Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada Part 13

[123] See Superintendent's Report for 1853.

The Legislature voted 1,000 for a Model Grammar School, and in 1855 plans for a building were prepared under direction of the Council of Public Instruction. The estimate exceeded the means at the disposal of the Council and nothing was done until 1856, when Ryerson wrote the Executive Council as follows: "There is no branch of our system of Public Instruction so defective as our Grammar Schools, and the 'Model'

for them as to both structure and furniture, discipline, modes of cla.s.sification and teaching is of the utmost importance.... I am persuaded that a saving of one-half of the time and expense usually incurred in the Grammar School education of youth may be saved by improved methods in teaching and directing their studies, a result which will greatly increase the number of those who will aspire to a higher literary education apart from other advantages and intellectual habits and discipline. It is proposed to erect the Model Grammar School in the rear of the present Model School.... The proposed mode of admitting pupils will prevent the Model Grammar School from interfering with or being the rival of any other Grammar School. It is also intended to afford every possible facility and a.s.sistance to masters and teachers of Grammar Schools throughout the Province to come and spend some weeks in the Model Grammar School."[124]

[124] See copy of letter in D. H. E., Vol. XII., p. 321.

The Government now authorized the Council of Public Instruction to proceed with the erection of a building to accommodate one hundred Grammar School pupils. The school was opened in 1858. It was the intention to give a preference to the two or three pupils from each county and city in Upper Canada who were recommended by the respective Munic.i.p.al Councils. Ryerson's circular to these Councils will throw some light on the subject: "The object of the Model Grammar School is to exemplify the best methods of teaching the branches required by law to be taught in the Grammar Schools, especially the elementary cla.s.sics and mathematics, as a model for the Grammar Schools of the country. It is also intended that the Model Grammar School shall, as far as possible, secure the advantages of a Normal Cla.s.sical School to candidates for masterships in the Grammar School; but effect cannot be given to this object of the Model Grammar School during the first few months of its operation."[125] In 1859, in a report to the Government, Ryerson speaks further and says: "In regard to the Model Grammar Schools the buildings are completed and the school has been in operation several months and with the most gratifying success. Upwards of thirty masters of Grammar Schools have in the course of a few weeks visited and spent a longer or shorter time in the Model Grammar School with a view to improving their own methods of school organization, discipline, and teaching; and I have reason to believe that it has already exerted a salutary influence in improving the several Grammar Schools--an influence that will be greatly increased when we are enabled to form a special cla.s.s consisting of candidates for Grammar School masterships."[126]

[125] See copy of Circular in D. H. E., Vol. XIV., p. 65.

[126] See Report of Superintendent for 1859.

In 1861, Mr. G. R. c.o.c.kburn, Rector of the Model Grammar School, resigned to become princ.i.p.al of Upper Canada College. Ryerson wished to transfer the functions of the Model Grammar School to Upper Canada College. This was not agreed to, but the same year provision was made for admitting candidates for Grammar School masterships to a course in training in the Model Grammar School. Up to this time the School had been of professional service as a school of observation, the holidays being so arranged that its cla.s.ses were in session while Grammar School masters were on holiday.

In July, 1863, the Model Grammar School was finally closed. The following from a letter sent by Ryerson to the Provincial Secretary makes clear the reasons for this action: "When the Model Grammar School was established it was expected that nearly every county in Upper Canada would be represented in it and provision was made for that purpose. That important object has not been realized; and although the attendance at the school has been larger during the last year than during any previous year, reaching even to 100, the attendance as in former years 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 past year a training cla.s.s for Grammar School masterships, consisting to a considerable extent of students in the University, 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 than in the Model Grammar School."[127]

[127] See Ryerson's letter in D. H. E., Vol. XVIII, p. 69.

Trained teachers for the Grammar Schools were much to be desired, and Ryerson deserves credit for his progressive ideas. But just at that stage in their evolution, although they contained many scholarly men, the Grammar Schools as a whole were more in need of teachers with sound scholarship than of teachers with a little professional training.

