario High School
purposes, while 35 were assisted on salary and general account. But the amounts in most cases were inconsiderable, as appears in the subjoined table:*
|
4 grants |
from |
$10 to $30 |
|
4 " |
50 " 100 |
|
|
24 " |
150 " 300 |
|
|
9 " |
400 " 500 |
|
|
5 " |
500 " 600 |
|
|
2 " |
600 " 700 |
1 grant over $3,000
The grants totalled $15,913, from which deduct $3,117 for a building at Napanee and the average grant for each of the forty- nine municipalities would be $250. Of the total, $6,139 was for building, rent and repairs. Evidently the voluntary system of support was a veritable reed to lean upon.
The unhealthy increase in the number of weak grammar schools, and the unsatisfactory financial support coupled with local indifference have now been fully presented. As to the nature of school premises the first inspectorial report spoke quite plainly. In the Superintendent's Report for 1859, the first report containing such information, we find that there were 33 buildings of brick, 17 of stone, 30 frame and one log. There were 59 freehold and 22 rented. Of the schoolhouses of brick and stone, 27 were united with common schools, that is, more than half of them, and of the latter 16 were built between 1854 and 1859. These buildings cannot be regarded as indicating any forward movement in secondary education, since they would be erected mainly for common school purposes. During the parliamentary session of 1857 and 1858, petitions praying for additional aid reached the House in consider- able numbers but no action was taken. Among these, were peti- tions from St. .Catharines, London, Peterborough and Renfrew. The Report of 1861 spoke quite plainly about the state of some of the schoolhouses. Ottawa, Brockville, Port Hope, Toronto, London and Goderich are reported as either having no schoolhouse at all, or one in a state of deplorable dilapidation and dangerous decay. Whether the alliteration was accidental or was felt to strengthen the condemnation, is not evident. However, there were some improvements in buildings and surroundings, and in the use of blackboards, maps and charts. "Seats and desks, firm," {i.e., ♦See D. H. E., Vol. XIX, p. 41.
The Failure of Voluntary Support 65
screwed down to the floor), "clean and comfortable, now taking the place of the narrow, low, crowded apartment with its long, high backless forms and rickety, well-whittled desks." The next year Toronto and London were again severely scored on the ground of unsuitable buildings, but in Professor Young's first Report (1864) St. Thomas and London appear as the chief sinners. They were merely examples, he adds. There were others.
The progress, or otherwise, in the matter of buildings can be gauged by the amount expended in the province for this purpose. The table given herewith tells the story:
Schools in Building, rent.
Years. operation. repairs.
1860 88 $6,037
1861 86 4,234
1862 92 7,502
1863 93 3,470
1864 95 6,139
$27,382 For the five year period the average is, therefore, a little over $60 a school per annum for the three items, building, rent and repairs! It would be impossible for figures more strongly to corroborate inspectorial condemnation. If a large number of these schools were not parasite, as Cockburn called them, or needless and con- temptible, as Young in his first report termed them; if they had not, in many cases, been brought into existence, so that a common school might filch away a part of the grammar school grant, or that one or two influential citizens might educate their own sons at home, if a real public opinion had demanded them, they would have received more generous treatment than an average of $60 per annum each for building, rent and repairs — and it would have been voluntary. The people are ready to pay for what they want, whether a legislative enactment requires them to, or not, as we have already seen in some isolated instances in this story. The methods of teaching were found to be very varied and on the whole, lacking in pedagogical intelligence. It could not be otherwise, in view of the fact that no training in the science or art of teaching was obtainable. Many of the teachers were not graduates and among the degrees held there were not a few that indicated no particular aptitude for the subjects of the grammar school. The Rev.
66 Development of the Ontario High School,
Wm, Ormiston, the sole inspector for 1858, though he had given up the school for the pulpit, criticizes the mechanical and deadening methods of many teachers and their narrow view of their duty — that it consists in imparting a modicum of knowledge by incessant repetition — their slavish adherence of the words of the text-book. "The drilled, dull lesson forced down, word by word," which, failing to awaken the intellect, begets only disgust of school tasks. However, all masters were not of this type. There was a consider- able number of well-qualified and able teachers.
He reported the numbers studying classics as follows: Ih twenty-five schools, 5.25 per cent, of attendance studied classics; in eighteen schools 12 per cent.; in twenty schools 17.07 per cent.; and in twelve schools 35 per cent. The number in classics (which might mean Latin only) had a bearing on the grant. This is stated clearly in the Superintendent's reply to a petition for additional grant aid in 1858. The grant was apportioned under the Act of 1853, according to the ratio of population in each county as com- pared with that of Upper Canada, but in 1855 "it was considered expedient for the furtherance of the study of classics, which was one of the principal objects in the establishment of grammar schools, to adopt the rule of giving the senior grammar school $400 and then dividing the balance of the grant to the county according to the number of pupils in the classics." This had a very- im- portant bearing on the study of classics in many of the weaker schools and appears to have injured both the reputation of these languages as instruments of education, and grammar school education in general, in a way that we could now very readily conjecture. This phase of the study of classics will be more fully developed later on, but there is another point of interest. The pronunciation was found too careless. There was little attention to quantities. Some followed the English, some the Continental method and some preferred reading according to the quantity (whatever that might mean) while some mingled all three methods. This eclectic method, so to speak, has not altogether disappeared yet. We are, as a people, markedly careless in the pronunciation of our own tongue — some explanation, perhaps, of our offenses against foreign tongues
Ormiston's Report also stated that thirty-nine of the seventy- five schools in operation were union schools and of the thirty-six not united twenty-seven had only one master each. Brantford,
The Failure of Voluntary Support 67
Gait and Toronto were three- mastered schools. Of the head- masters, forty-five held degrees, and thirty, certificates from the committee of examiners. Amongst the number were eleven ministers of various denominations.
In 1859, schools east of Toronto were inspected by the new head of the Model Grammar School, George R. R. Cockbum, M.A. In view of his ability and his training both in Scotland and on the continent, he was able to bring a quite unbiased, though rather youthful, judgment to bear upon the problem; so that his first report is highly significant, and the more so, because five years later Professor Young corroborated his evidence in almost every parti- cular. While gladly recognizing the general progress in education and praising the ambition and eagerness of the people to secure as widely as possible the benefits of higher education through the grammar school, he finds many of the schools not really grammar schools and some of them not even doing good common school work. The lack of power to demand local rates and the easy and seductive 'union' road to means, are the causes. The extreme poverty of grammar school boards in many cases drove them into uniting with the common school board. Of course he admits that a union grammar school could be efficient, if there was a com- petent and adequate staff. "The desire of one or two parents to secure for their children a liberal education gives birth to a Grammar School; but as it was altogether unnecevssary in the circumstances it soon becomes so sickly that it is saved from immediate death only by merging itself in the vitality of the Common School of the village or section. Owing to the smallness or poverty of the school section thus laid under contribution, it not unfrequently happens that in the combined school, Common and Grammar Departments are taught by one master, either singly or with an apology for an assistant. Thus, while the attempt is made to secure a few classical pupils, and a certain portion of time is allotted to them, the in- terests of the Common Schools suffer, while the half-dozen stray classical pupils constituting the Grammar School cannot receive a training to enable them to matriculate at any of our universities." The entrance examination was not exacted in Cockburn's inspec- torial section nor had the schools carried out the prescribed pro- gramme. Salaries were too low, the average of $600 to $700 not being enough for a book-keeper. He therefore suggests a minimum salary, and non-recognition, if the minimum were not paid and the
68 Development of the Ontario High School.
onerous condition likewise that there should be at least twelve classical pupils. The law that $600 will fetch $600 worth of marketable talent, and no more, was true then as now, and it is a law that the people of Canada are unconscionably long in learning. If the rewards in business, manufacturing, and other professions are much higher than those open to teachers, the other callings will skim the cream of the country's talent.
A great variety of text-books wefe in use. A glance at the statistical report shows that there were at least four English Grammars in use, six or more Latin Grammars, four or more French Grammars, three or more Arithmetics, etc.* Some of the Geographies and Histories were American and quite anti- British in tone. Again, it was impossible to organize forty or fifty boys, in grammar school subjects, under one master, but the difficulty was still more serious, when pupils were allowed, as they generally were, to take only those subjects their whims led them to. A new, practical programme was required, in which there should be two courses and two only, classical and commercial, and every pupil required to take one or the other. Cockburn agreed with all that his colleague had said about the qualifications of the masters in general. He saw much teaching that was 'crude and erroneous* and found it a prevailing fault to adhere too closely to the text-book. This was particularly noticeable in history. Rote teaching was very common in all the subjects. "To remedy these defects it is necessary and but due to the pecuniary and other interests of the Province to demand that all persons desirous of becoming masters of Grammar Schools, graduates and non-graduates, be subjected to a special examination as to their skill in communicating those branches of knowledge required to be taught in every Grammar School. So long as there is no central university examining board for all Upper Canada to give the school trustees the assurance that all graduates have had their attainments equally and impartially tested, so long as the title M.A. may mean much or nothing, so long as the system of optional studies adopted in various colleges admits of a gentleman becoming a graduate with but a very indifferent smattering of the classics or mathematics — the leading branches in our Grammar Schools —
*Note: The Council of Public Instruction in 1855 issued a list of prescribed texts, from which Grammar School Trustees were to select. A number of books in each subject were named.
The Failure of Voluntary Support 69
it is surely but reasonable to demand a pledge from some public responsible body as to the available attainments, moral character and general fitness of those to whom we entrust the most sacred and responsible of offices "
Some years before the Superintendent had seen the necessity of training for grammar school teachers and had secured authority to erect a school for this purpose by the Grammar and Common School Improvement Act of 1855 (18 Vict., chap. 132), the first clause of which authorized the Council of Public Instruction to expend a sum not exceeding £1,000 per annum for the establish- ment and maintenance of such a school. Action was taken immed- iately. The inspector of grammar schools, G. R. R. Cockburn, M.A.,* was secured as rector and the school opened in August 1858, with the twofold object in view of exhibiting the best system of grammar school organization, and of training masters for the grammar schools of the Province. The former of these purposes necessarily preceded the latter in fulfilment. The course of instruction was the same as that prescribed for grammar schools. The fees were high compared with the other schools, namely ten dollars for each of the four terms, and the attendance was limited to one hundred. Each county was given the privilege of selecting by examination three pupils, and each city, two, who were to have prior right of admission over other applicants. The remaining vacancies were reserved for pupils of the Model School. The department masters, Rev. John Ambery, M.A. (Classics); Francis L. Checkley, Sch. T.C.D. (Mathematics); and B. F. Fitch, B.A. (English); received a comfortable salary of £350 per annum, and wore cap and gown in class. There were six other assistants, J. H. Sangster, of the Normal School being lecturer in chemistry, and there was a master for each of French, music, writing, drawing, and gymnastics. After the school had been running for about two years, Ryerson expresses his satisfaction thusrf "Up to the present, no Normal Class has been established in the Model Gram- mar School. This will probably be done at the beginning of the year (1861). But as a model it has fully met our expectations, and has already exerted a salutary influence upon many Grammar Schools, the masters of which have paid visits, and in some in-
*A Prizeman of Edinburgh University, who had supplemented his University course by special work in Classics in Germany and France. tSuperintendent's Report of 1859, p. 13.
70 Development of the Ontario High School.
stances, visits of many days, to the Model Grammar School, and have applied the results of their observations and inquiries to the improvement of their own schools." The classicaK master, Ambery, who became head-master in 1861, and also succeeded Cockburn as inspector, in a similar strain says: "The Model Grammar School enables the youngest tyro in school management to commence with a symmetrical and perfected method of instruc- tion and organization which the experience of years of uninformed and mere personal efifort could not attain to". If we could elimin- ate the advertising motive behind this, we should be forced to the conclusion that present-day training schools have lost a valuable art, a kind of prestidigitator's magic. His colleague, Ormiston, was much more restrained, merely remarking that the school "exerts a very favourable influence in respect of modes of instruc- tion and discipline." In 1861 the head-mastership of Upper Canada College becoming vacant, the Provincial Secretary referred the question of the management and system of the college to the Superintendent and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Toronto, on the former's suggestion. They reported in favour of a fusion of the College and the Model Grammar School, the principal argument being the saving in expense. In connection with the appointment of Cockburn as rector, they recommended that the whole staflf be transferred. However, nothing came of this and the Model Grammar School received its first class of teachers-in- training the same year. Teachers who were not graduates were required to pass an entrance examination in the subjects for Matriculation. It may be of interest to mention the subjects:
Greek and Latin. — Xenophon, Anabasis ;'Sallust, Catiline; Virgil, Aeneid II; Latin prose composition.
Mathematics. — Ordinary rules of arithmetic; vulgar and decimal fractions. Square root, first four rules of algebra (Colenso). Euclid, Book I (Colenso's ed. of Simson).
English. — English Grammar.
History and Geography. — English, Roman and Greek history. Ancient geography (Schmitz's outline). Modem geography (outline).
No fees were to be" charged, and an allowance of one dollar per week towards board was made to those teachers-in-training who secured approval at the end of each term.
The Failure of Voluntary Support 71
Ryerson in his Report for 1861, speaks of the school as "wow so efficiently and nobly accomplishing the objects of its establishment. The number of pupils in this school is limited to one hundred, with a training-class of candidates for masterships in the Grammar Schools. It was intended to limit this class to ten, but it already considerably exceeds that number. The Model Grammar School is intended to accomplish for the Grammar Schools of the country what the Normal and Model Schools have long been accomplishing for the Common Schools." But in this same year as already shown, the Superintendent was seriously suggesting to end the school's existence by merging it with Upper Canada College. However, "after personal conversation with members of the Government on this subject, it was decided to make no change."* The sur- prising fact is that, the Model Grammar School survived only two classes of teachers-in-training and died in June of 1863, without a word of official regret, for, strange to say, no mention is made of the school in the Report of 1863. Some light is thrown upon the matter in a letterf of Ryerson's to the Provincial Secretary, in which he says, "that it was expected when it was established that nearly every county in Upper Canada would be represented in it. That important object has not been realized . . . the
attendance has been chiefly from Toronto and its neighbourhood. I do not think it just to the General Fund to maintain an additional Toronto Grammar School. During the year a training class of candidates for masterships in the Grammar Schools has been successfully established .... but it has been found that the instruction in all subjects except Greek, Latin and French can be given in the Normal School to better advantage. It will, there- fore, be necessary to employ an additional master or masters in the Normal School to teach the Classics and French." He further indicates that there would be a great saving in expense. It will be apparent to any friend of secondary education that this school was not given a fair chance to demonstrate its usefulness. We are forced to the conclusion either that a poor scheme was hastily and unwisely entered upon, or that a good scheme was injudiciously abandoned. But, for the success of the institution during its brief existence, we have the testimony both of inspectors and of the father of it. It is a case of sacrificing the interests of the grammar school.
*See Hist, and Ed. Papers, Vol. IV, p. 11. tSee D. H. E., Vol. XVIII, p. 69.
72 Development of the Ontario High School
Were extra language masters added to the Normal School staff and grammar school teachers transferred? In the Superintendent's Report for 1869, the Headmaster, Dr. J. H. Sangster, gives a rather comprehensive account of the Normal School. On the teaching staff there are no language masters, nor grammar school teachers- in-training amongst the students. All idea of training secondary school teachers seems to have been dropped. The scheme of drawing the pupils from all over the Province, three from each county and two from each city was chimerical enough, no doubt. Whatever interest in grammar schools existed in the country was naturally concentrated in the county schools, amongst which there were already half a dozen of respectable size. Again, if boys were to be sent so far away, they would naturally be sent to Upper Canada College, where conditions as to boarding and athletics were more favourable. But suppose every pupil came from Toronto, it would in no way invalidate the school as a model, or a training school. The necessity of training for the profession, which Ryerson urged so strongly in the case of common schrol teachers, existed equally in the higher sphere and the more so because the academic training of the masters was so uneven. Whatever the cause for the sudden abandonment of a scheme which has the sanction of the present day practice, it does not appear to have been the force of public opinion, which has sometimes lagged behind very salutary educational measures and caused their overthrow.
Comparative Table. Showing Rapidity of Growlh in Numbers of Schools.
|
Years. |
Schools. |
Years. |
Sebools. |
Years. |
Schools. |
|
1849 |
39 |
1855 |
65 |
1861 |
*86 |
|
1850 |
57 |
1856 |
*61 |
1862 |
91 |
|
1851 |
*54 |
1857 |
72 |
1863 |
95 |
|
1852 |
60 |
1858 |
75 |
1864 |
95 |
|
1853 |
64 |
1859 |
79 |
1865 |
104 |
|
1854 |
64 |
1860 |
88 |
*Where a decrease is noticed, the reason is that some small schools ceased operation for a year or more.
The Failure of Voluntary Support
73
Table showing when each Grammar School was opened
and other information.
Year 1861.
s
H o
Grammar Schools
|
'3 a c u |
1 c .2 B |
^2 |
• |
Is |
^;
4) o
1 Cornwall
2 Williamstown .
3 Iroquois
4 L'Original . . . .
6 Vankleekhill . .
6 Ottawa. ......
7 Richmond. . . .
8 Brockville
9 Prescott
10 Kemptville . . .
11 Gananoque. . .
12 Farmersville . .
13 Perth
14 Smith's Falls.
15 Lanark
16 Renfrew
17 Carleton Place
18 Kingston . . .
19 Newburgh. .
20 Bath
21 Napanee
22 Picton
23 Consecon . . .
24 Belleville...
25 Stirling
26 Cobourg
27 Port Hope...
28 Bowmanville.
29 Brighton. . . .
30 Colbourne . . .
31 Newcastle . . .
32 Peterborough
1808 1844 1845 1822
1851 1824 1846
1844 1845 1860
1850 1858 1854 1810 1842 1812 1846 1835 1847 1840
1853 1830
1861 1853 1859 1844
1856 1860 1845 1852
1856
1845 1859 1859
1845
1853 1852
1858 1854 1851
1856 1845 1854 1860 1859 1858 1858
$1,400 600 600 580
600 1,000 500 850 700 500
600
600 800
800
520 520 480 800 700 550 700 700 500 1,000
600
1,200
11,000
" 800
348
700
700
800
M.A. B.A. B.A.
M.A.
B.A. M.A.
B.A.
LL.B.
M.A.
B.A. B.A. M.A. B.A. B.A.
B.A. B.A.
B.A. M.A.
■t.
M.A.
66 61 50 35
70 87 19 35 50 52
38
65 94
41
25 13 37 38 90 43
107 56 34
147
62 121 40 29 68 33 73
$6, $4, $3 $2.50 $4, $3, $2 $3, $2.25,
$1.50 $3, $1.50 $5, $4 $3 to $2 $6, $5.50, $4 $3, $2.25, $1.5 $2.25, non res.,
free to res. $2, non res.,
37c. res. $4, $3 $4, $3, non res.,
free to res. $3.75, $1.50 &
$0.75 $1.50, $0.75 $1 Free $6. $4 Free to res. $0.75
$5.25 to $0.75 $2 to $0.70 Free $3, non res.,
free to res. $0.75 $6.25 $6 to $2 $3 to $1.50 $3 $3
$5, $3.50, $2.50 $1.50
74
Development of the Ontario High School
Grammar Schools
c.S rt-o
S3
c
C9 to
2 ■-
ok 9 .Ocn
I.S
He i- 2
33 Norwood..
34 Lindsay . . .
35 Oakwood . .
36 Omemee. . .
37 Whitby. . .
38 Uxbridge..
39 Toronto ...
40 Newmarket
41 Streetsville.
42 Brampton . .
43 Richmond Hill
44 Weston
45 Markham. . .
46 Barrie
47 Bradford....
48 Collingwood.
49 Milton
50 Oakville
61 Hamilton....
52 Ancaster. . . .
53 Dundas
54 Waterdown . .
55 Brantford
56 Paris
57 Scotland.
58 Mnt. Pleasant
59 Niagara
60 St. Catharmes
61 Grimsby
62 Beamsville
63 Welland
64 Drummonds-
ville. .;....
65 Caledonia . . , ,
1854
1857 1858
1860 1849 1858 1S08 1849
1849 1855
1851 1857 1858
1855
1 1849
1860
1854 1854 1819 1837 1854 1857 1847 1852
1857
1860 1808 1828 1857 1850 1857 1857
1853
1849
1849 1856
1858
1848
1852 1852 1837 1856 1855 1857 1858
1859
1828
1857 1857
600 700
$600 1,125
480 1,200
800
400 600
600 600 800 800 720
750 800 800 700 800 800 600 800
600
600 800
1,000 660 600
1,020 500
B.A.
LL.D. M.A.
B.A. B.A.
B.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A.
B.A. D.C.L M.A. M.A.
B.A.
B.A. L.R.
C.P. M.A.
B.A.
M.A. B.A. B.A.
600 B.A.
28
16 70
43 52 23 132 55
18 35
$1, non res., free to res.
$2
$4, non res., free to res.
$3 to $1
$4 to $2
$3, part free
$5 to $4
$4.25, $3.26, $2.25
$3, $1.50, $0.75 t.50, non res., free to res.
36 63 80 57
39 80 80 35 40 8 74 25 25 61
43 42 90 40 30 77 18
40
$4, $3.25, $2.50
$3
$6.50, $4.50 f
$5
$3
$3.75 & $0.75
$3
$0.75
, $2.25, $1.50 $1.50 $3, non res.,
free to res.
>, $2, non res.,
free to res. $1.50 & $0.75 $6, $4 $8, $5 $5, $4, $3 $4, $3, $2
t)pO| $Of $^
).50, $5, $4.50
1.50, non res., $0.75 res.
The Failure of Voluntary Support
75
Grammar Schools
s^
^1
w 01 QQ b
5j3
dOcn
tl
I'
66 Simcoe ,
67 Port Dover.
68 Woodstock. .
69 Ingersoll
70 Berlin
71 Gait
72 Guelph
73 Elora
74 Owen Sound .
75 Stratford
76 St. Mary's...
77 Goderich
78 Kincardine. .
79 London
80 Strathroy
81 Wardsville...
82 St. Thomas. .
83 Vienna
84 Chatham
85 Sarnia . . .
86 Windsor.
1843
1843 1854 1854 1852
1750 1857 1854 1861 1841 1860 1834 1860 1860
1850 1850 1853
1842
1858
1857
1849 1857 1856 1859 1836
1857 1856 1857 1858
1853
1859 1857
1,000
600
1,200 450 600
800 675 800 and house 650 550
B.A.
