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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ONTARIO HIGH SCHOOL

THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THE

ONTARIO
HIGH SCHOOL

BY ^-/^ -

WALTER N. BELL

UKIVESSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

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.

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

'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

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

~ n

6
10
13
16
12
10
18
12

Ottawa

Bathurst

Johnstown

Midland

Newcastle

Home

9
2

Gore

Niagara

London

Western

Totals

291

108 1 121

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

Second

18i

Third

Fourth

Fifth

16h

Sixth

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

*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

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

1855

1861

*86

1850

1856

*61

1862

1851

*54

1857

1863

1852

1858

1864

1853

1859

1865

104

1854

1860

*Where a decrease is noticed, the reason is that some small schools ceased
operation for a year or more.

The Failure of Voluntary Support

Table showing when each Grammar School was opened

and other information.

Year 1861.

H o

Grammar Schools

c
u

c
.2

•

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

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

65
94

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

Development of the Ontario High School

Grammar Schools

c.S
rt-o

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.

16
70

43
52
23
132
55

18
35

$1, non res.,
free to res.

$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

$4, $3.25, $2.50

$6.50, $4.50 f

$3.75 & $0.75

$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

Grammar Schools

w 01
QQ b

5j3

dOcn

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.

900

700

M.A.

800

1,000

M.A.

800

B.A.

680

700

M.A.

700

900

600

B.A.
B.A.
B.A.

B.A.

B.A.
B.A,

34
70
27
84
75
27
68
47
50
34
29
50
25
27

39
73

40
16

$4, non res.,
free to res.

$4, $3, non res.,
free to res.

$0.75

»4.50

$0.75

$3, $2, $1.50

Free

$2, $1.50

Free

$5 V

$3, non res., $1
res.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

34 16 4

1855

61 11 2

1856

201 3 11

1867

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.

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.

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

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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