There continued to be complaints that teachers trained in the Normal Schools did not continue to teach. In his Report for 1856, Ryerson makes clear that in his opinion these defections from the teaching ranks were no condemnation of Normal Schools. He says: "The only objection yet made to the training of teachers, as far as I know, is that many of them do not pursue that profession but leave it for other employments. Were this true to the full extent imagined, the conclusion would still be in favour of the Normal School, since its advantages are not confined to schools or neighbourhoods in which its teachers are employed, but are extended over other neighbourhoods and munic.i.p.alities.... In all professions and pursuits there are changes from one to another. I do not think it wise, just, or expedient to deny to the Normal School teacher the liberty, if opportunity presents itself, to improve his position or increase his usefulness.... In whatever position or relation of life a Normal School teacher may be placed, his training at the Normal School cannot fail to contribute to his usefulness."[128]

[128] See Report of Chief Superintendent for 1856. See copy in D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 51.

Nor was all the criticism of Normal School affairs directed towards the teachers who left the profession; those who remained in it were emissaries of evil. Then, as now, there were croakers who thought that a boy born on a farm naturally belonged there, and that any enlightenment which tended to make him dissatisfied with his surroundings was an evil.

One, signing himself Angus Dallas of Toronto, wrote several pamphlets attacking the school system. Speaking of the Normal School, he said: "The young men who have attended six months at that inst.i.tution and leave it with certificates to teach, go forth into the country with the most mistaken estimate of their own importance. They open schools wherever accident places them, and by teaching and familiar intercourse, combined with the example of nomadic habits, for they seldom remain longer than twelve months in one place, they soon contaminate the minds of the older pupils and also of young men who may reside in the neighbourhood, by their doctrines of enlightened citizenship; and thus these pupils soon learn to disdain honest labour."[129]

[129] The Toronto schools were at this time very expensively managed as compared with schools in other cities of Upper Canada. This could not be attributed to the expense of Normal-trained teachers. In 1858, ten years after the Normal School was established, no Common School in Toronto was in charge of a Normal-trained teacher, and only two or three such teachers had ever been employed there. See D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 299.

In 1855, the Legislature had authorized a museum and library in connection with the Department of Education. These were formally opened in 1857 and the library contributed much to increase the efficiency of the Normal School by widening the scope of the students' reading.

In the following year the Council of Public Instruction revised the Normal School Regulations. Qualifications necessary for admission were accurately set forth and the course of study defined for both second and first-cla.s.s certificates. There continued to be two sessions a year, but students who entered to qualify for a second-cla.s.s certificate spent two or more sessions before reaching a standard ent.i.tling them to a first-cla.s.s certificate.

An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the nature of the instruction given in the Toronto Normal School by the Report for 1868 of George Paxton Young, Inspector of Grammar Schools. Young was trying to raise the standard of the Grammar Schools, and shows how their improvement would affect the Normal Schools. He says: "I suppose there can be no doubt that if High Schools like those which I have described were established, it would be necessary to modify the work of the Normal School considerably. Teachers who would have to perform different duties from what have hitherto been expected at their hands would need a different training from what has. .h.i.therto been given. The instructions in English in the Normal School would require to be raised to a far higher level than is now aimed at. Much of the elementary drilling which Normal School students at present receive might be dispensed with. Our inst.i.tution for the training of teachers ought not to be a school for teaching English grammar. In the same way I would lighten the ship of such subjects as the bare facts of geography and history; not rejecting of course prelections on the proper method of teaching geography and history. The English master in the Normal School might thus be enabled to devote a portion of his time to lessons in the English language and literature of a superior cast--lessons which he would have a pride in giving and on which the students would feel it a privilege to wait. Such lessons would be immensely useful even to those young men and women who might only desire to qualify themselves for becoming Common School teachers. In the department of physical science, it is plain that if the views which I have expressed in regard to the way in which science should be taught in the High Schools be just, the object of the prelections in the Normal School should not be to cram the students with a ma.s.s of facts but to develop in them a philosophic habit of mind and to make them practically understand how cla.s.ses in science ought to be conducted in the schools."[130]

[130] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 127.