B.A.
|
900 |
|
|
700 |
M.A. |
|
800 |
|
|
1,000 |
M.A. |
|
800 |
B.A. |
|
680 |
|
|
700 |
M.A. |
|
M.A. |
|
|
700 |
|
|
900 |
|
|
600 |
B.A. B.A. B.A.
B.A.
B.A.
B.A. B.A,
92
98
34 70 27 84 75 27 68 47 50 34 29 50 25 27
39 73
81
40 16
$4, non res., free to res.
$4, $3, non res., free to res.
$1
$0.75
$3
»4.50
$0.75
$3, $2, $1.50
Free
$2, $1.50
$2
$2
Free
$5 V
$1
$3, non res., $1 res.
$1
Free
$2, $1
$1.50 $3
CHAPTER VIII.
GEORGE PAXTON YOUNG AS INSPECTOR AND THE
ACT OF 1865.
GEORGE PAXTON YOUNG was the second graduate of Edinburgh High School and University to be chosen by Ryerson for the responsible post of grammar school Inspector. Son of a talented minister of the Secession Church of Scotland and grandson on his mother's side of a theological professor of the same church, it was natural that he should choose a career in the church. After a short experience as mathematical tutor, he entered upon his theological course. He came to Canada as pastor of Knox Church, Hamilton, and joined the staff of Knox College in 1853. It was well that his shoulders were broad. For here he carried the departments of Logic, Mental and Moral Philosophy and the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. It was here that the Superintendent's unerring instinct found a great inspector, at a critical point in the history of grammar schools. After four years as inspector. Professor Young returned to the comparative seclusion of Knox College, this time in charge of the Preparatory Department in Mental Philosophy and Classics. In 1871 he became Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in University College, where it was the writer's great good fortune to sit at his feet for one brief term, in the last course of lectures in philosophy he was spared to deliver. Here one found a fascinating, genial and sympathetic man, broad and tolerant, clear in exposition and brilliantly resourceful in illustration, steeped in classic lore and profoundly read in the English poets and with a special veneration for Wordsworth. As a scholar, he was probably the greatest that Scotland has sent us, for besides being a mathematician of original power, he was an accomplished classical, English and French scholar. Apart from scholarship, he had the understanding heart. In him the trembling school boy as well as the tyro in pedagogy had a friend who understood.
His official reports, as inspector, differ from those of his pre- decessors in being more specific. They give a more detailed picture of the actual conditions in the schoolroom and probably from the fact of his superior attainments and riper judgment,
George Paxton Young 77
faults which others had pointed out appeared more faulty now and won greater attention from the public. He unmercifully exposed the sham union grammar schools, the sham Latin classes, filled with little misses just out of their bibs and a, b, c's, the sham memorized geometry and all the false show of learning. But he dealt gently with incompetent teachers, and if pupils spent months and even years on simple sentences in Latin, the fault was all in the unsuitability of the study. On the constructive side, his sugges- tions are the beginning of our present practice in the teaching of English literature, physical science and morals. 'H •
Young's first report, for 1864, reiterates criticisms^' ol former inspectors but in stronger terms. First, "the needless and most unfortunate multiplication of the grammar schools." The evil appeared to be growing worse from year to year. The more schools in a county the less grant in each school and, consequent upon this a lower scale of salaries. The counties were sacrificing quality for quantity. Often a new school saps the "circle of supply," i.e., the district around a school necessary to supply a sufficient number of pupils, of an existing school and thus weakens it. Besides, there is the effect upon the common schools. Where an unnecessary grammar school exists, "the master is obliged to occupy himself with common school subjects" and then the idea arises that these subjects must be better taught in the higher school. "Of course there could be no more effectual way of keeping the common schools of a district in a low state, than professedly to make some other provision for performing the higher part of that work which properly belongs to them". The next point is the- formation of union schools. Three out of five grammar schools were mere departments of common schools. Though there is an advantage in enabling the master to draft pupils of the common school, who have completed the course, into the grammar school, and so increasing the attendance, he is convinced the unions are undesirable. There is nothing new in the reasons given for the opinion. He thinks, however, that unions in cities are more to be deprecated than in small places, for here one ought to expect first- class grammar schools. " In our cities and large towns, more than anywhere else we should be careful to disconnect the Grammar Schools from all foreign and unnecessary adjuncts that would in any degree repress their vitality or cramp their action. ... A first-class Grammar School will usually be one in which everything
78 Development of the Ontario High School
is ordered with reference to the proper ends of the school itself , and not in accommodation to extraneous necessities; a state of things very different frpm what exists in the Grammar ScHfeol divisions of large Union Schools which I could name."
The third point is that of taxation. He disagrees with the suggestion that grammar school trustees should be given the right to raise money in the same way as common school boards. Two school boards wielding this power would be intolerable to any community. The only suggestion he makes, however, refers to new schools. In the case of a new grammar school, the county, he thinks, should be required both to provide suitable buildings and to contribute a certain annual sum to the support of the school. The fourth point deals with the buildings. He advocates a relentless stoppage of grants in the worst cases. If this led to the closing of the schools, it would indicate that the district con- cerned, did not desire a grammar school and ought not to have one. The sixth and last section, on the system of instruction, is the most interesting and touches upon matters not previously dealt with in any of the official reports. He had been led to expect to find the schools in a very low condition. While that was true of a con- siderable number, there were a considerable number which were very excellent, and the majority at least respectable. Of course, the grammar schools could not bear comparison with the better classical and mathematical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. The teaching of algebra was found to be especially defective. "In not a few (schools) the n.^t advanced pupils were floundering amid the shallows of the first four rules. But much worse than the elementary character of the work done, was the inferior style of doing it." The reason was the imperfect knowledge of the subject, that some teachers possessed. An insufficient grounding in the principles of the different subjects was noted. No home prepara- tion was exacted in many schools, even from advanced pupils. "Such a system is manifestly incompatible either with due progress or with accuracy." Two minor criticisms conclude the report, the one connected with the teaching of geometry and the other with that of Latin. When a pupil was sent up to demonstrate a pro- position he was directed to "put the figure on the board", where- upon he at once drew the complete diagram, as given in Euclid." After a pupil had done this and had gone through the proposition correctly, the inspector would require him to erase the figure and
George Paxton Young 79
begin by drawing only what was given and then make the con- struction by degrees. This generally led to the utter perplexity of the pupil. He had merely memorized the proposition. In Latin, he found an absence of the process called construing. Pupils were content with a vague idea of the author's meaning and when asked what Latin word corresponded to some expression used in the translation often "answered in the wildest possible manner." When one "excellent master" pointed out that Dr. Arnold in an essay on "Rugby School" speaks strongly against construing on the ground that it injures our extemporaneous English composition, Young wisely says that we are not prepared in this Province, to dispense with construing, in the first instance, but when the mean- ing is mastered in this way we may secure the benefit of Arnold's suggestion by rendering a second time in elegant and idiomatic English.
Before another official report was received, important new legislation had placed the secondary schools in a much stronger position. As we have shown, the weakness of the Act of 1853 was very soon felt and the Superintendent was not slow to begin his propaganda to remedy the defects. It was his custom to hold county conventions every fifth year. Here he met the public on their own ground and frankly discussed his measures with them. Local press reports further propagated his ideas. His letters to his Deputy, J. George Hodgins, describing these tours and the difficulties of travel in the more remote parts, are full of interest. They display the energy and fine fighting spirit of the great chief. The term 'county convention' must not in this case call up to the imagination a decorous assemblage of fashionably dressed and mostly young, ladies who come to listen to wisdom, or come because they must, but on the contrary, we must imagine a motley house, full of determined men, teachers, preachers, trustees, farmers, and shopkeepers, and in fact, the whole countryside, alert and combative as befits their race So that the doughty champion had many a heckler to silence and many a debate to win, single-handed against the house. During his tour of 1860, he vigorously advocated a change whereby the grammar schools should be more liberally supported. He urged two main changes: First, the county council should raise a sum equal to that raised by the trustees to support each grammar school under its jurisdiction and, second, the local municipality should appoint part of the trustees. Resolutions
80 Development of the Ontario High School
in favour of these changes were passed at most of the 1860 con- ventions. These efforts, coupled with the conviction of inefficiency, produced by official reports prepared the public mind for the changes made by the Act of 1865. The Hon. William McDougall, Provincial Secretary and Minister in charge of education, was responsible for the new Act in the House and introduced some valuable improvements in the original draft, among others the clause relating to elementary military education.* The provisions of the Act were substantially as follows: (1) Each city for grammar school purposes, is to be regarded as a county, but when the only grammar school of the county is situated within a city, the Council of such county is to appoint one-half of the trustees. (2) Trustees. — Each county council is to appoint three, for each grammar school under its jurisdiction and the town or incorporated village, in which the school is situated, also to appoint three. This board of six is to be a corporate body and the property is to be vested in them. (3) Financial. — No grammar school shall share in the grammar school Fund unless a sum shall be provided from local sources, exclusive of fees, equal at least to half the sum apportioned to such school. The Act does not declare that a municipal rate for this sum shall be levied. The amount may be contributed from the Clergy Reserve Fund or from any other source, or from the general funds of the municipality. (4) Basis of apportionment. — The Fund grant shall be apportioned on the basis of average attendance of pupils in the prescribed programme of studies. (5) Check on estab- lishment of new schools. — No new grammar school shall be established unless the grammar school Fund shall be sufficient to allow of an apportionment at the rate of three hundred dollars per annum to such school. (6) Qualifications of headmasters. — • Only university graduates eligible except that all who had been appointed the year next before the passing of this Act shall be deemed eligible notwithstanding this provision. (7) Military training. — The Governor-in-Council is authorized to prescribe a course of elementary military instruction for grammar school pupils and to appropriate a sum not exceeding fifty dollars per annum to any school, the headmaster of which has passed an examination in a military course provided at least five pupils have been instructed for at least six months.
*See "Journal of Education", Sept. 1865.
George Paxton Young 81
The Act was published in the September number of the "Journal of Education" with explanatory comments on each section. It is evidently intended to remove all the causes of complaint. The second section gives the local municipality a voice in the manage- ment of the school. It was not desirable to give it complete control, because many pupils came from outside the town or village. The wisdom of this provision is attested by the fact that it is still in force after fifty years. The financial clause (under No. 3 above) is in harmony with the common school law and makes the local support of grammar schools compulsory, that is, if a community desires to keep up a school at all. As to the basis of apportionment of the Fund there was considerable debate. In the correspondence between the Assistant Superintendent, J. George Hodgins, who was in charge of the Bill at Quebec, and his chief, it appears that the intention of Ryerson was to word the clause, "average atten- dance of pupils studying Latin or Greek." In fact, he had incor- porated this provision in the revised Regulations, issued earlier in the year. It had to be abandoned. Hodgins put it this way in one of his letters: "I feel sure we shall have to abandon the Latin and Greek basis and make it broader in the direction of modern lang- uages." This is a definite indication that public opinion in Canada at last was breaking with tradition. The clause removed the anomaly of paying an extra $200 to the senior grammar school of the county, quite irrespective of its efficiency. Henceforth there would be no apportionment to counties according to population but to each school in strict proportion to its bona-fide attendance. Again it had been an oft-repeated complaint that the grammar schools were doing work that properly belonged to the common schools. Under this Act, therefore, no school would receive any grant in respect of this elementary work. Only such portion of the attendance would be recognized, as was engaged in actual secondary school studies. As to qualifications of headmasters, there was now an abundant supply of graduates in Canada. The question of military drill in the schools had been under discussion for several years previous. A company of model school cadets had been organized in 1862 and forty long Enfield rifles and sets of accoutre- ments with small stores complete were forwarded from the military authorities at Montreal.* The Superintendent issued instructions to teachers, setting forth the benefits to be derived from military
*See D. H. E., Vol. XVII, p. 235.
82 Development of the Ontario High School.
drill, namely: patriotism, obedience, and improved discipline. He said that a prominent American educationist had told him that it had produced a most salutary change in the discipline of American schools. "The events of the last three years "(i.e., the American Civil War) "have drawn the attention of the Legislature and of the whole country to this important subject". — Ryerson's Annual Report for 1863. In several subsequent annual reports, he repeated his arguments in favour of military training, but though a few schools took up the work, it never reached the country as a whole and soon died out.
In his circular to trustees regarding the Act, Ryerson set forth his conception of the functions of grammar schools, in these words: "The great object of this Act is to make Grammar Schools what they were intended to be, namely: Intermediate Schools between the Common Schools and the University College — to prepare those pupils for matriculation in the University, who intend to acquire an university education — to impart to other pupils the higher branches of an English education, including the elements of French, for those who intend to engage in the various pursuits of life without entering the University — and also to impart a special preparatory education to those who intend to become Surgeons and Civil Engineers." A three-fold object is thus outlined. The grammar school is preparatory for those who are to go to college, and also for two learned professions, but besides this, it is a finishing school for those who go into business or any other occupation. Thus the secondary school was organized upon a compromise. Having at least two divergent objects, the programme of studies must necessarily be an adjustment, which suits neither class perfectly. In later days a still further com- plication was introduced when the task of educating all the common school teachers was assumed. Very soon, also, girls gained admit- tance and recognition, and so the secondary school had come to be a sort of Procrustes' bed, to which girl and boy, prospective mechanic, physician, home-maker, teacher, farmer, or merchant, must adjust himself or be eliminated.
The Superintendent after arguing at some length the necessity of grammar schools in a progressive country like Canada and ^heir hitherto precarious existence, reasons thus with the wardens of counties: "The Act does not say in what way the proportionate sum from local sources shall be provided ; but I would suggest that,
George Paxton Young 83
as the County Council appoints one-half of the Board of Trustees for the management of each Grammar School, the County Council should provide one half of the sum required by law to be provided from local sources as a condition of sharing in the fund. But a higher and broader ground for this suggestion is, not only that the Grammar School is a national school and the country has a special interest in it — but a large number of ratepayers in the country do not send their children to the Common Schools, but to the Grammar and other schools; yet their properties are largely assessed for providing Common Schools. It is but equitable, therefore, to these ratepayers — apart from other considerations — that a small portion, at least, of the school assessments in counties should go to the support of one or more county Grammar Schools . . . ." Then he concludes a really adroit appeal by magnanimously agreeing to pay over the proper apportionment to the County schools from the fund, without waiting for the County Council to pay the proportionate amount required by the new law, "relying upon their intelligent and liberal co-operation." It is not possible to say exactly what response from county councils this appeal provoked, the returns not distinguishing between county, and town or village contributions to the local fund, but the Superintendent's Report for 1866 gives the amount provided by municipalities as $33,908, as against $14,963 in 1865 which he regarded as highly satisfactory.
Regulations, additional to those issued in 1855 were framed in -^ April 1865, one of which made the basis of the apportionment of the grant, the number studying Latin and Greek in each school. This clause had to be worded in a more general way, as we have seen. The examination and admission of pupils by the headmaster was no longer to be final, but provisional until the visit of the inspector, who finally examined, and admitted or rejected the pupils as the case might be. The entrance requirements for the general pupil were unchanged from 1855, but a special entrance examination was provided for boys intending to be surveyors or civil engineers. It was of considerably higher standard than the other. In arith- metic, proportion and vulgar and decimal fractions were to be thoroughly understood. An accurate knowledge of general geo- graphy was required. The course to be pursued by these pupils was two years in length and contained no classics. French and science were required. Inspector Young reported that he found
84
Development of the Ontario High School
only seven boys in the Province in this course in 1867 and did not think the special provision necessary. The Queen's Birthday (May 24) was declared a holiday and teachers were allowed five ordinary teaching days of each year to visit other schools for the purpose of observation.
PROGRAMMES OF 1855 AND 1865.
First or Lowest Class. 1855 1865
|
Latin. |
Arnold's Firc-t and Second |
Latin Grammar commenc- |
|
|
Latin Grammar. |
Mepos. |
ed. Arnold's First Latin Book. |
|
|
English. |
English Grammar |
and |
Elements of English |
|
Composition and |
Sulli- |
Grammar, Reading and |
|
|
van's Spelling |
Book |
Spelling |
|
|
superseded |
|||
|
Mathematics. |
Arithmetic. |
Arithmetic. Revise the four |
|
|
Algebra. |
simple rules. Reduction |
||
|
(First four rules). |
and Decimal Currency. Begin Simple Proportion |
||
|
Geography and |
Outlines of Geography and |
Outlines of Geography. |
|
|
History. |
General History. |
||
|
Miscellaneous. |
Writing, Drawing and |
Writing, Drawing and |
|
|
Vocal Music. |
Vocal Music. |
Second Class.
Latin.
Greek.
English.
Latin Grammar and Exer- cises. Caesar's Commen- taries.
Arnold's First Greek Book.
Grammar (continued). Etymology of Words and Versification. Art of Reading (National Series) and Sullivan's Dictionary of Derivations.
Latin Grammar continued. Arnold's Second Latin Book. Caesar commenc- ed.
Greek Grammar commenc- ed. Harkness' Arnold.
Elements of English Gram- mar. Reading and Spelling.
George Paxton Young
85
Second Class.
1855
1865
|
Mathematics. |
Practical Arithmetic. |
Arithmetic. Revise previous |
|
Algebra. |
work. Simple Propor- |
|
|
simple equations. |
tion. Vulgar and Deci- mal Fractions. Algebra, first four rules. |
|
|
Geography and |
Outlines of Geography and |
English History. Modern |
|
History. |
General History. |
and Ancient Geography. |
|
Physical Science. |
Elements of Natural His- tory as far as contained in the Third and Fourth National Readers. |
None. |
|
Miscellaneous. |
Writing, Drawing and |
Writing, Drawing and |
|
Vocal Music. |
Vocal Music. |
Third Class.
Latin.
Greek.
French.
English.
Mathematics.
Ovid and Virgil.
Latin Prosody and Exer- cises.
Greek Grammar and Exer- cises. Xenophon's Anabasis.
Elements of French Gram- mar to end of Irregular Verbs, with Exercises. Oral and written trans- lations.
Elementary Principles of Rhetoric and Logic. Art of Reading and Fifth Book (National Series).
Commercial Arithmetic. Algebra (quadratics). Euclid, Bk. I, II.
Caesar continued. Virgil. Aeneid, B. II commenced. Latin Prose Composition Prosody commenced.
Greek Grammar continued Harkness continued. Lucian, Charon.
Grammar and Exercises. (DeFivas).
Grammar.
Elements of Composition.
Arithmetic continued. Algebra. Fractions. Greatest Common Meas- ure and Least Common Multiple. Simple Equa- tions. Euclid, Bk. I.
86 Development of the Ontario High School
Third Class.
1855
1865
|
Geography and |
Ancient Geography. |
English History continued. |
|
History. |
Roman Antiquities. |
Ancient History. |
|
History of Greece. |
Modern and Ancient Geography. |
|
|
Physical Science. |
Elements of Natural Phil- |
Elements of Natural His- |
|
osophy and Geology, as |
tory. |
|
|
contained in the Fifth |
||
|
National Reader. |
||
|
Miscellaneous. |
Drawing and Vocal Music. |
Drawing and Vocal Music, |
Fourth Class.
|
Latin. |
Virgil and Cicero. Exer- |
Virgil. Aeneid, Bk. II |
|
cises and Composition in |
completed. Livy, Bk. II, |
|
|
Prose and Verse. |
ch. 1 to 15 inclusive. Latin Prose Composi- tion. Prosody continued. |
|
|
Greek. |
Homer's Iliad. Greek Test- |
Lucian, Life. Xenophon. |
|
ament. Lucian. Greek |
Anabasis, Bk. I, ch. 7, 8. |
|
|
Prosody and Exercises. |
Homer. Iliad, Bk. I. |
|
|
French. |
Rules on the use of the Pro- |
Grammar and Exercises |
|
nouns and Participles, |
continued. Voltaire. |
|
|
with Exercises. Oral and |
Charles XII. Books I, |
|
|
written translations. |
II, III. |
|
|
English. |
Christian Morals and Evid- |
Grammar. Composition. |
|
ences. Reading in Sulli- |
Christian Morals and |
|
|
van's Literary Class Bk. |
Elements of Civil Govern- ment. |
|
|
Mathematics. |
Algebra. |
Algebra. Involution and |
|
Euclid, Bk. HI IV, de- |
Evolution. Theory of |
|
|
finitions of Bk. V and Bk. |
Indices and Surds; Equa- |
|
|
VI. |
tions, Simple, Qiiadratic and Indeterminate. Euclid, Bk. I, II. |
George Paxton Young
Fourth Class.
