Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada Part 14

The free school was the natural complement of the Act of 1850. The permissive legislation then enacted allowing trustee boards and ratepayers to establish free schools had been so generally acted upon[139] that by 1871 the abolition of all rate bills upon parents seemed to come as a matter of course. The logical corollary of free schools is compulsory attendance, and the Act of 1871 fixed penalties to be imposed upon parents and guardians who neglected the education of their children. It may be doubted whether this compulsory clause has ever been of any real advantage to the cause of education. The real forces that move human beings are always moral forces. Many a man has unwillingly sent his children to school because of public opinion, but few because of fear of the law.

[139] Only some 400 schools out of 4,000 were levying rate bills in 1870. These 400 were chiefly in towns and cities. The total rate bill levy for 1870 was about $24,000. See Superintendent's Report for 1870.

The Act provided for county inspectors who should be experts and devote their whole time to the work of inspection. Ryerson's first Report had foreshadowed such action, and the fact that he had to wait a quarter-century to realize his plan shows how impossible it is to legislate much in advance of public opinion.

The County Inspector, together with two or more qualified teachers, were to form a County Board, with power to license second and third-cla.s.s teachers upon examinations prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction. In this way the Superintendent had at last secured a uniform standard of qualification for teachers throughout the whole Province.

The small annual grant made for teachers' pensions in 1853, and increased a few years later to $4,000 per annum, had enabled the Superintendent to dole out pittances[140] to a few score of worn-out teachers whose need was most pressing. Ryerson wished to establish a system such as was in operation in Germany--a system of compulsory payments by teachers in service sufficient to give a substantial pension for old age. He hoped by this means to secure a body of teachers with a professional spirit, and to enable them to spend their declining years in independence.

[140] See D. H. E., Vol. XX., p. 143.

The Act of 1871 required compulsory payments from male teachers of four dollars per year.[141] At a later date County Inspectors and all first-cla.s.s teachers were required to pay six dollars a year. This payment guaranteed an annual pension upon retirement of four or six dollars for every year's contribution. Female teachers were allowed, but not forced, to support the Pension Fund. The compulsory payments aroused much opposition from some teachers, especially those who were making temporary use of the teachers' calling as a stepping-stone to some other profession.[142] Ryerson thought that this cla.s.s might very properly be taxed a trifle for the general cause of education.

[141] No doubt this seems a ridiculously small contribution, but we must remember that teachers received very small salaries. The Pension Fund clause was repealed in 1885 on request of the teachers of Ontario, and since that date no names have been added to the list. The payments by teachers provided only a small proportion of the annual charge upon the Pension Fund. The present annual charge (1910) upon the Fund is $55,926.

[142] See D. H. E., Vol. XXIII., pp. 253-256.

Minor provisions of the Act of 1871 gave trustee boards power to build teachers' residences and to secure land for school sites by arbitration.

The Act also authorized the creation of Township Boards of Trustees, where public opinion favoured them.

During its pa.s.sage through the Legislature the Bill of 1871 was severely criticized by Hon. George Brown, in the Toronto _Globe_, and by Edward Blake, on the floor of the a.s.sembly. Perhaps neither of these gentlemen had any love for Ryerson, but they represented a new spirit which Ryerson scarcely understood, and with which he certainly had no sympathy.

Mr. Blake opposed the Bill upon several grounds, but especially upon the abolition of rate bills and the irresponsible nature of the Council of Public Instruction. As regards the former he expressed himself heartily in favour of free schools, but since they were gradually becoming free without compulsion he wished to let them alone. His objection to the Council of Public Instruction[143] is worthy of note because it brings out in a strong light the real bone of contention between Ryerson and the Ontario Liberals, and enables us to understand why at a later date it was impossible for Ryerson to work in harmony with a Liberal Executive Council. The Council of Public Instruction was an irresponsible body appointed by the Crown and dominated by the Chief Superintendent. It had extensive powers. It might act arbitrarily, and yet there was no way by which the members of the Legislature could call it to account or insist upon explanations. Mr. Blake and his colleagues argued that this was not compatible with representative government.

Doctor Ryerson insisted that the Education Department must be wholly removed from party politics. Conscious of purity of purpose and personal integrity, he was ever more desirous of giving the people what he thought they needed than of giving them what they wanted.

[143] See Pamphlet in Parliamentary Library, Ottawa, addressed by Edward Blake to the electors of South Bruce.

Although Ryerson had taken a partisan's part in politics before his appointment as Superintendent, he wisely tried to administer his Department upon a non-partisan basis. And he met with a large measure of success because all sensible men realized that education ought not to be a topic for partisan bickerings. For many years it was so arranged that the leader of the Government introduced educational bills and the leader of the Opposition seconded them.

Such a procedure was possible only so long as both political parties had more confidence in the wisdom of the Superintendent to deal with education than they had in the educational foresight of their own leaders. But such a confidence could not be indefinitely retained by any Superintendent, and certainly not by Ryerson, who was very sensitive to criticism of his administration, and always ready to challenge any layman who had the temerity to express an opinion upon education contrary to his. It was inevitable that a clash should come, and it was a great tribute to Ryerson's wisdom in gauging public opinion that the clash was so long delayed. It was also quite to be expected that the Liberal leaders should be the ones to precipitate the shock, seeing that Ryerson had ridden into office upon a wave of Tory reaction.

Mr. Blake and Hon. George Brown could, however, make little headway against Ryerson in connection with the School Bill of 1871. Except in regard to the irresponsible nature of the Council of Public Instruction, the Act was progressive and truly liberal. Ryerson had discussed every clause in the Bill at County Conventions, and had behind him the support of all actively engaged in the work of education and in the other learned professions.

