An Educational Glance Backwards.
But in order to understand more fully the sequence of events which led to the development of the educational spirit in this Province, it will be necessary to give a condensed summary of the facts. With this historical background in prospective view, the distinguishing features of that comprehensive system of education which, in later years, Dr. Ryerson was privileged to found, can be more clearly seen.
The U. E. Loyalists removed to British America in 1783, the year of their exile. Most of them settled in Upper Canada, along the north shore of the Upper St. Lawrence, and the corresponding margin of Lakes Ontario and Erie. They brought with them from the old colonies their educational traditions and their devotion to the flag of the Empire. Those of them who had settled along the Bay of Quinté, united in 1789, in framing a memorial to Governor-General Lord Dorchester (Sir Guy Carleton), in which lamenting the educational privations which they had endured since their settlement in Canada, they prayed the Governor to establish a "seminary of learning" at Frontenac (Kingston). Their prayer was granted, so far as the setting apart of lands for the support of the seminary was concerned, as well as the support of schools wherever the expatriated colonials had settled, or might settle, in the country.
Immediately after the passing of the Constitutional or Quebec Act, of 1791, by which, among other things, Upper Canada was separated from Quebec, the Governor of the new Province (J. Graves Simcoe), sought the co-operation of the Church of England Bishop (Mountain), of Quebec, who had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over both Provinces, in urging upon the Home Government the necessity of providing for a University and for classical schools in Upper Canada. Provision for elementary schools formed no part of this scheme. The British Colonial idea of providing for such schools never crossed the minds of the leaders of public opinion in these days nor that of the bishop. They were chiefly Englishmen, with the old-fashioned English ideas of those times, that the education of the masses was unnecessary, for it would tend to revolution and the upsetting of the established order of things.
In April, 1795, Governor Simcoe addressed a letter to the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Quebec—then having jurisdiction in Upper Canada—urging him to seek to promote the establishment of a "Protestant Episcopal University" in Upper Canada. The reasons which he gave for this appeal were characteristic of the English Churchmen and of the times, and reveal somewhat of the social and religious state of the colony. They showed, too, that he was a statesman as well as a Churchman. He said:
The people of this Province enjoy the forms as well as the privileges of the British constitution. They have the means of governing themselves; and, having nothing to ask, must ever remain a part of the British Empire, provided they shall become sufficiently capable and enlightened to understand their relative situation and to manage their own power to the public interest. Liberal education seems to me, therefore, to be indispensably necessary; and the completion of it by the establishment of a university in the capital of the country, * * * would be most useful to inculcate just principles, habits, and manners into the rising generation; to coalesce the different customs of the various descriptions of settlers * * * into one form. In short, from distinct parts and ancient prejudices to new-form, as it were, and establish one nation, and thereby strengthen the union with Great Britain and preserve a lasting obedience to His Majesty's authority.
I naturally should wish that the clergy requisite for offices in the university, in the first instance, should be Englishmen, if possible. * * * I most earnestly hope that * * * by giving the means of proper education in this Province, both in its rudiments and in its completion, that from ourselves we may raise up a loyal, and in due progress, a learned clergy, which will speedily tend to unite not only the Puritans within the Province, but the clergy of the Episcopal Church, however dispersed * * * and on all sides, to bring within the pale [of the Episcopal Church] in Upper Canada a very great body of sectaries, who in my judgment, as it were, offer themselves to its protection and re-union.
These objects would be materially promoted by a university in Upper Canada, which might, in due progress, acquire such a character as to become the place of education to many persons beyond the extent of the King's dominions. * * * The Episcopal clergy in Great Britain, from pious motives as well as policy, are materially interested that the Church should increase in this Province. I will venture to prophesy its preservation depends upon a university being erected therein. * * * I have not the smallest hesitation in saying that I believe if a Protestant Episcopal university should be proposed to be erected (even in the United States) the British nation would liberally subscribe to the undertaking. * * * The universities of England, I make no doubt, would contribute to the planting of a scion from their respectable stock in this distant colony.
There are two or three things worth noticing in this vigorous letter of the Governor:—
(1) Among the objects sought to be attained by the establishment of a university was the conservation of "the privileges of the British Constitution"; (2) the fusing of the various nationalities represented in the colony; (3) the absorption of "Puritans" and "sectaries" into the Episcopal Church; (4) the growth and spread of loyalty to the King's authority.
Two things also are noticeable: First, the Governor did not ignore, or underestimate, the necessity of popular education, or "education in the rudiments;" second, he gives no hint of a desire to appropriate the public domain to the building up of an "Episcopal university." On the other hand, he assumes that, if done at all, it is to be aided by contributions from England. I call attention to these two points, from the fact that they were quite lost sight of by those who afterwards took up the cause of university education in Upper Canada where he had left it.