87
|
1855 |
1865 |
|
|
Geography and |
Ancient and Mediaeval |
English History continued |
|
History. |
Geography. |
History of Canada. |
|
Grecian Antiquities. |
Ancient Geography and |
|
|
History of France. |
History. |
|
|
History of Canada. |
||
|
Physical Science. |
Physiology, as contained in |
Elements of Natural Phil- |
|
the Fifth National Read- |
osophy and Geology. |
|
|
Elements of Chemistry. |
||
|
Miscellaneous. |
Drawing, Bookkeeping and |
Drawing, Bookkeeping & |
|
Vocal Music. |
Vocal Music. |
|
Fifth |
Class. |
|
|
Latin. |
Horace. Composition in |
Cicero. For the Manilian |
|
Prose and Verse. Pre- |
law. Ovid, Heroides, I |
|
|
■ |
vious subjects reviewed. |
andXIII. Horace, Odes, Bk. L Composition in |
|
\ |
Prose and Verse. |
|
|
Greek. |
Homer's Odyssey. Greek |
Xenophon. Anabasis, Bk. |
|
Prosody. Previous sub- |
1, cc. 9, 10. Homer, |
|
|
jects reviewed. |
Odyssey, Bk. IX. Previous subjects reviewed. |
|
|
French. |
Syntax and Idioms. Com- |
Corneille, Horace, Act |
|
position. Oral and writ- |
IV. Review of previous |
|
|
ten translations. Ffenfe- |
subjects. |
|
|
lon, Dialogues des Morts. |
||
|
Molifere, Les Fourberies |
||
|
de Scapin. Previous |
||
|
subjects reviewed. |
||
|
English. |
Outline of English Litera- |
Grammar. Composition, |
|
ture. Composition. Ele- |
Christian Morals and |
|
|
ments of Civil Polity, |
Elements of Civil Govern- |
|
|
Political Economy (Fifth |
ment. |
|
|
Reader). Previous sub- |
||
|
jects reviewed. |
Development of the Ontario High School
Fifth Class.
|
1855 |
1865 |
|
|
Mathematics. |
Elements of Plane Trigono- |
Algebra, Progression and |
|
metry. Mensuration and |
Proportion, with revisal |
|
|
Surveying. Previous sub- |
of previous work. |
|
|
jects reviewed. |
Euclid, Bk. Ill, IV. |
|
|
Geography and |
Outlines of Egyptian His- |
Revise jM-evious subjects. |
|
History. |
tory to the death of Cleo- patra. History of Spain and Portugal in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella Previous subjects review- ed. |
|
|
Physical Science. |
Previous subjects review- |
Elements of Physiology |
|
ed. |
and Chemistry. |
|
|
Miscellaneous. |
Drawing and Vocal Music. |
Drawing and Vocal Music. |
CHAPTER IX.
THE ADMISSION OF GIRLS.
T TP to the point reached, the grammar schools had been IJ almost exclusively boys' schools. Girls were admitted in a few places only and in those to do elementary work, under supposedly better and more exclusive conditions than in the common schools. No doubt the movement towards higher education for girls in Great Britain and the United States had some influence in this country./ The Cambridge local examinations were opened to girls on the same terms as boys in 1865 while the appoint- ment of the Endowed Schools Commission in 1864 brought the question of the education of girls prominently forward. It was contended without foundation in law or history, that the endow- ments were intended for. girls as well as boys. Strange to say, the agitation arising caused the insertion of a clause in the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 to provide so far as possible for extending to girls the benefits of the endowments.* The spread of democratic ideas in the United States, accelerated by the institution these had created, namely: the public high school and later by the Civil War, now included the emancipation of women. Secondary schools were in nearly all countries organized for, and adapted to, the education of boys alone. In some countries co-education, at and after the adolescent period, is unknown. Among these, France, Italy and Great Britain, except Scotland and parts of Wales had, in 1912, practically no co-educational secondary schools. In the United States, the conditions are reversed. With the exception of some of the largest cities, as Boston, New York, Baltimore and San Francisco, boys and girls everywhere attend the same high schools. "Co-education in the American Secondary Schools is the resulrsv of two conditions: (a) the rise of a well-defined demand for equal opportunities for the education of girls with that of boys; (b) the need of economy in administration in the newer communities."! Of the cities providing separate institutions, Boston was the pioneer, whose high school for girls was opened only a year after that for boys, namely, 1826. Providence opened its high school in 1843
f*See "Cyclopedia of Education", Art. Women Higher Education of.
• top. cit. Art. Coeducation.
90 Development of the Ontario High School
and had a separate girls' department. Ontario adopted the co- educational plan. There was apparently no discussion of the relative merits of separate and mixed schools. It was purely a matter of economy. There was an objection, in the interests of private female seminaries and also by some, whose opinions were entitled to respect, on pedagogical grounds. But interested, or disinterested objections to the contrary, poverty decided the issue. There was scant support for the existing schools. To duplicate them would have been out of the question. Unfortunately, we have always had to depend in Ontario upon the public purse. Private munificence has been strangely lacking, in support of both secondary and higher institutions of learning in this province. It has never led the way,* except in the case of sectarian schools. An interesting letter from a correspondent of the Toronto Daily Colonist is reprinted in the "Journal of Education" for December 1859. It merits more serious consideration to-day, for after more than half a century and with a vast increase of wealth, it is still painfully true. After describing the schools of Cincinnati he says, there are in that city two high schools called from the gentlemen founding them, the Woodward and the Hughes. "There is scarcely a city on this side but can boast of some public-spirited individual who has done something to advance the education of. the people by benefactions. But, notwithstanding we have in Toronto, gentle- men who have given largely to sectarian institutions, no one has ever given one cent for the advancement of national education. Will no Woodward wipe out the reproach?" There is always the tardiness of public opinion to combat, in educational reform. Hence the great advantage that may sometimes accrue from leader- ship through private means. % Ryerson himself, suggested separate schools for girls. In giving reasons for the education of girls he says:t "It is the mother more than the father that decides the intellectual and moral character, if not material interest of the household. A well-educated woman seldom fails to leave the impress of her own intelligence and energy; while on the other hand, an uneducated or badly educated mother often paralyses, by her example and spirit, all the efforts and
*The handsome gift of $182,500 by Sir William Macdonald to build the Macdonald Institute at Guelph may be regarded as an honourable exception, but the donor does not reside in the Province.
fSee "Report on Popular Education, 1868", p. 192.
The Admission of Girls 91
influences exerted from all sources, for the proper training and culture of her children." In the rural parts education must necessarily be co-educational. "But I think our cities and towns and larger villages are by no means fulfilling their educational obligations as they should and as is done in the cities and towns of the neighbouring states, in which there are high, schools for girls, as well as for boys, besides elementary mixed schools." This must be regarded as a counsel of perfection rather than a practical scheme, for the Superintendent very well knew how difficult it had been to secure support for one grammar school in a place. Professor Young was also very dubious about admitting girls. Unless the teacher had weight of character, he thought the moral tone was affected by educating boys and girls of fifteen and over in the same classes. The familiarity of the schoolroom w^s apt insensibly to blunt a girl's "instinctive feelings of delicate reserve." Besides this, was the serious question whether the curriculum framed for the boy was altogether suitable for the girl. He held very strongly that the study of the classics, as pursued by girls in the grammar schools was wasted, as they attained no proficiency in the study, having taken it up in most cases, at the urgent request of teacher or trustee.
Co-education was discussed both in the Upper Canada Teachers' Association, and in the Legislature. At the 1865 meeting of the former, after a lengthened debate, a resolution was passed recom- mending that, as the programme under the new regulations was not suited to girls, the classics be optional for them after they have passed through the first and second forms. In November of 1865, some additional regulations were issued as a result of the discussion and of the sudden influx of girls: "To afford every possible facility for learning Fiench, girls may, at the option of trustees, be admitted to any Grammar School on passing the preliminary and final entrance examination required for the admission of boys. Girls thus admitted will take French (and not Latin or Greek) and the English subjects of the classical course for boys; but they are not to be returned or recognized as pupils pursuing either of the pre- scribed programmes of studies for the Grammar Schools." This remarkable regulation makes the status of girls quite clear. Their participation in public advanced education depended upon the decision of the board of trustees in each school and they were definitely debarred from the classics and were not expected to take
92 Development of the Ontario High School
mathematics. This appears to be but a grudging concession to public demands and not to treat these demands in a serious spirit. However, Ryerson was away in Europe, and on his return caused some changes to be made. The next year, according to the "Journal of Education" for May 1866, girls pursuing the prescribed course of classical studies, who, by the way, would be doing it in defiance of the Regulation of November 1865, were to be taken into account in the average attendance, although only fifty per cent of the average attendance of such girls for 1866 was to be reckoned. This is the way Ryerson explains the matter, "To meet an alleged exigency, provision was made in the programme to admit girls, on application, and after examination, to attend the Grammar Schools to learn French in connection with the prescribed English course of studies for classical pupils, but not to be returned as Grammar Schools pupils, whose average attendance should con- stitute the basis of the distribution of the fund. This exceptional regulation in behalf of the girls (it being alleged that in most cases they could not otherwise have an opportunity to learn French) assumed, of course, that they would not think of studying Greek or Latin, though nothing was said on the subject in the programme. But in the course of the year, it appeared that scarcely any girls entered a Grammar School to learn French, but scores of them were found professedly studying Latin — being thereby claimed on the part of the masters and trustees of the school admitting them as Grammar School pupils, and as such entitled to be counted in the distribution of the Grammar School fund. Such was the state of the schools on my return from an eight months' tour of Europe at the end of May, 1867 .... The prestige and standard of a majority of the Grammar Schools were being reduced by the efforts to fill them with girls as well as boys in the elementary subjects, in order to augment their income. In apportioning early in 1867 the Grammar School Fund for the year on the basis of average attendance, in the prescribed course, the department was per- plexed by this new and startling aggregation of girls returned as classical pupils, and not willing to ignore their attendance, and yet feeling that it was a novel application of the fund, intended wholly for classical and high English education for the professions and university, decided for that year to recognize the classical attendance of two girls as equal to that of one boy. Had this not been done, some of the most efificient Grammar Schools, in
The Admission of Girls ' 93
which no girls had been induced to learn Latin would have been cripped in their funds."* On receiving complaints from schools not admitting girls, that there was unfairness in recognizing girls at all and from schools, whose attendance was mostly female, that a girl should count as much as a boy, Ryerson submitted the case to the Attorney-General, the Hon. J. Sanfield Macdonald. After much consultation and mature (seven months\ deliberation, Mr. Macdonald replied in part as follows: "Your letter contains, besides an extract from the prescribed course of study for Grammar Schools, adopted by the Council of Public Instruction, comments of your own bearing upon the question which are so exactly in accordance with the views which I have always entertained as to the impro- priety of permitting girls to be received in Grammar Schools, that I have only to add that my interpretation of the Grammar School Act in relation to the question submitted by you, is that boys alone should be admitted to those schools, and that consequently the Grammar School Fund was intended for the classical, mathe- matical and higher English education of boys." After quoting this letter, which seemed to settle the rights of girls, he goes on to express his own convictions. He had declined the Presidency of Victoria University, until the female department was discontinued. New York and Boston both maintained separate High Schools for the sexes. Besides not a few parents had objected to sending their boys as well as their girls to mixed schools. The extent to which the girls were enjoying the apparently somewhat doubtful privileges of the grammar schools is shown in a table given by the Inspector. For 1866, of twenty schools, sixteen had more girls in the classics than boys and the averages were, boys-^ten, girls — fourteen for the whole twenty schools. Out of the 102 schools in operation for 1866, eighty-five were mixed schools and the daily average of girls studying Latin was to that of boys as three to five. The following table will be found interesting in this connection, showing as it does much greater increases in the total Latin students than the total French, during the years of the "influx".
1866 Decrease. Increase.
Total attendance 5179 575 —
Latin 4,444 — 775
French 1,974 — 241
*See "Annual Report of the Chief Superintendent for 1867".
94 Development of the Ontario High School
1867 , Decrease. Increase.
Total attendance 5,696 — 517
Latin 5,171 — 727
French 2,164 — 190
1868
Total attendance 5,649 47 —
Latin 4,881 — 290
French 2,007 — 157
Here we see that the increase in Latin was much greater than the total increase, while it was more than three times the increase in French, for each of the years. The reason of course, was that the girls would be an asset to the board of trustees, if they took Latin but not if they took French.
In a discussion in the Legislature, as reported in the Journal of Education for February 1868, Edward Blake expressed the view that the mode of apportioning the grant "was based on the erroneous principle of attendance so that the effect had been unduly to swell the attendance of classes of children not qualified for Grammar Schools — girls and others being got to attend, in order to obtain an increased grant." Hon. J. S, Macdonald agreed and said that in his opinion it was not intended that girls should be admitted. The practice of getting girls into the grammar schools had the effect of interfering with, and injuring the higher seminaries for girls. Opinions were expressed by two members approving of separate grammar schools for girls, and from two others that the system of mixed schools worked satisfactorily. Professor Young had said that while separate schools would be better, he would not debar them from sharing the boys' schools until circumstances were such that the ideal system could be put in practice.
What then, was the outcome of the controversy? The Attorney- General having given his opinion against allowing girls to be counted in the attendance, Ryerson declared his intention of distributing the grant for 1868 on the basis of the attendance of boys alone. His circular issued in May read in part: "I regret to observe that the evil of inducing girls to enter Grammar Schools with the apparent object of unduly swelling the number of pupils, has not diminished but has increased, although there are still several schools which are not open to this reproach. It, therefore, becomes the duty of the Department in its administration of the law to take care that no encouragement is offered to a course of action, which is contrary to the intention of the Grammar School Law and Regulations." "The organization and studies of the Grammar
The Admission of Girls 95
Schools are not adapted for mixed classes of grown-up girls and boys nor is it desirable that such classes should exist."
This led to a strong protest. The trustees of Clinton Grammar -V School ably championed the girls. Their arguments are that, if girls be excluded, they will go back to the common schools where they will meet the supposed evils of co-education in an aggravated form, since it would be impossible for the common school teacher to exercise as much oversight as could the grammar school master. Further, exclusion of girls, or not counting their attendance would reduce the master's salary, and in the latter case would give him more work for less money. Again only the Legislature is com- petent to declare that two pupils of one sex are equal to one of the other. The word pupil occurs in the Common School Act. It should mean the same in the Grammar School Act as there. Also > some of the girls in attendance at grammar schools were preparing to be teachers. They next declared that the opinion {i.e., .of the Attorney-General as already gi^^en) was illegal, as well as disastrous to the best interests of education. Their reasons were given at great length.* An interesting contrast was drawn by the Clinton trustees between the intention of the Legislature and the policy of the Council of Public Instruction. First—The Legislature intended that the schools should be principally devoted to giving instruction in all the higher branches of a practical English and Commercial education, while as a secondary object they should teach Latin, Greek and mathematics so far as to prepare for matriculation. The Council has reversed this. Second — The Legislature desired to extend the advantages of grammar schools as widely as possible. The Council looks with disfavour upon small schools and has adopted a regulation which, if carried out, will close the greater number of them.
Ryerson now sent a circular to the press on the subject. No regulation, he said, had been adopted or decision given against admitting girls to pursue the whole course of grammar school studies if the trustees and master wished thus to admit them. A way out was sought in a new Bill which proposed to place the schools under boards of public school trustees and incidentally to change their designation to high schools. This did not become law. In a circular dated March 8, 1869, the Council of Public Instruction yielded to the pressure that was perhaps becoming too strong to resist. Girls in order to be returned or recognized as
*See D. H. E., Vol. XX, p. 241.
96 Development of the Ontario High School
grammar school pupils must be engaged in one of the prescribed courses of study for the grammar schools. The battle was won. Our secondary schools thus became co-educational in every sense except in places where the board of trustees excluded them of its own motion. The Act of 1871 took this power out of local hands, so that since then all the public secondary schools in Ontario have been mixed schools and not even in the largest cities has a single high school for boys only, or girls only, been established.
The immediate effect of counting the attendance of girls was to reduce the grant to some of the best schools, as a result of their not having admitted girls. The following table, prepared by Deputy-Superintendent Hodgins, to support a plea for special consideration for these schools, shows to what extent they suffered :
School. Grant 1868. Grant i86g.
Gait $1,800 $1,640
Toronto 1,740 . 1,330
Kingston 1,550 1,200
London 1,150 809
Belleville 900 650
Port Hope 746 520
Chatham 70q 540
Brampton 672 400
Godericb 600 460
The general influence upon secondary education of making the schools co-educational, is a matter that would require con- siderable investigation to determine and in its large aspect is beyond the scope of this essay. Some minor and more obvious results may be mentioned. There does not appear to have been any material feminization of the curriculum. Doubtless the study of French was somewhat stimulated since it was to learn this polite language, with its special appeal to the feminine mind, that girls were first countenanced in the grammar schools. A slight recognition of girls was made in the programme of 1871 (see page 119). It will be seen that girls might take "Easy Lessons in Reasoning instead of Geometry", in Forms I and II. The programme as readjusted in 1874 to "Payment by Results" makes no sex distinctions and ever since girls have been required to bear the same burdens as boys whether of mathematics or literature or science. It is obvious also, that discipline in a co-educational school is necessarily milder than in a boys' school. It is neither possible to exact the military precision which boys like nor will boys enjoy being treated as young ladies are in a girls' school.
CHAPTER X. THE TEACHING OF NATURAL SCIENCE AND ENGLISH.
WE have already dealt with some features cf Professor Young's reports. We have seen that the chief counts against the schools, on the critical side were the tendency to found grammar schools where they could not be supported, the tendency to save themselves from extinction by forming union schools, which virtually amounted to extinction of the higher department in most cases, and the tendency to draft into the grammar school every pupil, who had made the merest start in his education, in order to qualify for a large share of the fund. Besides this, he noted that a great waste of time resulted from^' putting nearly every pupil, boy or girl, into Latin. It was, in most cases, a false show of learning, the consequence of which was dense ignorance of English grammar, and no attention to English litera- ture nor to physical science. But on the constructive side Professor Young's reports were even more helpful.
To begin with English, what was, up to this time, taught in Ontario grammar schools? Reference to the programme of 1865 (see p. 84) will show that English grammar and composition constituted the whole course throughout the five classes The result was that "many of the advanced pupils, at an age when they ought to go forth and reap the whole harvest of English literature, are unable to read a page of an ordinary English author with intelligence. A girl (he is speaking of girls studying Latin) sixteen or sever^teen years of age, has not, in my opinion been decently educated — if she cannot sit down and read a few pages of Cowper's "Task" or Thomson's "Seasons", with a clear apprehension ^^^^aking allowance for exceptional difficulties) of their meaning," But he found that pupils were ignorant even of the meaning of common English words. In one school where all the classes were brought together once a week to recite English passages — that is, a school in which pupils had a better opportunity than usual to know something of English — only one boy in the school knew the meaning of "deem" in the line: "Say it is folly and deem me weak." The word "main" meaning ocean was too much for some. He quotes Professor Seeley on the same defect in the schools of England.
98 Development of the Ontario High School.
"I think", says Seeley, "that an exact knowledge of the meanings of English words is not very common even among highly educated people, which is natural enough, since their attention has been so much diverted to Latin and Greek ones. But the ignorance in this department of the class, I have most in view, those who leave school at fourteen or sixteen is most deplorable. It is far more than a mere want of precision in the notions attached to words. It is far more than a mere ignorance of uncommon and philosophical words. Words that have passed into common parlance of well- educated people — remain to the class I speak of, perfectly obscure." They not only imperfectly understand an author, but they totally misunderstand him. They have never been taught English.
Such was the situation. Now for the remedy. The time
had arrived, he thought, for the organization of a different sort
Nj3f school, which he calls English high schools, in which, the
' suggestion is, the study of English should occupy the place of
honour, 'which the classics occupied in the regulation grammar
school. There should be a study of select English authors; the
object not being technical grammatical practice, but a mastery
of the meaning of the author and an entering into his spirit. He
adopts Seeley 's suggestion of Macaulay's "Lays", Kingsley's
"Heroes", Scott's "Poems and Tales of a Grandfather" as suitable
for the junior classes. To accomplish the end in view, attention
must be" directed to the following points: structure of sentences;
allusions, figures, and meanings of words. Next, trains of argument
should be followed out and so a beginning in formal logic made.
The pupil might be required to throw an argument into syllogistic
« form. The most important phase of the teaching of literature,
however, is what Young felicitously terms "the quickening contact
'with truth and beauty". "Why should children not have their
intellectual natures nourished and enriched through familiarity
J with exquisite thoughts and images instead of being starved on
[ lessons about trifling and commonplace matters?" This contact
i with the great masters of our language would assist the pupil
greatly in his English composition, which would naturally be
associated with the appreciative study of authors.
But a further gain would result. From the works studied thus in the English class, morals might be most effectively taught. Christian morals had been made a subject of study in the official programme. This was not carried out, except that "the most
Teaching of Natural Science and Engush 99
fundamental ethical principles were inculcated in dogmatic fashion." This seemed to Young to be the least desirable way in which to teach a subject that he admits is extremely difficult to teach effectively. To have special classes in morals he did not think wise. The ideal way is to accomplish this purpose incidentally. "It seems to one that the best means of making our schools fields of moral as well as of intellectual education is for teachers to avail themselves of the opportunities of conveying moral lessons that may occur in the course of ordinary English studies with which the pupils are engaged."
The last subject discussed is that of physical science. Before presenting Professor Young's views and recommendations on this subject, it will place his position in its proper perspective, to advert briefly to what had been done in other countries, as well as in Ontario schools in the teaching of physical science. As to a definition of the term, the inspector appears to place the emphasis upon what we know as physics, but does not exclude chemistry. The term would cover geology, mineralogy, astronomy, and biology equally well, though he explicitly rejects any elaborate scheme of separate sciences and asks "that the attention of the pupils should be turned merely to prominent outstanding points in a few of the sciences," and that they should know these philosophically. In the Prussian gymnasium the scheme of 1856 called for two hours weekly in the highest, and one hour in the second class in physics and two hours in the third in natural history. The instructions stated that if there was no competent teacher of natural science for the third class the time was to be given to history and French. In the real-schulen the amount of science was much greater. Natural science here was given six hours in the two highest classes and two hours in each of the others.* In France by a statute of 1847 a bifurcation in the last three years of the secondary courses was introduced so that in one division greater attention was paid to science. "Further emphasis was placed on these subjects after the expositions of 1855 and 1862 as a measure to promote the progress of French industries " The City of London School was the first secondary school to open a laboratory for individual work by the pupils. This was done in 1847. The first of the English Public Schools to take the same step was Rugby in 1860. In the United
*For references here made to French, English and U. S. schools, see: Monroe, "Cyclopaedia of Education", Art. Chemistry.
100 Development of the Ontario High School
States, the Girls' High and Normal School of Boston led the way in 1865. Laboratory work by the pupils was practically unknown until after this date. Natural philosophy had been on the list of subjects in American academies from the beginning and was taught from the informational point of view. Public curiosity had been aroused by inventions, and it is easy to understand, in the early days of the steam engine and electricity, the eager desire to learn their secrets through the study of physics.