CHAPTER XII.

_CONCLUSION._

How are we to sum up the work of this man who moulded the schools of Ontario during a period as long as the life of a single generation?

Would the schools of 1876 have been what they were had there been no Ryerson? We think not.

No doubt the people of Upper Canada would, without Ryerson, have worked out a good school system, because a school system must in the end reflect the average intelligence and the fixed ideals of a people. But in Ryerson, Upper Canada had a man who, by his dogged determination and his hold upon the affections of the people, was able to secure legislation somewhat in advance of a fixed public opinion. To a considerable extent he created the public sentiment which made his work possible. He knew what the people needed and persuaded them to accept it. This we conceive to be the work of a statesman.

Ryerson was neither a demagogue nor a const.i.tutionalist. He had none of the arts of one who wins the populace by flattering its vanity. He was too sincere and too deeply religious to appeal to the lower springs of human action. On the other hand he had no real sympathy with popular government. He would let people do as they wished, only so long as they wished to do what he believed to be right. He never could believe that he himself might be wrong. Even had he wished to do so, he never could have divested himself wholly of the character of priest and pedagogue.

He was always either shouting from the pulpit or thumping the desk of the schoolmaster.

His environment after 1844 strengthened and developed his natural tendency to be autocratic. He worked like a giant. He created the Education Department, appointed his subordinates, was his own finance minister, established a Normal School and appointed its instructors, nominated members of a Council of Public Instruction who often did little more than formally register his decrees, organized a book and map depository and an educational museum, edited an educational journal in which he published his decrees, and prepared legislation for successive Legislatures having comparatively few members competent to criticize school administration. He administered one of the largest spending Departments of Government, and ruled somewhat rigorously a score of subordinates, and yet, for many years, was not subject to any check except the nominal one of the Governor-General, and later of the Governor-General-in-Council.

When he visited District or County Conventions he came as a lawgiver, either to explain existing regulations, promulgate new ones, or obtain a.s.sent to those for which he wished to secure legislation. Only after the Grammar Schools had become efficient did Ryerson meet at Teachers'

Conventions men who were intellectually his equals and who were ready to criticize his policy, and, when necessary, give him wholesome advice.

Had Ryerson been a responsible Minister with a seat in the Legislature, either his nature would have been modified or he would have failed, probably the latter.

This would seem to lead to the conclusion that Ryerson after all was not a statesman, since a statesman must, in our age, carry out his measures and at the same time retain the confidence of his colleagues and the electors. But this is just what Ryerson did, although he did not do it directly through the Legislature. He appealed to a Court beyond the Legislature--the whole body of intelligent men and women of Upper Canada--and this Court sustained him in his work for thirty-two years, during which time it is doubtful if any single const.i.tuency in the country would have elected him to two successive Parliaments. If this be true we may safely a.s.sume that it was a happy chance which gave us a non-political Education Department during our formative period.

Ryerson's greatest admirers can scarcely claim that he was a scholar.

This was his misfortune and not his fault. He never failed to embrace whatever opportunities for intellectual improvement came in his way. His reading of history was broad and discriminating. He had little interest in anything that did not bear somewhat directly upon the problem of human virtue. Consequently his interests centred largely in civil government and theology.

Nor can we claim for Ryerson that he introduced original legislation.

Hardly anything in our system of education was of his invention. New England, New York, Germany, and Ireland gave him his models, and his genius was shown in the skill with which he adapted these to suit the needs of Upper Canada. Even in the details of his school legislation, especially that relating to High Schools, Ryerson adopted suggestions of men more competent than himself to form a judgment. To say this in no way detracts from the man's greatness. Little after all in modern legislation is actually new, and to say of a man that he is successful in using other men's ideas is often to give him the highest praise.

In one department of work Ryerson stood in a cla.s.s by himself. He was without a peer as an administrator. His intensely practical mind was quick to discover the shortest route between end and means. His energy, his system and attention to details, his broad personal knowledge of actual conditions, his capacity for long periods of effort, his thrift, his courteous treatment of subordinates, and even his sensitiveness to criticism were factors which enabled him to administer the most difficult Department of the Government with ease and smoothness.

The history of Upper Canada during a period of nearly sixty years is as much bound up with the labours of Egerton Ryerson as with the work of any other public man. He gave us lofty ideals of the meaning and purpose of life, and he had an abiding faith in the power of popular education to aid in a realization of these ideals; he fought for free schools in Upper Canada when they needed a valiant champion. Let the present generation of men and women honour the memory of the man who wrought so faithfully for their fathers and grandfathers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Doc.u.mentary History of Education in Upper Canada. 28 vols. Dr. J.

Geo. Hodgins.

Story of My Life. Egerton Ryerson. Edited by Dr. J. Geo. Hodgins.

Egerton Ryerson. Chancellor Burwash.

Loyalists of America. 2 vols. Egerton Ryerson.

Ryerson Memorial Volume. Edited by Dr. J. Geo. Hodgins.

History of Upper Canada College. Princ.i.p.al d.i.c.kson.

Journals of a.s.sembly of Upper Canada, Legislative Library, Toronto.

Journal of Education, 1848-1876. 29 vols. Library of Parliament, Ottawa.

Ryerson's Special Reports on European Schools. Library of Parliament, Ottawa.

Ryerson's Annual School Reports, 1845-1876. Library of Parliament, Ottawa.