No man in Canada was better qualified to estimate the real work of any educational establishment than Young, and although he was not closely connected with the Normal School, we may a.s.sume that his a.n.a.lysis was essentially correct and that the study of formal grammar and the acquisition of scientific facts bulked large in the Normal School programme. In his report for 1867,[131] in speaking of the Normal and Model Schools, Ryerson says: "They are not const.i.tuted as are most of the Normal Schools in both Europe and America to impart the preliminary education requisite for teaching. That preparatory education is supposed to have been attained in the ordinary public or private schools. The entrance examination to the Normal School requires this. The object of the Normal and Model Schools is, therefore, to do for the teacher what an apprenticeship does for the mechanic, the artist, the physician, the lawyer--to teach him theoretically and practically how to do the work of his profession."

[131] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 139.

A little consideration will show us that a school trying to realize such an aim and attempting to teach only the rudiments of the science of education, upon which the theory of teaching is based, must become empirical and rule-of-thumb in its methods. The real difficulty lay in the inadequate preparation with which the teachers in training entered upon their work. The Normal School could not improve until an improvement should be effected in the Grammar Schools.

During the first nine sessions of the Normal School no certificates were granted which ent.i.tled the holder to teach. The Normal School graduates simply received certificates of attendance and had to submit to examination by a County Board before securing a license. It almost invariably happened that Normal School graduates were able to take a high standing at these examinations, and hence Ryerson met with no serious opposition from County Boards when in 1853 he proposed to issue Provincial certificates to Normal School graduates upon the recommendation of the Normal School masters. From 1853 to 1871 a dual system of granting certificates was in operation. Normal School graduates received Provincial certificates of various grades, and County Boards issued certificates valid only in the county where issued. In 1871 a radical change was made, by which County Boards were allowed to issue only third-cla.s.s certificates valid for three years in the county where given, and renewable on the recommendation of the County Inspector. Second and first-cla.s.s certificates were granted only by the Department of Education and valid during good behaviour, and in any part of the Province. A first-cla.s.s certificate of the highest grade (Grade "A") was made the qualification for County Inspectors. It should also be noted that the third-cla.s.s certificates referred to above were granted after 1871 only upon the pa.s.sing of a written examination upon papers prepared by a central committee chosen by the Council of Public Instruction. This was a radical change from the old method, which allowed each County Board to fix its own standard, a plan which necessarily led to many certificates being granted to wholly incompetent persons.

The change of 1871, which virtually established a Provincial system of licensing teachers, brought upon Ryerson's head much abuse from incompetent teachers and their friends. The Superintendent stood firmly by his guns, knowing well that his act was in the best interests of the Province. A few words from his reply to those who objected that old teachers were being set aside because of failure to pa.s.s the Provincial examination is worth mentioning. He says: "I answer, as government exists not for office-holders but for the people, so the school exists not for the teachers but for the youth and future generations of the land; and if teachers have been too slothful not to keep pace with the progressive wants and demands of the country, they must, as should all incompetent and indolent public officers, and all lazy and unenterprising citizens, give place to the more industrious, intelligent, progressive, and enterprising. The sound education of a generation of children is not to be sacrificed for the sake of an incompetent although antiquated teacher."[132]

[132] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XIII., p. 131.