In Ontario schools practically nothing had been done. In the Programme of 1840 only the Partial Form (see p. 28) had any science prescribed and this was called elements of natural philo- sophy. The Programme of 1855 called for elements of natural history in the second class, elements of natural philosophy and geology in the third class and physiology and elementary chemistry, in the fourth class, in each case as contained in the National Readers. In 1856, the inspector shows how the work in science was done. "Works in history and the physical science are often used for the practice of English reading, and these reading lessons in such instances constitute the only instruction in the said branches." This is practically the only reference in official reports till the last report of Professor Young. In the outline of require- ments in science for the examination of candidates for master- ships in grammar schools, a footnote reads "Only a popular knowledge of these subjects is required."* With teachers so meagrely equipped and with text books of the dogmatic and informational type, we are able to form a just estimate of the kind of science instruction a grammar school pupil would receive. The Programme of 1865 deferred the beginning of science to the third class, which had elements of natural history, the fourth class, natural philosophy and geology and the fifth class, physiology and chemistry. The National Readers are no longer mentioned and teachers were apparently left to their own discretion as to text- books in physical science. In 1867 a list of text-booksf was issued by the Council of Public Instruction. Most of these were pre- scribed and their use was imperative. The books under physical science, however, were recommended only and were: " Introductory Course of Natural Philosophy," edited from "Ganot's Popular
*See "Superintendent's Report of 1855", p. 318. fSee "Journal of Education, 1867".
Teaching of Natural Science and English 101
Physics" by W. G. Peck. "How Plants Grow" by Asa Gray and Hooker's "Smaller Treatise on Physiology."
From this brief reference to conditions in other leading countries it appears that physical science found its way into the schools after the middle of the century. Though we have the isolated instance of an English school teaching by the modem laboratory method as early as 1847, it was eighteen years later before the example was first followed in the United States. Had the method been tried at all in this country? No evidence that such was the case appears in any official document though unquestionably a number of grammar schools were equipped with "philosophical apparatus." Indeed as early as 1806, £400 had been appropriated by the Legislature at the instance of Dr. Strachan for scientific apparatus and was handed over to his school at Cornwall. The only depart- mental reports that are of any service to show the amount spent in apparatus are those of the four years tabulated below. These give expenditures for maps and apparatus together. Subsequent reports lump these items with prizes and libraries.
|
No. of Schools |
A mount Spent on Maps and |
|
|
7ears. |
Purchasing. |
Apparatus. £ s. d. |
|
1854 |
10 |
34 16 4 |
|
1855 |
8 |
61 11 2 |
|
1856 |
17 |
201 3 11 |
|
1867 |
27 |
538 8 8 |
The increases here indicate a growing public interest in the physical sciences, but of course, show nothing as to the teaching of the subject.
Professor Young begins his discussion on "Physical Science in the High Schools" by observing that the educational world was then divided into two parties, the advocates of a literary education and the advocates of a scientific education. But if pupils should not be dismissed from our advanced schools without some knowledge of language, surely they ought not to be sent out ignorant of the laws of the physical world about them. Yet until lately, science had been entirely excluded from the great English schools and he quotes in support of this exclusion, the evidence of Dr. Moberly of Winchester before the British Schools Enquiry Commission, 1864, as follows: "In a school like this, I consider instruction in physical science, in the way in which
102 Development of the Ontario High School
we can give it, to be worthless. A scientific fact is a fact which
produces nothing in a boy's mind. It leads to nothing It does
not germinate It is a perfectly unfruitful fact. These things
give no power whatever." The important limitation here is
"in the way in which we can give it." Scientific instruction to be
of value must be given in a certain way. "To make pupils commit
physical facts to memory from a book or (more frightful still) to set
them to solve questions mechanically from formulae, the mode of
investigating which they do not know — is not merely useless in an
educational point of view; it is positively hurtful. Even supposing
the method pursued by a teacher to be not quite so irrational, yet
were he merely to announce physical laws, and to perform ar>
experiment or two, illustrative of these, his instructions, though I
should not call them worthless, would not have very high educa-
ftional value." A far different method is necessary. The two
advantages arising from scientific instruction are first, the habit
of intelligent observation; and second, familiarity with the inductive
I method of discovering truth. Science lessons must be "actual
> exercises in induction." The teacher must "make the pupil climb
/ to the law, through all the requisite steps, by the use of his own
I eyes and hands." The pupil is to be a philosopher at the starting
1 point of investigation, namely some fact that is. observed and
strikes the mind as strange. Having been made to observe, for
instance, the peculiar action of the barometer, wonder arises in the
pupil's mind and he is led to inquire the cause. "It would be a
grand mistake for the teacher to proceed to communicate to his
pupils the information they have been led to crave. They must
find out for themselves the truth of which they are in search.
fA single physical law which they discover, is, in an educational
I point of view, worth a thousand of which they are told. But in
what way can a child make discoveries? He must scrutinize
with the utmost care the phenomenon, of which the explanation is
sought. . . . He must notice, for instance, in the case of the
barometer that the fluid used is mercury; that it is in a glass tube
of a certain diameter; that one end of the tube is open and exposed
to the air while the other is closed, and so on."
"But suppose the circumstances of a phenomenon to have been fully and accurately observed. Do all of these constitute part of the cause of which we are in search? Take, for example, the diameter of the tube. The child can be made to see whether
Teaching of Natural Science and English 103
the effect varies when tubes of different diameters are employed, and can draw his own conclusion and so on. In brief let the pupils be told nothing, but let them be induced and guided to reason out the result for themselves. It is absurd to say that lessons in science, thus conducted, can be without power, or that they can fail to germinate. I can quite understand that cart-loads of so-called useful knowledge may be shovelled into a boy's mind without germinating." Such facts are not scientifically kqown, because they are not his own generalizations.
"To secure the essential benefits of scientific instruction, as these have been set forth, it is obviously not at all requisite that an extensive scientific curriculum be gone over. The grand educa- tional advantages of scientific instruction may be in comparative measure, secured by a system of brief lessons on very limited portions of the field of science, provided that the pupils be made to go through a process of strict philosophising within the range to which their efforts are directed." He thought that no attempt should be made to teach science on an extensive scale in the high schools and not even a general sketch of any particular science should be aimed at but the pupil should master, in the way indi- •cated, prominent points in a few of the sciences. "Thus in a brief space of time, the pupil might obtain, not a vague and un- certain glimpse, but a rigid knowledge, of limited portions of a variety of fields in the domain of science, and be prepared for prosecuting future researches in any of these fields to which the circumstances of his life or the bent of his genius might incline him."
In this luminous way Young presses the claims of science and, though it took twenty years or more to secure the recognition of these claims, or rather the general adoption of individual experi- mentation, the soundness of his position is triumphantly vindicated not only by the present day sciejice curriculum, but by laboratories fitted for individual work and apparatus covering the curriculum, in practically every high school, the Province over. He concludes his remarks on the grammar schools by recommending the estab- lishment, either by developing the common school system or modifying the grammar schools, of "High Schools in which the English language and literature and physical science should be taught on the plan described and in which other branches should receive the attention to which they are entitled." There are two
104 Development of the Ontario High School
difficulties suggested: First, the common schools do not prepare pupils properly for the high school work and, second, the Normal School does not adequately prepare teachers for taking charge of high schools.
He proceeds to investigate these difificulties, for his instructions required him to visit typical common schools. Those of Sarnia under Mr. Bremner represent what he calls the superior limit. The secret of the excellent work done here was that all the schools were graded. Pupils were promoted from the two ward schools to the lowest room in the central school and from that to the next higher room and so on. In the headmaster's room were thirty- seven pupils, many of whom were fourteen at least and in some union schools would long since have been herded into the grammar school section. Could it be, then, that so fundamental a principle of organization as that of graded classes was not common? One is amazed to learn that many schools in large towns were either not graded at all or very imperfectly so. The schools of Cobourg, Bowmanville and Belleville are mentioned as examples of un- graded schools. The causes of the low educational state of many of the common schools are :
1. Inadequate school accommodation, which prevents grading properly and accounts for over-crowded classes.
2. Defective methods of teaching. He mentions the neglect of the teacher to ascertain whether his scholars understand what they read and the serious error in teaching English grammar of requiring the pupil to memorize rote answers to questions, such as: What is grammar? What is syntax? He calls this frightful and monstrous and declares that teachers who do this should be indicted for cruelty to animals! However, there is nothing cruel about it. The easiest task you can set a young child is memorizing book definitions — and the stupidest.
3. Where union schools exist, the drafting of unprepared pupils from the common school to the grammar school. As to the Normal School, he had not had sufficient time to inspect the courses thor- oughly and merely suggests that a higher course in English would be necessary and of course, in physical science the teachers would have to be taught practically themselves, and the philosophic habit of mind developed.
Whatever effect these altogether admirable reports had on the country generally, it is evident that they stirred the Superintendent's
Teaching of Natural Science and English 105
mind profoundly. His 1867 report devotes an unprecedented amount of space to the grammar schools. He quotes Young's reports of two years in full besides giving his own views in extenso and suggestions of changes in the Grammar School law. In the course of a brief historical retrospect, he remarks on the continued coldness of the public towards these schools. They have still little or no hold upon the sympathies of the country, but with the Common Schools the case is different. Means are readily found to erect and furnish handsome buildings. Why this difference? "The reverse is the case in the neighbouring states. In cities, towns and villages there, English High Schools and Classical Schools are provided with more imposing accommodations and shown with even more pride in some instances than the Common Schools." He traces the cause of this back to the situation already described, the nature of the origin, and the inefficiency of the schools, the latter a result of the false start made when these schools were merely an appendage of a church and established for the convenience of a select few. At the time, it must be remem- bered, the struggle for equal rights and representative government was still a personal recollection of many, while the children at school were the children of the men who had taken sides in the strife. It was too much to expect that the public in general could so soon forget.
Next, the proposals of Young are considered. He suggested a new scheme for distributing the Fund, namely, a combination of the existing method and what was known as 'payment by results,' as ascertained by individual examinations of pupils. This Ryerson disapproves on the ground of expense. It would require three inspectors. It had been adopted in England and would be "the most equitable and thorough in perfectly classified subjects and schools." Our educational leaders were not the only ones who failed to foresee the baneful possibilities latent in the scheme. Young also proposed to abolish the study of Latin as a condition of any pupil attending the grammar school. This, Ryerson thinks, would reduce them to common English schools and he therefore disapproves of the suggestion, though he agrees with the inspector that it is an absurdity for girls to learn Latin and a waste of time for boys unless they do it thoroughly. His position is shown by two important suggestions of change in the grammar school law, neither of which was acted upon. First, he proposed that the
106 Development of the Ontario High School
common and grammar schools should be under the same elected board of trustees and second, that the grant should be apportioned to municipalities on the basis of population and upon the same conditions as the common school grant, "for the purposes of High Schools in which the elements of natural science shall be taught as well as the higher subjects of English, according to a prescribed curriculum and in which the classics shall be taught or not, as the local board of trustees may desire. This would make the school, in so far as it was a classical school, the creation of local authorities, and they would naturally support the institution which they controlled so fully. The idea that the state was in duty bound to provide local facilities for the preparation of matriculants and that the grammar school is the intermediate step between common school and university is lost sight of in this proposal. If the trustees of any municipality had the same bias against the classics and in favour of the sciences as Ryerson here appears to betray, they would be able to block the preparation of any boy for the university, or for almost any of the learned professions. The examples of school board consolidation, furnished by Boston and New York are given, in support of the first suggestion. Rivalries and jealousies were thus eliminated.
The concluding paragraph of the report must be quoted in full. It appears to be the Superintendent's ideal of a complete secondary school education, suited to the needs of this country. If so, it is strangely disappointing. The boy, so trained, might be a prodigy of information, but at the same time, be wholly uneducated. " I think," says Ryerson, "the tendency of the youthful mind of our country is too much in the direction of what are called the learned professions and too little in the direction of what are termed / industrial pursuits. There is certainly no need to stimulate any class of youth to classical studies with a view to the study of medicine, law, etc., but it appeaj^-tQ-me-vei y important, ntnv that the principles and general machinery of . our , school .system are settled, that the subjects and the teaching of the schools should be adapted to develop the resources and skilful industry of the country. And should options in any case be necessary, from lack of time or] means, the merely useful and ornamental should be made to yield/ to the essential and the practical. It may not be essential for every child to know all the natural and political divisions of all the continents of the globe, or what heroes fought or what kings ruled.
Teaching of Natural Science and English 107
or what peoples flourished and died at every period and in every part of the earth; but I think it is essential that every child should know how to read and speak his own language correctly, to count readily, and write well, to know the names and characteristics of the flowers and vegetables and trees with which he daily meets, the insects, birds and animals of his country, the nature of the soils on which he walks, and the chemical and mechanical principles which enter into the construction and working of the implements of husbandry, the machinery of mills, manufactures, railroads, and mines, the production and preparation of the clothes he wears, the food he eats, and the air he inhales, and the beverages he drinks, together with the organs of his body, the faculties of his mind, and the rules of his conduct. The mastery of these subjects for ordinary practical purposes is as much within the capacities of childhood and youth as any of the hundred things that children learn in the streets and by the fireside, and to know them would contribute vastly more to the pleasures of social life, and skilled and various industry, than the superficial tinsel of a Greek and Latin smattering, with homeopathic mixtures of imperfect English and guesses in geography and history."
One can sympathize with the spirit of this protest, this desire for the education that will fit a boy to be practical and to help develop the potential wealth of his country, without being blind to its pedagogical unsoundness. How much of this encyclopedic information could a normal boy attain, in the way Professor Young so admirably outlined? If he did not attain it in this way, it would not properly speaking, be educative at all. Mere information can be got on the streets, in the shop and factory and on the farm. Then, there is the newspaper and the encyclopedia. Except for what may be termed the facilities of intercourse, reading, writing and counting, we should not need to maintain schools at all, for all the information, described above with such rhetorical dash, could be better obtained elsewhere.
CHAPTER XL ACT OF 1871— THE HIGH SCHOOL.
1868-1873.
THE day of the grammar school as an exclusive classical seminary, for boys only, was past. We have seen how a world-wide recognition of the rights of women to higher training had in some countries led to the establishment of female secondary schools and in the United States generally as well as in this Province to the opening of the doors of the existing schools to girls. The curriculum was enriched in the departments of natural ^ science and English, and more attention was paid to French. Compulsory Latin was abolished. Girls were in the first instance not compelled to take Latin, but if they were to count as pupils, in the apportioning of the grant, they had to take the subject. This led to what Inspector Mackenzie in his 1869 report called the "new born rage for Latin". Pressure was of course, brought upon girl pupils both by masters and trustees and "large numbers of girls were promptly herded into Arnold or the Introductory Book. The phrase, "qualifying Latin " is well understood at present in the schools, and, I need hardly say, is not taken to mean qualifying for higher stages of classical study." In 1868, three-fourteenths of the entrants were girls, while in 1869 there were three-sevenths. Of 1,472 girls on the roll, 850 were in Latin. Of this 850, 733 were in Arnold or the Introductory, "How much longer," he asks, "are we to endure a system which specially rewards some of our poorer schools with the increased grant of money, in proportion to the relentless energy with which the unhappy girl-conscripts are y pressed into the Introductory Book?"
A cure for these intolerable conditions was sought. A Bill was framed in 1868 with the purpose of effecting a thorough reform. Among the bodies that discussed provisions of the Bill were the Ontario Teachers' Association and the Grammar School Masters' Association. The former objected to the statement of the purpose of High Schools in the Bill which read: "Provision shall be made for teaching the higher branches of an English Education and the Greek and Latin languages." The Association desired it to read:
Act of 1871— The High School 109
"of an English and Commercial Education and Modern languages and Greek and Latin." Another suggestion had to do with the entrance examination. Section 6 placed the examination solely in the hands of the county superintendent. The Association proposed "That the Examination for the admission of pupils into the High Schools, be conducted by a Board, consisting of the County Superintendent, the Chairman of the School Board and the Headmaster of the High School." They suggested also, that three teachers and sixty male pupils in Latin or Greek be the minimum for collegiate institutes. Dr. Hodgins states that the chief Super- intendent had taken Gait Grammar School as the standard of the collegiate institute This school in the report of 1868 had 149 pupils of whom 85.5 were in Latin and 56 in Greek and the pupils were all boys. There was a staff of nine masters, but as there was a preparatory department, some of these could not be reckoned as grammar school masters. Ryerson had accordingly put the minimum for the new grade of school at four masters and seventy male pupils in the classics. Among the committee of the associa- tion in charge of the matter were Dr. S. S. Nelles, President of Victoria University; Archibald McMurchy, Principal of Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute; John Seath, afterwards inspector and Superintendent of Education; and Samuel McAlister.
The Grammar School Masters' Association after discussing the Bill appointed a committee to report upon it. The opinion was expressed that the new collegiate institutes were to be similar to the Prussian gymnasia, with the classics as the basis of instruc- tion. This being so, the high school should be modeled upon the Prussian realschulen in which mathematics would be the basis and the instruction of a more practical character. Again as to the basis of apportionment of the grant it was held that the principle of average attendance was the source of evil and a more equitable plan would be to let the Legislative grant be proportioned to the amount contributed by the board of trustees. The committee reported against placing the entrance examination in the hands of the county superintendent. They like the system in force at the time. If the inspector found the duty of examining too onerous, it was because there should be two inspectors, working full time, instead of one. They held that such time was lost in the schools because of conflicting programmes of study. The subjects of all other public examinations should coincide with the subjects
110 Development of the Ontario High School
prescribed for Junior Matriculation in the University of Toronto, or be drawn exclusively from among those subjects. The scheme proposed the conversion of the grammar schools into high schools, based upon the substitution of physical science and the higher English for classics. As a necessary complement to the scheme and in order to prevent the study of the classics, henceforth optional, from falling into neglect, the establishment of collegiate institutes is provided for. Care should be taken that these new institutions are adequately provided for by special grant. As to the financial aspect of the Bill, there were no new sources of revenue provided. Union boards had already all the means which the Bill professedly supplied. Grammar schools, consequently not already united with common Schools would be forced into union. County councils should bear more of the burden. Grammar school masters were unanimous in the opinion that the County Councils should contribute a sum to each school in their respective counties, at least equal to half the grant.
Three years later after mature deliberation the important law of 1871 was passed. It was designed to improve both elementary and secondary education. So far a& the former was concerned, the common schools were made free by the abolition of rate bills upon parents. Between 1850 and 1871 trustee boards had been permitted, but not compelled, to assess for the support of common schools. Attendance was made compulsory. The chief provisions relating to the grammar schools were as follows: (1) The desig- nation of the grammar schools was changed. They were to be known in future as high schools, in which provision was made for teaching to both male and female pupils the higher branches of an English and commercial education, including the natural sciences with special reference to agriculture and also the Latin, Greek, French, and German languages to those whose parents may desire it, according to a programme of studies prescribed from time to time by the Council of Public Instruction. Power was given the Council of Public Instruction to exempt any high school from the obligation to teach the Moderns in case there was a lack of funds to provide the necessary qualified teacher. (2) Classical training was to be saved from extinction by the conversion of some of the grammar schools into collegiate institutes. These institutions were intended to be superior classical schools or local colleges. They were to have four masters and at least sixty male pupils
Act of 1871— The High School 111
studying the classics. An additional grant of not less than $750 per annum was to be made to these schools. If the average of classical pupils should fall below sixty in any year, or the number of masters below four, the additional grant would cease for the year. If this condition should persist for two years, the school must forfeit its title. Professor Young as President of the Ontario Teachers' Association criticized the instability that must neces- sarily attach to these schools. He did not think it desirable that institutions intended to be great centres, should be established under such conditions of uncertainty. Nor was it wise to develop collegiate, institutes out of high schools, wherever these might happen to be. They should rather be located in the larger cities, and should be more liberally provided for than the new law contem- plated. (3) The financial provisions of the law were important. The Act of 1865 allowed the equivalent of half the grant to be raised locally in any way. The new Act provided that it should be raised V by assessment. Where the city or town was withdrawn from the jursidiction of the county, this equivalent half and any additional sum required either for accommodations or maintenance must be provided by the municipal council of city or town, on application of the high school Board. Where the city or town was under county jurisdiction, the equivalent half was to be provided by the county council, and any additional sum required by the city or town concerned. (4) The apportionment of the grant was to be made on a new principle known as ' Payment by Results ' though not on this principle exclusively. Three things were to be con- sidered : (a) average attendance, which was the only thing regarded heretofore; (6) proficiency in the various branches of study; (c) length of time each high school was kept open as compared with other high schools. (5) The entrance examination was placed in the hands of a board, consisting of the county, city or town inspector, the chairman of the high school board, and the head- master of the high school. Briefly then, the Act of 1871 turned the grammar schools into high schools with assessment to support, and instituted payment by results and a local entrance board.
The Council of Public Instruction proceeded without delay to frame regulations and a new programme of study based on the new law. The regulations relating to the entrance examination possess a special interest in that they were new, and besides were the ground of a surprising action on the part of the Cabinet.
112 Development of the Ontario High School
The high school inspectors were charged with the duty of preparing uniform papers for the Province. These were to be printed and sent in sealed envelopes to the county inspectors. All the answers were to be in writing and were to be valued according to the scheme of marks printed on the margin of the question papers. The clause relating to copying and its penalties was so happily worded as to remain practically unchanged up to the present time. The sub- jects were the same as for the first four classes of the common, henceforth known as public, schools, except that for pupils intended for the classical course, the entrance test in arithmetic was to be that of the third class in the public school (see p. 37 as to the same distinction in Phillips Exeter Academy) and they might omit from the subjects of the fourth class Christian morals, animal kingdom, and the elements of chemistry and botany. These were some of the recent enrichments of the public school course. The percentage required for passing on the whole examination was seventy-five, and on passing a pupil might elect to stay on in the public school until he finished the course after which he could enter an advanced class in the high school. This left room for a certain overlapping of the courses of high and public schools and afforded an incentive to pupils not intended for the high school to continue in the public school for one or two years.*
It had been the practice since 1865 for the headmaster to admit pupils only provisionally. They were finally admitted or rejected by the inspector on his official visit. In the regulations we are discussing, it was proposed to continue this supervision by requiring the inspector to review the answer papers sufficiently to determine whether the regulations had been faithfully observed. No sooner had these regulations been sent out than the Superin- tendent was amazed to read in the public press an Order-in-Council dated September 26, 1872, disallowing the reference of the answer papers to the inspectors. The committee of the Executive Council
*Provision was made for two classes in advance of the fourth. The fifth class had in arithmetic "proportion, percentage, and stocks and the theory of said rules"; political geography, products, etc., of the principal countries; elements of civil government; human physiology and the use of the mechanical powers. In the sixth class involution and evolution and compound interest constituted the arithmetic. Besides, this class had physical geography, use of the globes, and the elements of ancient and modern history. Except in the largest cities this 'continuation' principle, excellent as it is, has succumbed to the demands of economy.
Act of 1871— The High School 113
held that the report of the board of examiners was conclusive and could not legally be subjected to the supervision of the high school inspectors. The regulations as a whole and all action thereunder were accordingly suspended. So that the examination for 1872 was thus swept away, although the papers were already printed and all arrangements made. The Council of Public Instruction and the venerable Superintendent felt that they had been held up to ridicule. The Globe newspaper had for years been actively opposed to Ryerson and the Council and had attacked them in season and out. Hence a greater sensitiveness to a blow like this. Two other circumstances added to the affront. The Government com- municated its decision directly to the boards of trustees and not as usual through the Education office and in addition refused permission to the Council to publish their defence or to appeal as to the legality of the main point, the President of the Executive having said that it was solely on the ground of the illegality of introducing inspectors as examiners. How are we to account for this extraordinary attitude of the Government? The necessity of a check upon local control of admissions to the secondary schools had been sufificiently demonstrated and the regulation in question was framed in the best interests of the high schools. The answer is doubtless found in the growing antipathy to the Council of Public Instruction appointed as its members were for life, on the recommendation of the Superintendent, and therefore not respon- sible to parliament. Indeed the superin tendency itself was becom- ing an anomaly and no one was more convinced than Ryerson that the head of the Education Department should be in the Cabinet. The local friction too, occasioned in the past by the inspector's rejection of pupils already admitted into the high schools made itself felt in the Assemb y. However we may explain the situation, the attitude of the Government strongly suggested a feeling that somebody's wings needed to be clipped. Ontario's debt to Ryerson and the Council of Public Instruction, most of whom had given many years of gratuitous service to the cause of education, seemed to be quite forgotten in the conflict of the moment. Indeed, earlier in the year the Government had shown a critical spirit towards the Department in requesting the Council of Public Instruction to show on what legal authority they prescribed or recommended (as the case may be) school text-books. This the Council did at considerable length and apparently with success.
114 Development of the Ontario High School.
Statutory authority was demanded also for the regulation requiring that schoolhouses be of certain dimensions.
The next official report on the condition of the high schools vindicated the position taken by the superintendent and council. The removal of the check from above evidently led to greater laxity than ever on the part of many headmasters and when the so-called 'iron barriers' were let down, all others came down with them. Examples such as the following were numerous.* In a school of fifty, only seven could find the difference between two mixed numbers, or the cost of 5,250 lbs. of coal at $7.50 per ton of 2,000 lbs. Other cases were: five out of forty, seven out of seventy, etc., respectively, who could perform these operations. In grammar, the parsing was equally bad. An extreme case was that of a school in the western part of the Province, which had been languishing with twenty pupils. It was now found to have two hundred. In another case a union school incorporated with the high schoot several public school divisions, admitting over two hundred en masse, without adding to, or changing its staff. In six months two thousand pupils were admitted throughout the Province. The situation became so desperate that Ryerson in February, 1873, made a personal appeal to the Hon. Oliver Mowat and a revision of the regulations was agreed upon and approved by an Order-in- Council, in June. The papers prepared by the Council of Public Instruction were recommendatory and only local boards of exam- iners were given the option of using them or preparing and printing their own. The answer papers, after the local board had examined them, were to be sent to the Education Department and the high school inspectors were to revise the results. Thus the Government conceded the point originally in dispute. The first uniform examination under these regulations took place in October of the same year and in order to rectify as far as possible the recent laxity in admissions, it was provided that all who had entered the high schools since August 1872 should submit to this examination to determine their fitness to remain in the schools.f
Another section of the regulations was objected to by the Cabinet.^ Th s was the requirement that there should be at least two teachers in every high school. The Brant county
*See "Superintendent's Report, 1872", p. 8. tSee "Journal of Education", 1873, pp. 99-107. JSee D. H. E., Vol. XXIV, p. 177.
Act of 1871— The High School 115
council memorialized the Lieutenant-Governor stating that the trustees of Mount Pleasant and Scotland high schools had made representations to them that the attendance in these schools being from twenty-five to thirty pupils the employment of an additional teacher would be a great added expense without any advantage. The rule was deemed oppressive and the trustees were desirous of being relieved. The Attorney-General considered that a high school board may be able to establish that one teacher can, in respect to a particular school, teach everything as required by law. Ryerson in his defence said that he had strained a point in August 1872 in suggesting that the Scotland board might employ a female assistant and the first intimation he had had of dis- satisfaction was through the newspaper. The inspector had pointed out the absolute necessity of employing two teachers in a school like Scotland which had three Latin, three Greek, and four French classes besides all the classes in mathematics and English. Of the 104 schools in operation in 1872, only 15 were one-mastered. There were in all, 239 masters. In order of size of staff the largest schools ranged as follows: Gait 11 masters, Toronto 8, London 6, Ottawa 5.
The new programme of studies inserted at the end of this chapter will be seen to embody some of Young's suggestions as to teaching the natural sciences and English. In comparing the outline of work with that of the 1865 programme, we must note that while the latter gave a fifth or honour matriculation class the 1871 programme gives no outline for the honours class. It will be seen that the natural and physical science and mathematics are much extended and the new fourth form reaches a standard equivalent in mathematics to the old fifth class and much higher in the sciences. There is a slight recognition of sex in the pro- gramme. Girls are not expected to wrestle with Euclid but may take in lieu "Easy Lessons in Reasoning." Two distinct courses offer pupils a choice. They must take one or the other. Pupils are no longer to be allowed to pick and choose among the subjects according to whim. The direction as to promotion presents difficulties. They were to be advanced from one class to another "with reference to attainments, without regard to time." So that if a pupil by reason of superior talent was able to complete a year's work in a subject in six months, he would be promoted to a higher class. But here he would find that his fellow pupils were
116
Development of the Ontario High School
six months in advance of him. He would then be a special class in himself. If there were more than a very few pupils like this, class organization would have to give place to individual teaching. In appearance, this programme is most imposing. The im- posing often turns out to be an imposition, and such must this programme have seemed to headmasters who conscientiously tried to put it into practice. The inspectors soon found that it was not being observed. How could it have been otherwise when most of the schools were only two-teachered? With a staff of five or six and with some adjustments and dovetailing, it might be reasonably worked. The mistake was not to have devised a two- mastered programme, which could be worked in its entirety.
PROGRAMME OF 1871." I. — English Course.
|
Subject. |
First Form. |
Second Form. |
|
English Grammar and Literature. |
English Grammar, includ- ing Etymology. Advanced or Sixth Reader and Collier's History of English Literature. |
Collier's History of English Literature. English Grammar, includ- ing Etymology. |
|
Composition. |
Practice in writing familiar and business letters. |
Practice in composition. |
|
Reading, Dictation, Elocution. |
Practice in reading and writing to dictation from first four reading books. |
Practice in writing to dictation. |
|
Penmanship. |
Practice in penmanship. |
Practice in penmanship. |
|
Linear Drawing. |
Free-hand and map draw- ing. Outlines of plain and solid figures. |
For boys, mathematical drawing; and for girls shading and landscape. |
|
Book-keeping, etc. |
Single and double entry. |
Single and double entry, commercial forms and usages. |
|
Arithmetic. |
Practice, Proportion, In- terest, simple and com- pound. |
Discount, Stocks, Ex- change, Involution and Evolution, Scales of Not- ation. |
* Journal of Ed. 1873, pp. 108, 109.
Act of 1871 — The High School. I. — English Course.
117
|
Subject. |
First Form.- |
Second Form. |
|
Algebra. |
Definition and first seven- teen exercises of author- ized text-book. |
To end of quadratic equa- tions. |
|
Geometry. |
Euclid, Book I. |
Book II and III. |
|
Mensuration. |
Definition, Mensuration of surfaces. |
Definition, Mensuration of surfaces and solids. |
|
History. |
Outlines of English and Canadian History. |
Elements of Ancient and Modern History. Eng- lish and Canadian His- tory continued. |
|
Geography and Astronomy. |
Political geography, pro- ducts, etc., of principal countries of the world. Modern (Mathematical, Physical and Political). |
Physical geography of the continents generally. Ancient geography. |
|
Natural Philosophy. |
Nature and use of the mechanical powers. |
Composition and Resolu- tion of Forces; Centre of Gravity ; Moments of Force; Principle of Vir- tual Velocitiesand Hydro- statics (Tomlinson). |
|
Chemistry and Agri- culture. |
Ryerson's Agriculture, Part I. |
Text-book (Ryerson) com- pleted. |
|
Natural History. |
"How Plants Grow" (Gray). |
Animal Kingdom. |
|
Physiology. Christian Morals. |
Christian Morals. |
Human Physiology (Cutter's). |
|
Subject. |
Third Form. |
Fourth Form. |
|
English Grammar and Literature. |
English Classics (critically and analytically read). Selection No. 1. |
English Classics (critically and analytically read). Selection No. 2. |
118 Develqpment of the Ontario High School.
I. — ^English Course.
|
Subject. |
Third Form. |
Fourth Form. |
|
Composition. |
Practice in Composition. |
Practice in Composition, |
|
Reading, Dictation and Elocution. |
Same as Form H with elo- cution. |
Elocution. |
|
Linear Drawing, Book-keeping. |
Drawing of animals, human form, mathematical pro- jection, shading and col- ouring. Banking, Custom House, General Business Tran- sactions. |
Subject of Form III with Telegraphy. |
|
Arithmetic. |
General |
Review. |
|
Algebra. |
Authorized text-book to end of Section XIV. |
To end of authorized text- book. |
|
Geometry. |
Book IV with principles of Book V. |
Book VI with review of whole subject* |
|
Logic. |
Easy Lessons in Reasoning, Part I to p. 7L |
Easy Lessons in Reasoning, completed. |
|
Trigonometry. |
Plane Trigonometry, to sol- ution of triangles. |
Application of Plane Trig- onometry. |
|
History. |
Outlines of History of Greece and Rome. |
Outlines of Modern His- tory. |
|
Geography and • Astronomy. |
General Review of Subject. Use of Terrestrial globes. |
Outlines of Astronomy — Celestial globe. |
|
Natural Philosophy. |
Pneumatics and Dynamics. |
Elements of Electricity and Magnetism. |
|
Chemistry and 'q Agriculture. |
Elements of Chemistry. |
Elements of Chemistry. |
|
Natural History. |
General Review. |
|
|
Elements of Civil Government. |
" Elements of Civil Government." |
Act of 1871 — ^The High School 119
Classical Course.
Girls not in Geometry will take in Form I, Easy Lessons in Reasoning, Part I. Girls not in Geometry will take in Form II, Easy Lessons in Reasoning, Part 11.
The subjects of Electricity and Magnetism may be taken up earlier in the course, at the discretion of the head master.
In lieu of Reading and Dictation, Book-keeping, Logic, Mensuration, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and Agriculture, and Physiology, were Latin, Greek, French and German.
CHAPTER XII. PAYMENT BY RESULTS. 1873-1875.
THE principle of basing Government grants to schools upon the proficiency of the pupils was borrowed from England where it had been introduced to apply to elementary schools in 1862. In justification of his adoption of the scheme, Ryerson quotes from the Report of the Board of Education, of Victoria, Australia. "The system of payment by results now in use appears to be working well and to give general satisfaction. The fact that at each examination each school's force is recorded as having gained a certain percentage of a possible maximum affords a means of comparison between different schools which, if not conclusive as to their relative merits, is sufficiently so to cause considerable emulation amongst teachers. Indeed, the wish to obtain a high percentage materially increases the stimulus". The principle seemed business-like and equitable and if high percentages upon written examinations were a safe index of sound education it might have become a permanent basis of grant distribution. The vicious tendency involved in the stress upon examinations. was not foreseen and conditions seemed to demand radical measures.
Though laws and regulations had been numerous enough and most schools had at least two masters, the headmaster holding a degree, and though a reform in the curriculum had made available an English and commercial course for those who were not inclined towards the classical course; though English and science subjects had given the instruction a more practical bent, and lastly a uniform entrance examination had been inaugurated, there was still grave weakness in the schools. The results which might be expected from all the salutary reforms were not forthcoming.
Let us first look at the conditions in the schools between 1872 and 1875, since it was during the latter year that the system of "Payment by Results" was first adopted, and then investigate the manner in which the system was applied. The law of 1865 had made a university degree a requirement for all headmasters appointed subsequent to that date, but it was found that this was
Payment by Result. 121
no guarantee that a man had training along the lines most neces- sarj'^ for the position and further it was not a certificate of aptitude to teach. No experience was demanded and "many innocents fresh from college halls'" were in charge of High Schools, "few of whom would have been able to take a first-class A certificate." Ryerson suggested that every headmaster should be required to hold this certificate or to have a year's teaching experience as an assistant. A great many of the schools, he thought, would be better ofiF, if they had been under provincial first-class teachers. The schools were feeling the effect of the fatal mistake made in 1863 when the Model Grammar School was closed to save expense. Money and the mere externals do not make the school. Fine buildings and fine equipment are not indispensable, but well-trained men are. The new law had made the schools comparatively rich. The grant of $57,000 had been increased to $70,000 and the County Councils were required to furnish by assessment $35,000 more, making a total of $105 000, an average of $1,000 for each school. Compared with their position in 1865, the schools were financially well off. There had also been a great improvement in buildings.
But besides the old weakness at the desk, there was the old weakness at the door. When we consider that of the one hundred and six schools open in 1873, sixty-six were united with the public school, and that a pupil drew for the board of trustees an annual Government grant of $20 if he were in the high school department, but only 40c. if in the public school department or adding the necessary local supplement to these sums $30 in the one case and 80c, in the other, we can at once see that no barriers, 'iron' or otherwise would prevent unqualified 80c. pupils from becoming $30 ones. Even a uniform entrance examination with results revised by high school inspectors could not withstand a pressure, that was both insistent and incessant and with just enough specious righteousness about it to deceive the man in the street, ignorant of the educational process. Inspector James A. McLellan, who left the Mathematical Mastership of Upper Cfinada College in 1871 to become high school inspector, in his first able and comprehensive report condemned unions as detrimental to both the elementary and the secondary departments and with not a single redeeming feature. Let us remember that tvvo-thirds of the schools were of this class. We shall then appreciate the importance of his trenchant arraignment. "The great object of the public school is, not only
122 Development of the Ontario High School.
to place within the reach of all a course of education sufficiently- extensive and thorough for all the ordinary pursuits of life, but to create a national intelligence which shall be effective in national progress. Hence the public school has a complete and well- defined end in view — a noble object of its own to accomplish. Those who look upon it as an insignificant beginner of an imperfect work fail to comprehend its true character and object. It is not a mere feeder to the high school^ The high school is important but the public school is absolutely essential. "It would be better that every high school throughout the country existing in con- nection with a union school should be forthwith closed than that the present generally low type of instruct on should continue to prevail in the public school departments." The first of the specific effects of union upon the lower school is the premature drafting of the best pupils into the high school. The words "best pupils" may, perhaps, convey an jerroneous idea; the term is used only relatively; it is not intended to mean that the drafted pupils are really well prepared — the public school is not permitted to turn out well prepared pupils', that is not its mission; it exists only for the high school ; it is but the vestibule, where the pupils linger for a moment on their passage to the true temple of science." The teachers are not allowed to carry their pupils well through half the prescribed course before they must send them up. So when they swarm in they have the merest smattering of the elementary subjects. Becoming a mere appendage of the high school, the public school lacks all vigour and life.
It cannot be admitted that the earlier defects can be overcome in the high school. "Owing to the laxity of entrance examina- tions, pupils have been permitted to enter the high school who were unable to get through the multiplication table or parse from an English author. Will any man say that a high school can possibly supply the defects of such a public school education?" It could not, if it did its own proper work. While the public school is well manned, where independent, in the case of union the idea is that good teachers are not needed, for the Principal is almost invariably a university graduate. "And a university degree seems to be popularly considered a guarantee of sound scholarship and of a genius for school management." The qualifications of the lower teachers is on this account a matter of little importance. But, unfortunately, the nominal manager is often a "mere stripling,
Payment by Result 123
possessing, it may be, certificates of hard-won honours from his alma mater but utterly without experience in teaching, government, organization — ^without: any professional knowledge whatever."
The high school suffers just as much as does the public school. For it tends to lose its independent life and to be regarded as a division of the public school. Then it fails to perform its special function and no longer gives thorough instruction in all the higher branches of a good English, classical, and commercial education. But the main reason for the utter degradation of the higher work is the one already dealt with, namely the admission of the un- qualified entrants, with whom it is impossible to go on with in- struction in the 'higher branches' as they have no certain hold of the lower branches.
In the issue of the ''Journal of Education" of February 1875, appeared an article under the title "Anomalous Condition of High Schools", an article for which, of course, Ryerson was responsible. It certainly does not give a roseate view of conditions. A large number of the schools were in an unsatisfactory condition. Efforts to obtain larger grants without any corresponding improvement in efficiency had been redoubled. It was time an effectual check shquld be put upon the gradual deterioration of the schools. "With the exception of about a dozen creditable high schools and colle- giate institutes, a large number of the rest take no higher rank than that of inferior public schools." The effect of the standard adopted for admission to the high schools was to deplete the public school of its fourth and fifth classes and rush them wholesale into the high schools, so as to increase the high school grant. Many of the school boards sought to carry on their schools with a single master, or with a master and monitor. In extenuation high school boards pleaded poverty and the unwillingness of county councils to make adequate provision, reducing their contribution to the legal minimum
This account, while it doubtless indicates the tendency faith- fully, is not altogether in accordance with the official reports. In the report of the department for the year in question occurs the sentence, "The number of masters engaged was 248, nearly all the schools having now additional masters, a great improvement on the old system, when a great majority of the schools were content with the services of but one master. There were in point of fact, only twenty-five schools out of 108 with but one master,
124 Development of the Ontario High School.
while nineteen had three or more. The standard of entrance was precisely the one for which Ryerson was responsible and four examinations had been held under the Regulations.
The question of the legality of preparatory classes in high schools arose soon after the new law went into operation. Such classes were plainly contrary to the Section 12 which directed that provision should be made in the high schools for giving instruction in the higher branches of a practical English and commercial education, as was pointed out in the departmental circular to boards of trustees, dated August 13, 1871. These words the circular declares, show that it was clearly intended that the lower or elementary branches of an English education should not be taught in the high but in the public schools. This was felt to be a hardship in one school in particular which had been developed under an able headmaster along the lines of Upper Canada College. This was the Gait Collegiate Institute, as it is now ranked. The headmaster, Dr. Tassie, in a letter to the department said that the attendance then was 160, all boys and men, with four masters and three assistants, apart from the special masters for drawing, music and gymnastics with drill and fencing. About 120 of the atten- dance were sons of the wealthy, educated classes, not from Ontario merely, but also from Quebec and the Southern States. Altogether different rules and regulations were required for this school than for the average high school. The needs were the same as those of Upper Canada, Helmuth and Lennoxville. "The chief exemption we would ask, as essential to the existence of the school, is to have the privilege of taking in pupils of the same age and state of ad- vancement that the foregoing schools do."
Ryerson in reply said that the only material difference in the programme for collegiate institutes and for high schools could be its extension so as to include honour subjects for matriculation into the university. "But I think your wishes may be met by authorizing a preparatory class or department in connection with collegiate institutes, but for the pupils in which, an apportionment from the high school fund cannot be made." However, no such authorization is recorded in the Regulations and Ryerson was very emphatic in his claim that the public schools were competent to do all the preparatory work. He called it "poaching upon the grounds of the "Common Schools" for the secondary schools to do this work for in this way they become "the unjust and unlawful
Payment by Result 125
rivals of the Public Schools." In the February 1873, Journal of Education in reference to a strong petition from the Ottawa Public School Board, Ryerson said "The Education Department has in- variably resisted the establishment of preparatory classes in High Schools; and under no circumstances has it consented to allow any of the time of the masters or teachers of a High School to be taken from their regular classes, and given to the teaching of an author- ized private or preparatory class in the school."
The name and privileges of collegiate institutes (Local Col- leges) were conferred according to the subjoined table in January, 1872.*
Aterage attendance of boys School. Masters. in Classics.
1. Gait 12 120
2. Hamilton 4 74
3. Peterborough 4 73
4. Cobourg 4 65
5. Kingston 4 63
6. St. Catharines 4 62
The Superintendent was quick to see new light in this, as in other departures and in his pamphlet of February 1873 he is already dissatisfied with his new local colleges. "Collegiate Institutes now are only High Schools with larger attendance of pupils than in ordinary schools. If continued, there ought to be regulations as to number and qualifications of masters. Imagine a certain Collegiate Institute with only four masters doing High School (or College) work for 188 pupils. Many places which have ' popu- lous' union schools are ambitious to become institutes."
Meanwhile, how was it going with the new programme and particularly with the new subjects? The answers given by the masters to the official question, Is the programme of studies observed in your school ? Were either (a) we try to, or (6) we don't pretend to, or (c) as far as practicable. The programme is thus shown to have been largely inoperative. That the official prescription of studies should have been met with open defiance or evasion was an intolerable situation. But the causes were obvious. The staffs were inadequate. The reluctance of pupils to take all the subjects of the prescribed courses had to be met, for it had been too long the custom of pupils to take just what subjects they liked.
See Journal of Education, Jan. 1872.
126 Development of the Ontario High School.
The inspectors found, also, that the "multiplicity of studies in the lower forms was leading to a mechanical and unintelligent style of teaching and learning." Also the transition from the third and fourth classes of the public school course to the First Form of high school was too abrupt, since it leapt over the fifth book class.
It is true that the law authorized the Department to pay the grant only to schools conducted in accordance with the regulations and prescribed programme, so that there was a ready remedy in the hands of the education office. However, what is an available remedy in the case of occasional deflection cannot be applied where it is practically universal, so that we hear of no school losing its Government grant through failure in this particular.