Having secured the adoption of a system by which all licensing of teachers was under Departmental control, Ryerson next turned his attention to an extension of facilities for training teachers. His plans were comprehensive and had to wait thirty-five years for complete realization. In 1872[133] he reported to the Provincial Treasurer as follows: "I desire to state in reply that last year I thought and suggested to the Government that two additional Normal Schools were required, one in the eastern and the other in the western section of the Province, but I am now inclined to think that three additional Normal Schools will be required to extend the advantages of a Normal School training to all parts of the Province--one at London, one at Kingston, and one at Ottawa. If provision be not made to establish them all at once, I think the first established should be at Ottawa--the centre of a large region of country where the schools are in a comparatively backward state, and where the influence of the Normal School training for teachers has yet been scarcely felt except in a few towns, and which is almost entirely separated from Toronto in all branches of business and commerce, and therefore, to a great extent, in social relations and sympathies.... As the whole Province east of Belleville is less advanced and less progressive in schools than the western parts, I think a second Normal School should be established at Kingston. The whole region of country from Belleville, on the west, to Brockville, on the east, has very little more business or commercial connection with Toronto than the more eastern parts of the Province. Although London is not so remote from Toronto as Ottawa or Kingston, yet it is the centre of a populous and prosperous part of the Province from which an ample number of student teachers would be collected to fill any Normal School.... With the establishment of these three Normal Schools I am persuaded there would still be as large a number of student teachers attending the Toronto School as can advantageously be trained in one inst.i.tution.... I think all the Normal Schools should be subject to the oversight of the Education Department and under the same regulations formally sanctioned by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. This I think necessary on the grounds of both economy and uniformity of standard and system of instruction. As to the extent of accommodation in each Normal School, I think that provision should be made for training 150 teachers in each school."

[133] See D. H. E., Vol. XXIV., p. 22.

In the meantime, while negotiations for more Normal School accommodation were in progress, an attempt was made to give some professional training through teachers' inst.i.tutes. As far back as 1850 the Legislature had made a grant for such meetings, and they had been conducted by the Normal School masters. In 1872 the plan was revised and some very successful inst.i.tutes held. The movement is important because out of it grew County Model Schools, and the adoption of a principle which meant some professional training for every teacher.

In 1875, a Normal School was opened at Ottawa, but the plan of having schools at Kingston and London was abandoned largely because of the apathy of the Legislature in regard to the expense. In fact it is doubtful if any Government could have forced through the Legislature a vote for such a purpose.

Ryerson found the schools in 1844 taught by teachers without certificates and without professional training; he left them in 1876 with teachers, all of whom were certificated under Government examinations, and many of whom were Normal-trained. More important still, he had, by his lectures at County Conventions and by his writings in the _Journal of Education_, created a sentiment throughout the Province in favour of trained teachers. He thus made easy the pathway of his successors in securing increased efficiency; but it may be doubted whether any of his immediate successors achieved results in keeping with the material advance of the Province.

CHAPTER XI.

_RYERSON SCHOOL BILL OF 1871._

From 1850 to 1871 no wholly new principles relating to the Common Schools were adopted by the Legislature, although some changes were necessarily made. The legislation of 1850 had, from time to time, to be supplemented by amendments in order that the spirit of the previous legislation should be made applicable to the needs of a rapidly growing community.

An Act pa.s.sed in 1853[134] provided further machinery for the working of Trustee Boards; gave a liberal annual grant for an educational museum; set apart 500 a year toward teachers' pensions, and increased by 1,000 a year the grant to Normal Schools.

[134] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. X., p. 133.

An Act pa.s.sed in 1860[135] more clearly defined the powers of trustees, the manner of conducting elections, and auditing school accounts. The same Act made Sat.u.r.day a school holiday.

[135] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. XV., pp. 45-49.

The Act of 1871[136] was the last important school legislation prepared by Ryerson.[137] The important features of the Act may be summed up under four headings, viz., compulsory and free education, efficient inspection, teachers' pensions, and the licensing of teachers under Government direction.[138]

[136] See copy of Act reprinted in D. H. E., Vol. XXII., pp. 213-222.

[137] The Act of 1874, in as far as it contained new principles, was forced upon Ryerson by the Government of Sir Oliver Mowat.

[138] For changes made in Grammar Schools by Act of 1871, see Chapter IX.