The high schools were reported as having made only a respect- able beginning in natural philosophy in 1872 and very little progress in natural science. The warning was given that the latter could not be taught like Latin grammar from books. Many clung to this futile method. In natural history the mistake was often made of beginning with classification instead of concluding with it. The next year the inspectors regretted to report that the teaching of science was not making progress. Among the reasons given are lack of apparatus, lack of qualified teachers, and the impracticable programme laid down. Whitby is singled out as worthy of imita- tion in having fitted up a separate room for science. Public indifference and the indifference of masters prevented many places from procuring apparatus. The programme of studies called for too great a quantity of work and there was a defect in method. The introductory course in chemistry should consist not of a certain number of pages in a text-book, but of a series of experiments illustrating its leading principles. By 1875 the inspectors were urging that chemistry should be made a matriculation subject by the university. Both chemistry and physics had formerly had a place in the matriculation programme, but it was found necessary to omit them, because no candidates came up who knew anything about them. Their omission put a damper upon the study. St. Catharines is mentioned as having taken the lead in chemistry, the pupils doing a large amount of qualitative analysis.
In the teaching of English literature nothing had been accom- plished. The assistants were in the majority of the schools, men holding only second class certificates and to these the teaching of English was usually relegated. The subject was scarcely likely to
Payment by Result 127
receive the liberal treatment necessary to inspire the pupils with a love for literature. There are many subjects easier to teach, and making smaller demands upon the instructor, than English. The object, therefore, of the prescription of a study of English classics was not being realized
The problem then before the educational authorities was how to waken up the schools and the public to the necessity of making progress. The public must be induced to provide the means for additional teachers and apparatus, and teachers to recognize the urgency of conforming to the official programme of studies and pupils the necessity of uniformly taking one or the other complete course provided. The easiest means at hand appeared to be "Payment by Results". It was argued that if every school and teacher were made to compete in definite written tests of their work and the grant apportioned accordingly, there would at once be an awakening of every member of the school partnership. From the time this scheme was first suggested much discussion and thought had been given to determine the best method of working it out and a preliminary classification of schools had been made by the inspectors in 1871. In Class I they placed Gait, Hamilton, Kings- ton and Ottawa — 4. In Class II, Barrie, Brampton, Clinton, Cobourg, Colborne, Dundas, Gananoque, Napanee, Oshawa, Paris, Perth, Peterborough, Port Hope, St. Catharines, St. Marys, Stratford, Toronto, Welland and Whitby — 19. In Class III there were thirty-five schools, and in Class IV forty-five.
Several schemes were at this time suggested by the inspectors for determining the apportionment to each school, some of them involving a considerable amount of calculation, and by way of example a table was worked out showing what each school would be entitled to, if the rate per unit of average attendance were $10.50 for Class I, $9.50 for Class II, $7.70 for Class III and $5.00 for Class IV for the preceding half year. The grant was actually paid at the uniform rate of $9 per unit and besides each school re- ceived a lump grant of $400. It was felt that more than one annual inspection would be required to arrive at a proper classi- fication of the schools so that it was not expected that the scheme could be put into practice in 1872, but this was the intention for 1873. However, some unstated insurmountable difficulties arose and it was not until April 1875 that the inspectors laid before the Council of Public Instruction, their matured plan. They had
128 Development of the Ontario High School
done this at the invitation of the Council and their proposals were adopted practically in their entirety. "We propose", the Report reads, "that the Legislative grant for High Schools be distributed as follows:
1. A part in the payment of a fixed allowance to each school, as at present, in order that the smaller schools may be assured of a certain degree of stability.
2. A part on the basis of average attendance: that each school receive per unit of average attendance, a sum equal to what is paid per unit of average attendance to the Public Schools.
3. A part on the results of inspection — that a sum (say) of ten thousand dollars be distributed among the schools according to their efficiency as determined by the Report of the High School inspectors.
4. A part on the results of a uniform written examination in the subjects of the Second Form.
There is already a primary or entrance examination; the one now proposed assumes that pupils have completed half the High School curriculum; it may, accordingly be conveniently termed the Intermediate examination." They had recommended that some few schools, which were never likely to do high school work be closed. The scheme would not jeopardize the existence of any remaining school. To this end the fixed allowance of $400 should be maintained. The grant per unit in 1875 to public schools was one dollar and to high schools sixteen dollars The consequence of such a disparity has already been fully shown. It was now proposed to make them equal, so that there would no longer be any pecuniary pressure bearing upon admissions to the high schools. The evil had been on the increase, especially where one would not expect it, in the larger cities.
As to the part to be paid on the results of inspection, it is pointed out that this feature is the necessary supplement of the new Intermediate examination, counterbalancing the "tendency to mere cramming, which is fostered to a greater or less degree by written examination." Inspection would regard the following points: {(t) School accommodation, premises, appliances and apparatus; (6) Ratio of masters to pupils, qualifications, character of teaching, (c) Character of the work done below the Inter- mediate, {d)' Quantity and quality of work done beyond the Intermediate, {e) Government, discipline, general morale.
Payment by Result 129
The new examination was designed to be equal in point of difficulty to the Second Class Teachers' Examination. Pupils who passed it would form the Upper School and those below this standard, the Lower School. The subjects were: English gram- mar, and Etymology, reading, dictation, composition, writing, arithmetic, Euclid, algebra, English and Canadian history and one of (o) Latin, (6) French, (c) German, (d) chemistry, botany, and drawing, (e) natural philosophy, physiology and bookkeeping. The examination was to come in June and December and papers in group (d) were to be set in June and in (e) in December so that schools would not have to carry these subjects concurrently.
The following important re-arrangement of the programme was adopted on the suggestion of the inspectors. Instead of a fixed amount of work for each form, the subjects of study and the amount in each to be done in the Upper and Lower Schools were laid down. It was left to the local authorities to decide the order in which the work should be taken and the number of classes to be carried on at one time. The. formal distinction between the classical and the English courses, the inspector found, could not be maintained in practice nor could a sharp division into four forms be effected. There were too many subjects and too many concurrent classes. Thus the pretentious and unworkable programme of 1871 fell to the ground just as its pretentious and unworkable predecessors of 1841, 1855 and 1865 had done. Appar- ently the Council of Public Instruction lacked the advice of really practical men, familiar with the inside of the schools and capable of judging the possibilities.
Lower School.
Group A. — English Language — Review of Elementary Work; Orthography, Etymology and Syntax; Derivation of Words; Analysis of Sentences; Rendering of Poetry into Prose; Critical Reading of (for 1876) Gray's "Elegy" and Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake"; the Framing of Sentences; Familiar and Business Letters; Abstracts of Readings or Lectures; Themes: generally the Formation of a good English Style; Reading, Dictation and Elocution, including the learning by heart and recitation of selected passages from standard authors.
130 Development of the Ontario High School
Group B. — Mathematics — (a) Arithmetic: Simple and Compound Rules; Vulgar and Decimal Fractions; Proportion; Percentage in its various applications; Square Root.
(&) Algebra — Elementary Rules; Factoring; Greatest Com- mon Measure; Least Common Multiple; Square Root; Frac- tions; Surds; Simple Equations of one, two and three unknown quantities; Easy Quadratics.
ic) Geometry — Euclid, Bks. I and II, with easy exercises; Application of Geometry to the Mensuration of Surfaces.
{d) Natural Philosophy. — Composition and Resolution of Forces; Principle of Moments; Centre of Gravity; Mechanical Powers, Ratio of the Power to the Weight in each ; Pressure of Liquids; Specific Gravity and Modes of Determining it; the Barometer, Syphon, Common Pump, Forcing Pump and Air Pump.
Group C. — Modern Languages — (a) French; The Accidence and the Principal Rules of Syntax; Exercises; Introductory and Advanced French Reader; Retranslation of easy passages into French; Rudiments of Conversation.
{b) German: The Accidence and the Principal Rules of Syntax; Exercises; Adler's Reader, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Parts; Retranslation of easy passages into German ; Rudiments of Conversation.
Group D. — Ancient Languages — (a) Latin : The Accidence and the Principal Rules of Syntax and Prosody; Exercises; Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Bk. I, and Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. II, 11. 1-300; Learning by heart selected portions of Virgil; Retranslation into Latin of easy passages from Caesar. ib) Greek, optional.
Group E. — Physical Science — Chemistry: A course of experiments to illustrate the nature of fire, air, water, and such solid sub- stances as limestone, coal and blue vitriol; Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Chlorine, Sulphur, Phosphorus and their more important compounds; Combining Proportions by weight and by volume; Symbols and Nomenclature.
Group F. — History and Geography — (a) Leading Events of English and Canadian History, also of Roman History to the Death of Nero.
(b) A fair course of Elementary Geography, Mathematical, Physical and Political.
Payment by Result 131
Group G. — Bookkeeping, Writing, Drawing and Music — {a) Single and Double Entry; Commercial forms and usages; Banking, Custom House, and General Business Transactions. (6) Practice in Writing, (c) Linear and Freehand Drawing. {d) Elements of Music. An option is permitted between (i) Latin, (ii) French, (iii) German, and (iv) Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and Bookkeeping.
Upper School.
Group A. — English Language. — Critical Reading of (for 1876) Shakespeare's Tragedy of "Macbeth" and Milton's "II Penseroso", Composition, Reading and Elocution; the subject generally, as far as required for Senior Matriculation with Honours in the University.
Group B. — Mathematics. — Arithmetic: The theory of the subject; Application of arithmetic to complicated business transactions, such as loans, mortgages, and the like.
{h) Algebra: Quadratic Equations, Proportion, Progression, Permutation and Combinations, Binomial Theorem, etc., as far as required for Senior Matriculation with Honours, (c) Geometry: Euclid, Bks. I, H, HI, IV; Definitions of Bk. V, Bk. VI with exercises.
{d) Trigonometry, as far as required for Senior Matricu- lation with Honours.
(e) Natural Philosophy: Dynamics, Hydrostatics and Pneu- matics.
Group C. — Modem Languages. — (c) French: Grammar and Exer- cises; Voltaire, Charles XII, Bks. VI, VII, VIII; Corneille, Horace, Acts I and II; De Stael, L'Allemange, 1^^ Partie; Voltaire, Alzire; Alfred de Vigny, Cinq-Mars; Translation" from English into French; Conversation.
(6) German : Grammar and Exercises; Schiller, Das Lied von der Glocke, and NeflFe als Onkel ; Translation from English into German; Conversation.
Group D, — Ancient Languages. — (a) Latin: Grammar; Cicero; Manilian Law; Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. II; Livy, Bk. II, chaps. i to XV inclusive; Horace, Odes, Bk. I; Ovid, Heroides, I and XIII; Translation from English into Latin Prose, etc., as far as required for Senior Matriculation with Honours.
132 Development of the Ontario High School
(b) Greek: Grammar; Lucian, Charon and Life; Homer, Iliad, Bk. I, chaps, vii, viii, ix, x; Homer, Odyssey, Bk. IV, etc., as far as required for Senior Matriculation with Honours.
Group E. — Physical Science — (a) Chemistry: Heat — its sources; Expansion; Thermometers — relations between different scales in common use; Difference betw^een temperature and quantity of Heat; Specific and Latent Heat; Calorimeters; Liquefaction; Ebullition; Evaporation; Conduction; Convection; Radiation. The chief Physical and Chemical Characters, the Preparation, and the characteristic tests of Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, Fluorine, Sulphur, Phosphorus and Silicon.
Carbonic Acid, Carbonic Oxide, Oxide and Acids of Nitrogen, Ammonia, Olefiant Gas, Marsh Gas, Sulphurous and Sulphuric Acids, Sulphuretted Hydrogen, Hydrochloric Acid, Phosphoric Acid, Phosphuretted Hydrogen, Silica.
Combining proportions by weight and by volume; General Nature of Acids, Bases and Salts; Symbols and Nomenclature.
The Atmosphere.— Its constitution, effects of Animal and Vegetable Life upon its Composition; Combustion; Structure and Properties of Flame; Nature and Composition of ordinary Fuel.
Water. — Chemical Peculiarities of Natural Water such, as Rain Water, River Water, Spring Water, Sea Water.
(b) Botany: An introductory course of Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology, illustrated by the examination of at least one plant in each of the Crowfoot, Cress, Pea, Rose, Parsley, Sunflower, Mint, Nettle, Willow, Arum, Orchis, Lily, and Grass Families; Systematic Botany; Flowering Plants of Canada.
(c) Physiology : General View of the Functions and Structure of the Human Body ; the Vascular System and the Circulation ; the Blood and the Lymph; Respiration; the Function of Ali- mentation; Motion and Locomotion; Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing and Sight ; the Nervous System.
Group F. — History and Geography — (a) History: The special study of the Tudor and Stuart Periods; Roman, to the death of Nero; Grecian, to the death of Alexander. (b) Geography, Ancient and Modern.
Payment by Result 133
Masters will be at liberty to take up and continue in the Upper School any subject from the lower School that they may think fit.
Every pupil must take Group A, Arithmetic, Algebra, as far as Progression, History and two other subjects from those included in Groups C, D, and E. In cases of doubt the master shall decide. But candidates preparing for any examination shall be required to take only the subjects prescribed for such examination.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PASSING OF RYERSON AND THE COUNCIL OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
1875-1876.
WE have reached the momentous year of 1875 when the Ontario high school took the written examination bent, but meanwhile certain changes in the law were made by an Act passed in March 1874. Headmasters in addition to holding degrees gained in regular course in universities in the British Dominions were required to furnish evidence to the Council of their knowledge of the science and art of teaching and of the management and discipline of schools. No public and high school could legally unite after July of 1874. Strange to say, Ryerson's special aversion, preparatory classes in high schools were authorized, but it was stipulated that no member of the high school staff should teach in such preparatory class, nor should any part of the Legislative grant or of the county assessment for high school purposes be applied to the expenses and there should be no additional local assessment. Thus hedged about, perhaps he felt that the permission was entirely innocuous. It would do no injury to the public schools, of which he was justly proud and for which he was especially solicitous.
The same Act effected a reform of the Council of Public In- struction, which had remained in its original forni since its incep- tion in 1846 or more strictly 1850 when the original title of General Board of Education was changed. The Common School Act of 1850 enacted "That the Governor shall have authority to appoint not more than nine persons (of whom the Chief Superintendent shall be one) to be a Council of Public Instruction for Upper Canada, who shall hold their office during pleasure, and shall be subject from time to time to all lawful orders and directions in the exercise of their duties, which shall be issued by the Governor." The Council was at first given power of regulation over common schools but in 1853 over grammar schools as well. Some of the members had served continuously since 1846. The Rev. H. J. Grasett was the only member of whom this was literally true, apart of course,
The Passing of Ryerson 135
from the Superintendent himself. The service next in length was that of the Rev. Dr. John Jennings, appointed in 1850. The Deputy Superintendent, J. George Hodgins, had been the Recording Clerk since the beginning.
The Speech from the Throne referred to the necessity of addi- tional legislation "to give increased efficiency to the Council of Public Instruction." The present Act, therefore, provided that the Council should consist of the following:
1. The Chief Superintendent of Education, ex officio, or in his absence, the Deputy Superintendent.
2. Eight members appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in- Council.
3. One member elected by the Council of University College, and one by each of the other Colleges possessing University powers.
4. One member elected by each of the following, namely :
(a) The legally qualified masters and teachers of High Schools and Collegiate Institutes;
(b) The Inspectors of Public Schools; and
(c) The legally qualified teachers of Public and Separate Schools.
It was provided that travelling expenses of members should be paid. No person was eligible who was a teacher or inspector in actual service.
Thus a practical revolution in the body took place, the elected section equalling in number the appointed. Strong opposition to the elective principle was manifested by Ryerson and the members of the existing Council. The Globe had advocated this change for years, vigorously attacking the method of appointment and charging inefficiency. The phrase, therefore, in the Speech "to give increased efficiency" was taken as a reflection upon the Council and an endorsement of all that had been said against it. The aggrieved members were assured that no reflection was in- tended but to assume that their admitted efficiency had been such that no increase was possible was to claim something that does not belong to any human institution. Out of friendship for Attorney-General Mowat, Ryerson reluctantly consented to the election of the three representatives of teachers and inspectors, for this was where the shoe pinched ; but his colleagues were too deeply
136 Development of the Ontario High School
wounded to consent and preferred to retire with their honour un- tarnished to risking contact with mere elected representatives.* They did not, however, actually retire.
Since 1850 the responsibilities of the Education Department had increased enormously and the problems submitted to the Council were always growing in complexity. It cannot be doubted that the Council was too small and its composition too haphazard to insure handling some of those problems in a practical way. If we looked at nothing but those wonderful Programmes of Study, whether for elementary or secondary schools, we should have ground enough for saying that the teaching profession needed a channel through which its practical experience could flow in upon a region too much beclouded with theory. Reluctance to sit with elected representatives of the professions most concerned in the Regulations and appointments, is another evidence that the Council was out of touch with the democratic spirit of the age. While saying this one can at the same time acknowledge the indebtedness of the Province to the men, who without remuneration or public recognition had for so many years given distinguished and high-minded service in the cause of education. If it were not for such service our democratic system would fall to the ground. It was only a penalty of growth that the serene atmosphere of the Council of Public Instruction was thus rudely broken into.
The powers and duties of the Council were, so far as they relate to secondary education, thus defined:
1. To prepare and prescribe, subject to the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council a list of text-books, programme of studies and rules and regulations for the organization and government of High Schools and Collegiate Institutes.
2. To appoint inspectors of High Schools, prescribe their duties and fix their remuneration.
3. To control subjects and times of the entrance examination, subject to approval.
4. To prepare uniform entrance papers.
5. To frame regulations and instructions under which a High School inspector may give a special certificate valid for one year to a senior pupil of a High School or Collegiate Institute or other person to act as monitor or assistant in such school.
*See Historical Educational papers, vol. IV, pp. 263-265.
The Passing of Ryerson > 137
In addition the Council was to manage normal schools, and to provide by the training of public school teachers, the programme of studies and by special regulations, for teaching in the public schools of natural history, agricultural chemistry, mechanics and agriculture. Also to prescribe the qualifications of inspectors and control examinations for inspectors' and teachers' certificates. Under discretionary powers it was to enquire into and report upon any matter connected with the administration of the school system, which might be referred to the Council by the Lieutenant-Governor or the Chief Superintendent.
A Council charged with such and so varied duties as those outlined should not be too limited in number and should surely be representative of the various particular interests involved. The results of the first elections were such as to reassure any one who might have had doubts as to the wisdom of intrusting the profession to choose its representatives n the Council, for Professor Daniel Wilson, afterwards President of the University of Toronto, was elected by the High Schools, Professor Goldwin Smith by the Public Schools and S. Casey Wood by the inspectors.
It is difficult to understand why on the one hand the Govern- ment should have taken trouble to reform an institution that was so soon to pass out of existence, unless it were mere political expediency, especially when the measure of reform met such opposition from the Superintendent or why on the other hand, Ryerson should have taken so much pains to retain the Council in the old form, when he knew he must so soon relinquish the helm. Not quite two years of life was allowed the reformed Council when it was swept out of existence by the Act of February 1876, which gave the powers and duties of the Council of Public Instruction to the Executive Council or a Committee thereof and vested all the powers of the chief Superintendent in one of the Executive Council, to be known as Minister of Education.
And so the great founder of the school system passed out. Twice before he had urged the necessity of a Cabinet head to the Department and had offered to retire, but each time he had been dissuaded. So able had been his administration, that public men were reluctant to take over his great responsibilities. For thirty- two years he had borne an enormous burden and had displayed a continuous energy such as only men of the largest calibre are capable. And even an enemy must admit that his service was
138 Development of the Ontario High School
disinterested. Although a great amount of money during this long period, a sum vastly increased by the business of the Deposi- tory, had passed through his office, the audit always showed that this trust was administered with absolute fidelity to the public interest.
There was something truly Ciceronian about Ryerson. There was a fluency that could easily rise to eloquence, a punctilious sense of honour, and a frank admission of his own great services to his country. How much he owed to his fidus Achates, J. George Hodgins, Deputy Superintendent, it is difficult to estimate. The friendship of the two men was very intimate and the Deputy was ever at the elbow of his chief with counsel and assistance whether with tongue or pen or legal knowledge. The debt vjras generously and frequently acknowledged by Ryerson.
But it is upon the success of his system of elementary schools that his fame rests. Very early he conceived an ideal, perfectly definite and clearly seen and towards this he worked with indomit- able energy, till in 1871 he saw it realized and, best of all, it was truly democratic, though its architect was often accused of being an autocrat and of introducing a Prussian tyranny. It cannot be maintained that he had a clear and definite ideal of a secondary school. There was a good deal of confusion in his views. At one time, a grammar school must be a classical seminary or nothing; at another, classical study was a waste of time and the results were 'smatterings' and a great hotch-potch of practical information was the ideal secondary education. It is true that he sometimes expressed ideas in advance of his time, but he did not press in- sistently towards their realization, as he did in the other sphere. Such was his suggestion of an agricultural bent to rural grammar schools with model farms attached. Again the Model Grammar School was an enlightened scheme which he actually pressed to an issue and then threw it over as capriciously as a child does a new toy. Again may be mentioned the unnecessary and confusing provision in 1865, without advice from the inspector, of a special entrance examination for surveyors, civil engineers and those intending to pursue the higher English course without Latin. To Young's proposal to abolish the study of Latin as a necessary condition of attendance, he said, "This is equivalent to abolishing them as classical schools; it is going back to the former state of things; it would make them common English schools in more complete rivalship with the common schools." Public opinion
The Passing of Ryerson 139
forced him to admit girls and to recognize their attendance — and rightly, for his own attitude was indefensible. He was strongly opposed to co-education and yet beyond advice to larger places to provide separate girls' schools he appears to have done nothing to solve the difficulty. The fact is his main interest was elsewhere. The secondary schools were only step-children. But it may well be asked if it was within the power of any one man to work out both the elementary and the higher school problem, each complex enough, but the latter involved with a difficult political and social situation.
Let us now take stock of the status of the High School, not so much in proof of what has been said, but to have before us a concise statement of what still remained to be done, before it could be said that the high schools of Ontario were efficient. I mention the points in what I conceive to be their relative importance.
1. Staffs. — Training for their work, none. Their pedagogy was all empirical. Assistants in 1874 numbered 111 (96 males, 15 females). Of these 33 had as good as no academic qualifications, 27 were graduates, 14 undergraduates, 37 with first or second class public school certificates.
2. Support. — Local inadequate; grant too small.
3. Buildings. — In 1874 only 41, many of which were union buildings, were reported as fair to excellent. Fifty-one were passable to bad.
4. Curriculum. — Overloaded, unworkable, more suited to schools with at least four teachers than to the average of two teachers.
5. Entrance. — In union schools still lax.
A golden opportunity was let slip when public land was plenti- ful. A large amount should have been set aside for grammar school purposes, so that the Government could have given liberal assistance in the erection and equipment of buildings. It is too much of a burden upon local funds, after proper provision has been made for the elementary education, to erect the kind of buildings required for the efficient conduct of secondary work. It is a great credit to the people of Ontario that there are so many good high school buildings in the country. They are not, however, equipped as they should be. The assembly room and the gymnasium, both so essential to the well-being of the institution, are found in only a small percentage of the schools.
CHAPTER XIV. THE EXAMINATION INCUBUS.
1876-1882.
OUR present concern is with the Intermediate examination, how it was conducted, the effect upon the schools and how payment on the results of this, test worked out. The first Intermediate was held in June 1876. The examination took three and a half days. The papers were prepared by the Central Com- mittee, which consisted of the three high school inspectors: Dr. J. A. McLellan, J. M. Buchan and S. A. Marling, Professor Young (ex- inspector) and four public school inspectors, J. C. Glashan, John J. Tilley , George (afterwards Sir George) W. Ross and James L. Hughes. The last four were appointed during 1876. This Central Committee took over the examination duties of the defunct Council of Public Instruction. There was a three-hour paper the first day in the optional subject, natural philosophy and chemistry, or Latin or French or German. The other subjects were algebra (2 hours) ; bookkeeping (1 hour) ; grammar and etymology (2 hours) ; dictation (30 minutes); arithmetic (2 hours); English composition (1 hour); English literature (2 hours); Euclid (2 hours); geography (I3<i hours); history (2 hours). I The papers were read by the Central Committee assisted by j four others appointed from the universities. Of the one hundred j and four schools in operation, sixty passed no candidates at the ' June examination while of these, fifty schools again passed none in December. Twenty-four schools passed from one to two. In the July examination there were 1,676 candidates, of whom only 234 I were successful. The results must have been surprising to all I concerned, and evidently showed that many schools were not in ■ reality doing high school work. The whole situation was ably discussed in the Ontario Teachers' Association in August 1876 by Mr. John Seath, at that time headmaster of the St. Catharines j Collegiate Institute under the title "The High School System." I Beginning with the relation between the high and public schools I he said that though several schemes had been devised to counteract the tendency to crowd pupils into the high schools and thus to
The Examination Incubus 141
deplete the public schools, none of these had succeeded fully. In spite of the uniform entrance examination and more searching inspection, the evil broke out with more virulence than ever. The last scheme was called "Payment by Results". The result of the first Intermediate showed that many schools were doing elementary work, since more than half failed to pass a single candidate. In future, schools would not care to incur the expense of this examination unless they had four or five reasonably sure candidates and so many schools would be uninfluenced by the supposed benefits of the examination. This pointed to a probable development of two classes of high schools, the larger schools, able to carry on the upper school work successfully and the smaller ones that would virtually confine their work to the fifth and sixth public school classes. The public school course overlaps that of the high school by these two classes just as the high school course overlaps that of the university. Why not then recognize this by adopting a senior entrance as well as a junior? The smaller places where the public school was not equal to the work of the fifth and sixth classes would naturally take the junior entrance and the ^larger places, the senior.
As to the financial aspect of the Intermediate, it would be impossible for small schools to compete with the large city schools. At the first Intermediate, seven schools carried off about half of the $14,600, to be distributed on the examination basis. He was dubious about the prudence of spending $13,200 annually on inspection and the examination, when formerly the cost was only $2,000. The results did not justify the increase.
However, a far more important objection is next raised, namely that the scheme of payment according to the results of an exam- ination throws the whole responsibility upon the teacher. There was little inducement for the pupil to exert himself for only in the case of schools that could maintain an upper school would passing this examination be regarded as a promotion. Those who intended to leave school or were preparing for professions naturally would not take it. Mr. Seath, therefore, suggested that, in order to make the examination worth while for the ordinary pupil, it should be regarded by the national university as the Oxford or Cambridge local examinations are; that it should be recognized as part of the matriculation examination; that it should be accepted as the preliminary examination for the learned professions and as equiva-
142 Development of the Ontario High School.
lent to the examination for second-class certificates. These changes would make it a "leaving examination."
The paper concludes with a criticism of the "increasing tendency to determine results by means of written examinations." A dis- tinction was drawn between such examinations when held by the teacher as a part of the class routine and those held by outside bodies. The former is "an educative instrument of inestimable worth," for the examination is a means and does not determine the character of the teaching, but with so many outside written examinations the danger is that the teacher will have these as an end and a guide. There were objections to determining the efficiency of a school by examinations for when a pupil is preparing for an examination, he acquires knowledge not for its own value but for the sake of passing. There is a great difference in educative value between the knowledge obtained to pass an examination and that acquired for its own sake. While professedly aiming at education pure and simple, the scheme held out a strong temptation tQ teachers to be recreant to their trust. The large inducement of $60 per unit was offered to induce teachers to get their pupils through the Intermediate. What the speaker regarded as the strongest argument against the examination tendency is given in the words of Mark Pattison who said, speaking of university examinations, "The paralysis of intellectual action produced by a compulsory examination is not more remarkable than its effect in depressing moral energy. For as examinations have multiplied on the unhappy passman, the help afforded him to pass them has been increased in proportion. He has got to lean more and more on his tutor and to do less and less for himself. The tutors do indeed work — they drudge. For they aim at taking on themselves the whole strain of the effort. It is a point of honour with them to get their pupils through. The examinations have destroyed teaching, which may be said to be a lost art among us." The danger which Mr. Seath foresaw was that 'cramming' for examination would take the place of real teaching and the anticipated evil should be met as far as possible by frequently changing examiners, so that the papers might not run in a groove.
At that time there were three sections in the Teachers' Associa- tion, namely, High School Masters', Public School Masters' and Inspectors' sections. In the first, the main topic of discussion was the Intermediate. The exaction of a minimum of forty per cent.
The Examination Incubus 143
on every paper was felt to be too high, especially as whenever a candidate fell below that percentage, no more of his papers were read and he was regarded as plucked. Teachers, therefore, could not get detailed information as to the subjects in which their candidates failed. A trouble mentioned was that while boards of trustees would hold the masters strictly responsible for failure to pass pupils, there was no motive to which the masters could success- fully appeal in their efforts to induce candidates to come forward. Something ought to be done in the way of utilizing the examination. Resolutions were adopted with this in view. The passing of the Intermediate should be regarded as equivalent to having passed the Junior Matriculation of the University, the examination for a teachers' certificate, and the preliminary law and medical examina- tions, with such modifications as may be deemed necessary. The extremely low percentage of forty was considered high enough on each group of subjects to give pass standing provided that the candidates did not fall below twenty per cent, on any subject.
The inspectors in their report of the year were quite satisfied with the results. " We submit that on the whole the effect has been beneficial in a marked degree, not only in distributing the Legislative apportionment in a more equitable manner, but in imparting a stimulus to higher education." As to the additional expense due to an extra inspector and the Intermediate examination, the improve- ment, they thought amply justified it. They also thought the examination should be utilized in some direct way to the advantage of the successful pupil. It was already felt even by those chiefly responsible for the new scheme, that it would be impossible to maintain an examination whose sole purpose was one in which pupils would feel no interest. The next year accordingly the Inter- mediate was accepted as equivalent to a second class academic certificate. This was a formal recognition of the high school as the instrument of the education of public school teachers. Pupils preparing for the teaching profession were already found in most of the schools.* They were soon found in all of them and more than that, they came to form in time the largest group in the average school, except perhaps in university cities. The high school system thus became a substitute for complete teacher-training schools, such as European countries and some of the United States
*See Inspectors' Report for 1876.
144 Development of the Ontario High School
have developed. In this, one more interest had to be served, necessitating further adaptation and compromise.
It now remains to trace the subsequent history of the Inter- mediate while it was used as a basis for grant payments. Dr. J. A. McLellan, who had much to do with the inception of the scheme, consistently stuck to his guns in defence. In 1877 he reported that up to that date the results had been exceedingly advantageous, and while admitting that there were defects, which it was the object of the payment on the results of the inspector's visit to remedy, argued that "it may fairly be claimed to have caused great im- provement in the teaching, the staffs, the equipment and accommo- dations." It had doubled the efficiency in two years. As to cramming, it had actually lessened, rather than increased it, for the knowledge imparted was far more thoroughly assimi'ated than before. It is inevitable that much that is learned in school should be forgotten. Education is not filling the mind like a lumber-room but training it. However, the point of the objection was that the whole attention of many teachers was taken up with loading the memory of the pupil for this test and that the true purpose of education was altogether dropped out of sight.
The objection that too great pressure was put upon teachers would gradually lose its force, as the value per unit of successful pupils diminished in proportion to the increase in numbers. The grant was a fixed one of $15,000. The approximate value of a successful candidate to his school was as follows for the five-year period :
1876 1877 1878 1879 1880
$57 $22 $9 19 $8
Again in 1878 the pressure was lessened by reducing the examina- tions to one a year and after the first half of 1879 the apportionment on inspection was discontinued, the fixed minimum being raised from $400 to $425 and the next year to $450. Dr. McLellan thought that the amount depending on the Intermediate in 1880 was too small and that on average attendance, namely $2.27 per unit, too high. The latter tended to reproduce the evils of laxity at the entrance examinations since only $1.00 per unit was paid to the public schools. However, his colleague, Mr. Marling, thought that $4 or less per unit was enough for the upper school pupils. It should be kept low to diminish unhealthy rivalry.
The Examination Incubus. 145
In 1881 the Minister of Education submitted a number of questions relating to the Intermediate and to the proper basis for establishing or maintaining collegiate institutes to the High School section of the Ontario Teachers' Association. Their reply con- sisted of a series of resolutions among which were the following: (1) The fixed grant should be one-fourth of the amount paid annually for teachers' salaries; (2) A small amount, say $3 per pupil should be granted on the average attendance of those who pass the Inter- mediate; (3) Collegiate institutes should continue to exist, but the basis of establishment and continuance should be broadened by including girls as well as boys and by recognizing other studies as well as Latin and Greek. A fee of $5 per annum should be imposed by all schools; (4) The course of study should be made more flexible especially in the case of girls. These resolutions were handed to the inspectors for their views upon them. Both opposed the first on the ground that the large institutes such as that of Hamilton, where no fifth class was maintained in the public schools and all who passed the Entrance were regarded as high school pupils, would absorb most of the fixed grant, Hamilton getting $3,750. If Toronto graded the pupils in the same way, it would probably receive $10,000 per annum. Nothing would be left for many smaller, but equally deserving schools. The inspectors however, differed as to the amount that should be given on the Intermediate results. Inspector Marling thought that this amount should be kept low, but that it should be $4, or $2 for each half-year. Inspec- tor McLellan, on the other hand, after praising the examination with perhaps a certain parental partiality, as having worked a revolution in the high schools, declared that $3 per unit could scarcely pay the exf)enses of the examination . Ten dollars was, in his; opinion, low enough. He still held that the standing of the school could be accurately determined by its success at this examination.
Both agreed that a change was desirable regarding collegiate institutes. McLellan opposed the counting of girls in the minimum average of sixty. But Latin should no longer be the exclusive criterion Science or modems should be accounted on a par with Latin. The accommodations, equipment and staff and provision for the practical teaching of science should be regarded. Both agreed that there should be a uniform fee but that the matter was in the hands of the local authority; they agreed also as to the practicability of an optional course for girls.
146 Development of the Ontario High School
The next year, accordingly, the new regulations placed both collegiate institutes and the Intermediate on a new footing. A school in order to rank as a collegiate institute must comply with the following conditions :
1. Suitable buildings, out-buildings, grounds, and appliances for physical training,
2. Laboratory, with all necessary chemicals and apparatus for teaching the subject of chemistry properly.
3. Four masters at least, each of which shall be specially quali- fied in one of the following departments: English, classics, mathe- matics, natural science, and modem languages.
This was to go into effect in January 1883, or as soon thereafter as the regulations were ratified by resolution of the Legislative Assembly.
It will be seen that the original purpose of the establishment of these institutes, namely: to keep burning the torch of classical learning in the country, was abandoned. For this, several reasons appear to have combined. The condition requiring an average attendance of at least sixty boys engaged in the study of Latin had led to an undue pressure upon boys in cases where the attendance was small to take Latin or Greek. It must have been a strain each year in most of these schools, to make up the required mini- mum. Where many pupils were practically forced into a course of study which they were disinclined to pursue or for which they had no aptitude, the main purpose would surely be defeated. In fact it was a case of 'qualifying Latin' over again. Again the special grant of $750 looked very attractive to high schools which were just below the required number and no doubt led to special efforts for elevation to this rank where the conditions could not normally be fulfilled. And further many high schools, were doing just as efficient work in classics as these special classical schools. From 1883 on, therefore, the only distinctive features of collegiate institutes are, first, that specialists must be at the head of each of the main departments of study, and, second, that a gymnasium must be maintained. The same curriculum, laboratory equipment and everything else are found in both high schools and institutes so that there is at present no very valid reasons for giving the two grades different names. If the schools were all called high schools, those of the highest efificiency and equipment being distinguished as high schools of the first grade there would be less mystification
The Examination Incubus 147
in the public mind, as to what these institutions with the un- euphonious name really are, if they are not high schools. The name that means something and is good enough for the largest secondary schools in the United States, would possibly serve in Ontario. The original intention of establishing local colleges perhaps gave some ground for a distinctive title. But no reason for this has existed since 1883.
The payment upon the results of the Intermediate was aban- doned in 1882 and thus the scheme of 'Payment by Results', as a whole came to an end, having demonstrated in Ontario, as elsewhere, its baneful power to defeat the main objects of education. The Regulations were professedly amended "for the purpose of removing any injurious tendencies" in the work of the high schools. "The Lower School course of study has been made more flexible and the obligatory subjects are confined to such as are essential in secondary education, viz., English grammar and literature with composition, history and geography, arithmetic and book-keeping, drill and calisthenics." High school boards were not required to provide instruction in all of the optional subjects, but only in such as in their circumstances they judged expedient. The new Inter- mediate was merely a test of the fitness of each pupil to proceed to the upper school. The obligatory subjects were, English grammar and literature, composition, dictation, arithmetic and one of the following: (1) Algebra and Euclid; (2) history and geography; (3) any two of natural philosophy, chemistry, botany; (4) Latin; (5) French and German (with music or drawing, when selected by. the parent). The minimum percentage required was twenty on each subject and forty on the aggregate. The Inter- mediate was to be accepted pro tan to for third class teachers, but the minimum percentages were thirty and fifty respectively. "The former Intermediate with its four obligatory groups of subjects practically determined that algebra and Euclid, natural philosophy and chemistry or Latin or French or German should be taken up in the Lower School by every candidate without reference to sex".* During the last two or three years of the former scheme the Intermediate had served as the non -professional examination for third and second class certificates and for en trance to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It was found naturally that what was made to serve so many purposes, served none faithfully and fully.
*See Minister's Report for 1882, page 32.
148 Development of the Ontario High School
The Minister remarked that the injurious tendencies noted arose from the nature of the examination and the object, namely, in- creased funds to be gained by success therein.
The period during which this examination was the grand object of most of the high school teachers and pupils extended from 1875 to 1882. It was for only seven years. Yet the ill effects were not confined to that brief period. The idolatry of the written examination, arising then, has still a firm hold upon the schools. In 1873, while the Intermediate scheme was still under consideration, the inspectors referred in their report to the Prussian Leaving Examination in the Gymnasien and expressed the hope that our own examinations would bear the same relation to our secondary schools. They quote from the instructions under which the Prussian examination was held as follows: "The test must be such as a scholar of fair ability and proper diligence may, at the end of his school course come to with a quiet mind and without a painful preparatory effort, tending to relaxation and torpor as soon as the effort is over. The total cultivation of the candidate is the great matter, that the instruction in the highest class may not degenerate into a preparation for the examination, that a pupil may have the requisite time to come steadily and without over- hurrying to the full measure of his powers and character, that he may be securely and thoroughly formed, instead of bewildered and oppressed by a mass of information hastily heaped together,"
That this is an ideal not reached in the days of the Inter- mediate no one can doubt. But is it, or can it be, reached in our own times? It is impossible to frame an examination paper, with some slight exceptions, in which mere information will not insure a pass. The present examination habit was acquired in the trial of 'Payment by Results'. The mill has been grinding cease- lessly ever since. Those who come through with ' the minimum percentage are accredited, no matter what evidence the answers as a whole give of lack of education. Take for example the exam- ination in Latin translation. The authorities assign for reading a few chapters in Caesar (about twenty octavo pages) and five hundred lines of the Aeneid for matriculation. Two years are normally spent in reading this in class. Then we submit an examination paper with three or four selections from this narrow range. The pupil who is able to translate all the selections is sure of a pass, though his answers to questions in syntax and
The Examination Incubus 149
etymology may be of the wildest. If he has an ordinarily retentive memory he can do the translation almost without thought. What is indicated, as the doctors say, in this case? Is it not an examina- tion upon purely unseen but similar reading? This would be a test to which a boy could come with a quiet mind, unless indeed the consciousness of knowing nothing about the language chanced in any case to be a cause of inquietude. Such a thing was at one time suggested but the schools were horrified with the idea and raised the difficulty about vocabulary. Well, there are some who would solve that by providing small dictionaries and making the selections sufficiently long. The oral test, and the essay, e.g., in history or literature are obvious and well tried variations which the Ontario system has, up to the present, failed to use.
By 1883 the school system under discussion had reached in essential particulars its present form and thus the date is a con- venient halting place. It is true that teacher- training had not been undertaken as a separate enterprise apart from the normal schools for elementar>' teachers. A brief reference to the steps subsequently taken in this particular will be found in the next chapter. The method of central control and inspection, of local management and support had become fixed. With the abandon- ment of payment on examination results, the equitable and stimu- lating principle, still adhered to, of determining the government grant mainly upon the value of the equipment, the salaries and the nature of the accommodations with a fixed grant besides was adopted. The uniform entrance examination with papers prepared by a central committee, but the answers read by a local board of examiners, uniform authorized text books and a uniform curriculum are still the practice. Practically all the principles were fixed by the date named, modified as they have been from time to time, but the modifications are not so noteworthy as the fixity of the system. One feature of importance may be adverted to in con- clusion. Then, as now, the municipality in which the school was situated was required to bear the whole cost of building and furn- ishing the school, without aid from any land grant, or endowment of any kind. The whole burden has thus rested upon the village or town taxpayer. But the schools, except in a few very large centres are as much the schools of the farmer who lives beyond the reach of this taxation as they are of the citizen. It is not surprising, therefore, that so few fine high school buildings adorn Ontario towns, but that there are so many.
CHAPTER XV.
SUMMARY.
|T TNDER the law of 1871 and the Regulations based upon it, ; I I the Ontario secondary school reached in essentials its i present form. Uniformity, rigidity, co-education, the
written examination, the adjustment of the curriculum to meet the needs of those who are to become teachers or enter other professions, became fused into the system at that date. Nor has it departed in the new century from any of these principles, though of course great advances have been made in the working out of the principles. Before summarizing these advances the present chapter will recap- itulate briefly what has been said.
The Canadian secondary school had its origin in the laudable desire of official and other immigrants of the higher classes from Great Britain, to educate their sons (not daughters also) in the same way as/ they would have been educated had they remained at home, that is in a school controlled by the Anglican clergy and upon the traditional curriculum. They succeeded in inducing the government to establish and partially support eight such schools (1807) several years before any provision had been made for Common Schools (1816). These District Grammar Schools did not receive popular support even if they merited it, and they were regarded as belonging to a privileged class. The increase in numbers of these schools and in their attendance was so slow that in 1838, after a period of thirty years, there were only thirteen, one of which had just opened and a total attendance for all of 311. But the population had risen meanwhile from 50,000 to 300,000.
An event that had an important bearing upon the Grammar Schools was the establishment of Upper Canada College. By virtue of a large land grant this institution was able to open with a substantial group of buildings and a complete staff of scholarly masters. It h^d a mixed influence on the grammar school situa- tion. Not only did its comparative wealth and splendour create discontent in all the Districts and demands for similar land grants but its curriculum was imposed upon the one-mastered schools, in so far as that was possible. The feeling of discontent served to call public attention to the very poor accommodations and
Summary 151
equipment of most of the District Schools and Committees of the House periodically reviewed the unsatisfactory condition of these schools, which of course, is the first step towards improvement. But the elaborate course of study with its preponderance of classics was a poor pattern for one-mastered country grammar schools to attempt to follow.
In 1839 a Commission (Dr. John McCaul, chairman) enquired into the state of education and recommended that masters should be examined as to their aptitude for teaching and that provision should be made for an assistant in each school. The same year the Advancement of Education Act of 1839 set apart 250,000 acres of land for the support of grammar schools, providing for the erection of building and the employment of assistant masters and placed the management under the Council of King's College. An elaborate programme of studies was prepared in 1841 and Regulations for the conduct of the schools, but at once local opposition arose, trustees disputing the authority of the Council, the result of which was the repeal in 1841 of the Act of 1839. In 1841 each District was empowered to establish two additional grammar schools and £100 annually for each school was authorized. In three years, the number of schools doubled, there being twenty-five in 1845.
The next important step was the appointment of a chief super- intendent who, however, was not given any control over secondary schools until 1853. Rev. Egerton Ryerson, formerly a Methodist preacher and later President of Victoria University was the incum- bent of this important office from 1844 till 1876. Circumstances combined to direct most of his energy to the foundation of a com- mon school system, seeing that primary education was, as he said in a deplorable condition. Besides he was democratic in sentiment and the grammar schools up to this time affected the common people very little. He had enlightened ideas as to secondary education nevertheless, suggesting schools of various types, agricultural schools, model farms, etc., yet he did not bring any new type into existence. In 1846 a Provincial Board of Education was appointed to establish a normal school and aid the chief superintendent with counsel and advice. This was merged into the Council of Public Instruction in 1850 and subse- quently had control of curriculum and text-books and the appoint- ment of grammar school inspectors.
152 Development of the Ontario High School
The earlier stages of secondary schools in the United States are briefly described in Chapter IV. In the colonial period, the Latin grammar school was the prevailing type. These were college preparatory schools. They gave place to the academy which was independent of the college and designed to give complete culture. This type added subject after subject to the curriculum, as these were popularly demanded. The one feature in which these schools were not democratic was the manner in which they were controlled. This in time led to their being supplanted by the high school which, generally speaking is democratic in all particulars. The classical grammar school had persisted in Ontario unchanged up to the middle of the century and the academy stage was not developed, if a few female academies so-called are excepted.
The law of 1853 permitted local authorities to raise funds by assessment and transferred from the Crown to thfe^ county councils; the power to appoint trustees for each grammar school within the county. These trustees had full power to appoint or remove masters, but only university graduates or those who had obtained a special license were eligible for appointment. Power was also given trustees to form unions with common schools. The Council of Public Instruction now issued Regulations. An entrance standard was set up, which demanded reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar (parsing of any easy sentence) and outlines of geography ; but the head master was the sole judge of the fitness of any candidate and he was not directed to use written tests. The first grammar school inspectors were appointed.
The decade between 1855 and 1865 was a period of rapid increase in the number of schools. The privileges granted local authorities by the law of 1853 were unwisely used and if at first the system suffered from stagnation, it now began to suffer from too rapid expansion. Schools were set up in small hamlets quite unable to sustain them and many unions with common schools were formed. The feature which inspectors condemned most severely was the poor schoolhouses. County councils were ex- tremely reluctant to make the grant necessary for the erection of buildings and towns or villages would not do so because they had no control, the county councils appointing the boards of trustees. Municipal aid in the support of the schools was forthcoming in the case of only about one half the schools of which in 1864 there were
Summary 153
101, but the amounts were illiberal, averaging only about $250 each for forty-nine municipalities. This illiberality is the index of public indifference and shows clearly enough that many schools were unnecessary. Inspector G. R. R. Cockburn visited the schools in 1859 and condemned the way in which union between common and grammar schools was working. It was the poverty of the grammar school boards that forced them into union and then the usual result was that the school became a poor type of common school, for if the head master held a university degree, it was felt to excuse any deficiencies in the assistants, if there were any, but in many cases the head master was the whole staff ; and whatever time he gave to his few classical pupils was filched from the younger children. Besides, an M.A. degree does not necessarily prove ability to teach. In fact, glaring deficiencies on the pedago- gical side led to the admirable scheme of Ryerson of establishing a Model Grammar School which would serve as a model for the organization and conduct of a grammar school and would also afford the means of training masters. Such a school was estab- lished and opened in 1858 and after a successful career of five years was abandoned, ostensibly from motives of economy.
An appreciable advance was made towards placing the secondary system on a more secure foundation by the Act of 1865. Inspectorial reports, especially the first of three, by George Paxton Young, and the efforts of the Chief Superintendent, pre- pared the way for several important changes. The local munici- pality was given the right to appoint three of the six trustees, the county council retaining the right to appoint the other three. The condition of sharing in the Grammar School Fund was that a sum at least equal to half the sum apportioned, must be raised from local sources, exclusive of tuition fees. The fund grant was to be apportioned on the basis of average attendance. A check was placed upon the establishment of new schools and the rule was made that only university graduates were eligible for head master- ships. Finally provision was made for military instruction. Ryerson in his circular to county councils urged upon them the propriety of furnishing one-half the locally raised sum inasmuch as they appointed half the trustees. An important change in the admission of pupils by the head master was made in the regulation that such admission was in future to be only provisional until ratified by the inspector on his official visit.
154 Development of the Ontario High School
Up to 1865 the grammar schools had not as a rule admitted girls, but in conformity with the movement in Great Britain and the United States, it soon became an acute question in Ontario how girls were to secure advanced school training. To gain admission to the existing boys' schools was the line of least resist- ance. Ontario has never had the advantage of private endowments for secondary schools, else some private fortune might have shown how excellent a thing a public secondary school for girls could be. A movement initiated by the spirit of the age was wonderfully accelerated by a clause of the new Act, which soon filled the existing schools with girls, the clause namely, that made the grant depend on average attendance. The bread and butter of the masters depended on attendance, and if boys could not be obtained to fill up the classes, girls could. This was particularly easy in union schools.
Opposed to the movement was a strong body of opinion, championed by Ryerson himself, by Young and by leading parlia- mentarians. But no eloquence and no regulations could stem the tide. Girls were first admitted to facilitate the acquirement of French but their attendance was not counted. Next, if they took one of the prescribed courses the attendance of two girls counted as equivalent to one boy. Finally on strong protests against this unfairness, during which the argument was advanced that many of the gir!s were preparing to be teachers, the decision was left to the local authorities whether they would admit girls or not, but if admitted their attendance was not distinguished from that of the boys. Some of the leading schools still held out firmly against 'feminism', but this power was lost to them by the Act of 1871 when the schools became frankly co-educational.
What the grammar schools had not as yet had the benefit of, namely, constructive criticism by a first-rate authority, they now enjoyed. The first report of Inspector Young has been mentioned as influencing the legislation of 1865. Young was especially qualified. His naturally keen and powerful mind was highly trained along many lines, and this was the intellectual equipment of a generous and sympathetic heart. The defects he found in the grammar schools were mainly these: First, the needless multiplication of small schools. The more schools in a county the smaller the revenue and attendance of each. The consequence was small grants, low salaries, and poor teachers. If the attendance
Summary .166
of bona fide grammar school pupils is very low, the master occu- pies himself with common school subjects, and thus comes into improper competition with the lower schools, to their injury. ..Secondly, he condemns the formation of union schools. The result was that three out of five grammar schools were mere departments of common schools, into which pupils were drafted who had only the merest beginning of the elementary subjects and boys and girls alike plunged into Latin in which through their dense ignorance of English, they made no progress. Thirdly, the teaching was often superficial and called for too great depen- dence on memory. Consequently pupils were not grounded in principles but fed on definitions, just as they were by the master of earlier times who said, "A rule and an example, when learned, must be given for every branch of knowledge that is acquired." By no means all the teaching was of this character. There were many masters who displayed excellent pedagogical method.
The amount of time spent on crowding the memory with Latin grammar, and definitions in the various branches left no time for instruction in the great field of English literature and the physical sciences. It was in his sane and enlightened exposition of the proper instructional methods in these subjects that Young did his great constructive service to Canadian education. The English classics must be studied to create in the young mind an appreciation of beauty. In the sciences the youth must be a philosopher. He must handle the apparatus for himself and discover the truths anew. A comparatively narrow range of general science will be sufficient if the method is sound. Morals also should and can, be taught but not directly. In the study of English literature, the teacher can incidentally do eflFective moral teaching. Up to this time nothing had been done in English beyond grammar, in the schools, and all the science a pupil learned was what information he picked up in the reading lessons from the National Readers. The inspector found two difficulties in the way of advance. First, the common schools did not as a rule prepare pupils adequately for the higher work, the reason being that these schools were not generally graded even in towns and, second, there was a lack of means to secure proper training for grammar school work.
The effect of these reports upon the Chief Superintendent was profound, and in his own report (1867) he devotes much more than usual attention to secondary schools. While not agreeing
156 Development of the Ontario High School
with Young's proposal of abolishing the study of Latin as a necesr sary condition of attendance, he himself made the important suggestion of leaving it to the local boards as to whether the classics should be taught or not. This was certainly a democratic idea and it would have left the character of any particular school in local hands. Ryerson's own ideal of a secondary school education was of a very practical and informational character.
The result of Young's splendid work was the_Act of 1871. It completed the structure of the elementary system by placing the schools, now to be known as public schools, in charge of expert county inspectors and abolishing tlfie power to levy rate bills upon parents. It also fundamentally changed the grammar schools. They became henceforth high schools for both sexes in which foreign languages were optional subjects. The classical languages were preserved from extinction by erecting a new class of institu- tions to be known as collegiate institutes. The chief condition a high school must conform to, was to have at least sixty male pupils in Latin and at least four masters, in order to become a collegiate institute. The locally raised equivalent of half the grant must now be raised by assessment and in the apportionment the principle of 'Payment by Results', was to be applied. Three points were to be considered: 1. Average attendance. 2. Profi- ciency in studies. 3. Number of days the school was open. Proficiency was to be determined by written examinations. The entrance examination was placed in the hands of an entrance board consisting of the local public school inspector, the chairman of the high school board and the head master of the high school.
Regulations governing the entrance examination make this a written test, the papers to be prepared centrally; and continued the supervision exercised by high school inspectors over the results. They were to examine at the time of the official visit enough of the papers to judge whether the test had been sufficiently rigid. This led to a serious deadlock between the Cabinet and the Council of Public Instruction, which held up the new examination for three half-year periods. Meantime, such an influx of unprepared pupils were admitted that the Cabinet yielded and the first written examination took place in October, 1873.
The new progrjimme of 1871, though it recognized English literature and the physical sciences, was still suitable only for the
Summary 157
large schools and accordingly it was not observed in the two and one-mastered schools.
Though much was expected from the salutary reforms of the new law, there was deep disappointment at the conditions ob- taining in the schools between 1872 and 1875, the latter date being the year in which part of the grant was paid on the results of an examination. The causes were mainly two: the lack of a training school for high school teachers, a defect mentioned in Young's last report; and secondly, the fact that a pupil drew fifty times as much grant for the school, if in the high school, as he would draw as a public school pupil. No regulation jvas strong enough, particularly in the sixty-six union schools, to prevent rapid and unwarranted promotion, that paid so well. Ryerson yV points a gloomy picture of the schools in 1875. There were only > about a dozen creditable high schools and collegiate institutes in ^ the Province. Many of the rest were inferior public schools. The schools received a very grudging local support and monitors were employed instead of regular assistants in many places.
The reports show that the new programme was impracticable and was ignored everywhere. The multiplicity of subjects was producing a mechanical style of teaching. Science was being taught out of books like Latin grammar and nothing had been done to improve the status of English. Meanwhile the inspectors had been searching for the best means of putting into operation the panacea of 'Payment by Results.' They finally recommended that a part of the grant should be paid on the results of inspection and part on the results of a written examination on the subjects of the Second Form. This being halfway through the course, they named it the Intermediate examination. They also wisely recom- mended that the amount paid per unit of average attendance should be reduced to equal that paid to the public schools. The pro- gramme was then rearranged to suit this scheme.
Meanwhile the advancing age of the Chief Superintendent and a conflict with the Cabinet over the composition and mode of appoint- ment of the Council of Public Instruction hastened a change in the Education office. Ryerson himself had latterly urged that the educational system should be controlled from the Cabinet, in order to prevent any such divided councils as had developed. However, before this change took place, the Council of Public Instruction was reformed by the highly desirable addition of
158 Developajent of the Ontario High School
elective numbers to represent the various sections of the teaching profession. Not quite two years elapsed after this change when in February 1876, the duties of the Chief Superintendent were taken over by the Hon. Adam Crooks as Minister of Education, and a committee of the Cabinet Council with the aid of a central committee of expert advisers superseded the Council of Public Instruction.
Not the least of the evil influences flowing from the principle of payment upon the results of a written examination was that of fixing in the public mind an unwarranted respect for written examinations in general to the exclusion of any other means of appraising attainments. The first of the Intermediate examina- tions took place in June of 1876, and was a keen disappointment to about six-sevenths of the candidates and to more than half the schools. This was taken to mean that many of the schools were doing mere elementary work. Besides, as one able critic pointed out, seven of the schools carried off half the total grant, as a result of the first examination. The same critic advocated recognizing the Intermediate pro tanto in teachers' and matriculation examin- ations in order to be an inducement for the pupil to submit to the examination. As it stood, the incentive was all on the side of the teacher, who would become a mere drudge under the system.
As the schools became more accustomed to the examination their success in passing candidates increased and the value per unit fell precipitately from about $57 in 1876 to about $8 in 1880, the total grant being a fixed amount. The inevitable result was that schools and teachers were judged by the public according to the numbers they primed sufficiently each year for this examina- tion. If there was less and less right method and true education, it could not be wondered at. This iniquitous principle was swept away in 1882, but its effects are still to be seen in the public rever- ence for an examination system, which, whatever may be its merits. can in no true measure determine the 'total cultivation' of the examined.
It was found impossible to maintain collegiate institutes on the basis upon which they were first established and their original purpose of saving the study of the classics was abandoned. In 1883 they became, though retaining their meaningless title, high schools, in which a certain minimum in attendance, equipment
Summary 159
and staff must be maintained. The Intermediate was saved by giving it a pro tanto value in third class teachers' certificates. -^
Such briefly is the ground covered by the preceding chapters. The measure of the advance between 1882 and 1914 may be shown statistically thus: Number of schools from 104 to 291; number of teachers from 332 to 1,260;* legislative grant from $84,304 to $330,766; total expenditure from $343,720 to $3,739,065; number of pupils from 12,348 to 42,535.
Accompanying this great expansion and partly necessitated by -^ it, but also, no doubt, partly accounting for it, many changes both in administration and technique have been made. The training of, secondary school teachers received attention first in 1885. It was not long after the demise of the Model Grammar School that a serious defect in the younger accessions to the teaching body became apparent. This, we have seen, Young mentioned as one of the two main hindrances to progress. Inspector Mc- Lellan in his report of 1882, strongly urged the great need of pro; (essional training, referring to German and French training schemes. There was, he maintained, a much more urgent reason for training in Ontario because here the secondary schools are "teachers of teachers", i.e., of the elementary schools.
The step taken in 1885 was to denominate two of the large secondary schools, "Training Institutes." The collegiate insti- tutes of Hamilton and Kingston, opened their classes to teachers- in-training for purposes first of observation,. and then, after some instruction in methods, for practice teaching. The regular colle- giate staff undertook the work of instruction and criticism, largely after school hours. Only during the fall term (September to December) were teachers-in -training received, so that the ordinary work of the staff was not seriously disturbed. Subsequently three more schools undertook the task, thel^ institutes of Owen Sound, Peterborough and Strathroy. Considering the shortness of the training term and the additional heavy burden imposed upon the staffs, a surprising amount of work was done and a corresfK)nding benefit received by the young aspirants.
This scheme was felt to be deficient on the doctrinal side and hence in 1889 the School of Pedagogy was established in Toronto and the former training institutes affiliated therewith. Two months were spent at the School of Pedagogy in the study of the
*In the figures for 1914 are included those of the Continuation Schools.
160 Development of the Ontario High School
^ .theory of education and two months in observation and practice in the training institutes. The brief term of four months thus divided was found to give insufficient practical training. Accord- ingly in 1891 the training institutes were discontinued and the School of Pedagogy was affiliated with the two collegiate institutes in Toronto. The practical and theoretical instruction was then carried on concurrently. This arrangement was not found satis- factory to the practice schools and was dropped after one year's trial, the term being lengthened in 1893 to eight months. So until 1896 the training of teachers was conducted without practice schools. In that year the institution was affiliated with the collegiate institute of Hamilton and removed to that city where a building for the joint use of the secondary school and the Normal College, as it was called, was erected. Here classes for observation and practice were convenient and the heads of the various colle- giate departments lectured in methods. Ten years later the classes in training had quite outgrown these accommodations and a new disposition was made through the joint action of the state university and the Department of Education. A Faculty of
.jK^ Jpxiucation was established in the University of Toronto and a ^practice school attached. Simila.r action was taken by Queen's University.
In the technique of teaching the chief advances have been in the subjects of English and the physical and natural sciences. The former gradually passed through a parsing, trope hunting, micro- scopic stage to the apprehension of the broad meaning and spirit and appreciation of the power and beauty of thought and form; the latter from memorized book definitions and dogmatic assertions, to individual experimentation. Everywhere is the laboratory, everywhere the eager young scientist with the test-tube or dis- secting knife in hand, bent on rediscovering for himself. To a great extent the pupil is now a philosopher in the sciences.
Constant re-adjustments of the programmes of studies have been made, the tendency being at one time to unify matriculation and teachers' course and then to differentiate them. Some subjects have been dropped as for instance astronomy and physiology and others added. The teaching of art is a development of recent years and strong endeavours have been put forth to induce the general adoption of manual training and household science in the second- ary schools, but thus far without the success the movement deserves.
Summary 161
Though the twelve centres were taken over in 1904 from Sir Wm. McDonald, who initiated the work and carried it on at his own expense for three years, only twenty secondary schools are reported as having day classes in these subjects in 1914. There need be no hesitation in saying that the main cause is the expense, the schools already being a serious local burden.
There has been a constant tendency to raise the standards in all particulars. Minimum percentages required at all examina- tions have increased, particularly in matriculation. Better buildings and equipment are demanded in order to earn the legisla- tive grant and higher qualifications for the various grades of teacher. Consequently it is not open to question that the efficiency of the schools has undergone a very great change since the law of 1871. There is a strong movement in the direction of technical and industrial education and the secondary system having arrived at efficiency in uniformity must now strive for added power in diver- sity. The uniform type can now take care of itself, but the utmost energy must be devoted to the development of schools of the industrial, agricultural and technical type.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Brown, E. E "The Making of Our Middle Schools". New York,
1903.
BuRWASH "Egerton Ryerson" in "Makers of Canada".
"Canada and Its Provinces". Art. under Ontario: " Ryerson and Secondary
Education". Toronto.
Carnochan "The Early Schools of Niagara".
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. Art. "Ontario".
HoDGiNS, J. G "Documentary History of Education in Upper
Canada". 28 vols. Toronto, 1893-1904. HoDGiNS, J. G "Historical Educational Papers and Documents of
Ontario". Inglis, a. T "Rise of the High School in Massachusetts". New
York, 1911. Journal of Education, 1848-1876, Legislative Library, Toronto.
Monroe, Paul "Cyclopaedia of Education". New York, 1911.
Reports of the Chief Superintendent, 1850-1875.
Reports of the Minister of Education, 1876-1915.
Ryerson, Egerton "Report on Popular Education". 1868.
INDEX.
Academy Stage of Secondary Education fN U.S., 51.
Act of 1839, 31 ; of 1853, 54; Grammar School Improvement 1865, 61, 79; of 1871
108. Admission of Pupils, 112, 121. Addison, Rev. Robt., 34. Apparatus, science, 101.
Bayly, Rev. Benjamin, 35, 47. Burwell, Mahlon, 27.
Classics, bearing on grant, 66.
Cockburn, George R. R., 67, 69.
Colborne, Sir John, 22.
Collegiate Institutes, 109, 111; new regs., 146.
Cornwall District, 13, 32.
Council of Public Instruction, 55, 111; reform of, 134; duties, 136; elected
members, 137. Creen, Rev. Thomas, 34. '
District Public Schools, 14, 45, 46.
English, teaching of, 97, 126.
Entrance Examination, first, 55, 111; regulations suspended, 112.
Examination Incubus, 140; written, 42; resuhs, 148.
Galt Grammar School, 109; Collegiate Institute, 125.
General Board of Education, 18, 21.
Girls, admission of, 89; Clinton Grammar School trustees, 95; EflTect upon some schools of recognition, 96; Recognition in programme of studies, 119.
Grammar Schools, District, 14, 15; First course of study, 19; United Presbytery's complaints, 25, 26; condition in 1838; Regulations by King's College Council, 41; condition in, 1850, 47; increase in numbers, 49, 72; condition in 1856, 62; Ryerson's ideal, 45, 106; statistical table for 1861, 73.
Grants, bearing of attendance upon, 81.
Harris, Rev. Dr. J. H., 23, 41.
High Schools, early examples in U.S., 52.
High Schools in Ontario, 108; condition in 1875, 123; status in 1876, 139.
Hodgins, J. George, 138.
Inspection inaugurated, 18. Inspectors, 57.
Intermediate Examination, 140; recognition of, 143; grants upon results of, 144, 145.
Johnstown District, 38.
Kingston District, 11, 33. King's College Council, 31.
Latin, qualifying, 146. London District School, 35.
McLellan, Dr. James A., 121. Model Giiammar School, 67, 69, 71. Municipal Aid, 54, 63, 65.
Natlral Science, teaching of, 97, 99, 126. ,
Niagara (Newark), 11, 34.
Old Blue School, 23, 36. Ormiston, Rev. Wm., 57.
Payment by Results, 120; classification of schools under, 127; scheme suggested,
128; abandoned, 147. Phillips Exeter Academy, 51. Preparatory Classes, 124. Programmes of Study, 19, 84; of 1871, 116; re-arrangement to suit payment
by results, 129. Provincial Board of Education, 48. Public Schools, District, 14.
Regulations of Council of Public Instruction, 55. Reports of Inspectors 1855, 57, 66, 67; Young's, 77, 97, 114, 121, 143. Robertson, Rev. Thos. J., 57.
Ryerson, Rev. Dr. Egerton, 35, 43; Reports as Superintendent, 64; Retirement, 137.
Schoolhouses, 33, 35, 36, 59, 64.
Seath, Dr. John, 140.
Secondary Schools in United States, 50.
Select Committees of the House, 21, 26, 27, 28.
SiMcoE, Sir John Graves, 11.
Stuart, Rev. John, 12, 33.
Strachan, Rev. Dr., 13, 18; his first report, 19; course of study recomrnended,
19; review of 1826, 20; at Cornwall, 32; at York, 36. Summary, 150.
Teachers, qualifications of, 70, 134. Trustees, county councils to appoint, 54.
Union Schools authorized, 55, 121. Upper Canada College, 22. Urquhart, Rev. Hugh, 33.
Whitelaw, Rev. John, 33.
Young, Rev. George Paxton, 76.
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