Dr. Ryerson's Report on a System of Public Instruction for Upper Canada.
Immediately after his appointment Dr. Ryerson went to Europe, and remained away for over a year in familiarizing himself with the systems of education there. On his return he published an elaborate report on his projected scheme of "Public Instruction for Upper Canada." That report was approved by the Governor-General in Council, and he was directed to prepare a bill to give effect to his recommendations, which he did in 1846. A brief analysis of that report may be interesting:—It is divided into two parts: 1. Principles of the system and subjects to be taught; 2. machinery of the system.
After defining what was "meant by education," the principles of the system were laid down as follows:—
1. It should be universal.
2. It should be practical.
3. It should be founded on religion and morality.
4. It should develop all the intellectual and physical powers.
5. It should provide for the efficient teaching of the following subjects: Biblical history and morality, reading and spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, linear drawing, vocal music, history, natural history, natural philosophy, agriculture, human physiology, civil government, political economy. Each of these topics was fully discussed and illustrated in the first part of the report.
The second part explained the machinery of the system, which was summarized as follows:—
1. Schools—their gradation and system.
2. The teacher and his training.
3. The text-books recommended.
4. Control and inspection on the part of the Government.
5. Individual and local efforts.
These several topics wore also fully discussed and illustrated, so that the whole comprehensive scheme of education proposed by Dr. Ryerson was clearly and fully understood. The report occupied nearly 200 pages.
The school law founded upon this report provided, amongst other things, for—
1. A general Board of Education for the Province, to take charge of a normal school, and to aid the Chief Superintendent in certain matters.
2. A normal school, with practice or model schools attached.
3. The regulation of school libraries.
4. Plans of school houses.
5. Appointment of district, instead of county and township, school superintendents.
6. Apportionment of school moneys to each school according to the average number of children in each school district, as compared with those in the whole township.
7. Levy of a school rate by each district (county) municipal council, of a sum at least equal to the legislative grant to each such district.
8. The collection, by the local school trustees, of the balance required to defray the expenses of their school, in any way which the school ratepayers (at the annual meeting) might determine.
9. The recommendation of a uniform series of text books, with the proviso that no aid would be given to any school in which books disapproved of by the general Board of Education might be used.
10. The establishment of district model schools (reënacted from the Act of 1843).
11. Examination and licensing of teachers.
12. Visitation of schools by clergymen, magistrates, municipal councillors, etc.
13. Protection of children (reënacted from the Act of 1843) from being "required to read or study in or from any religious book, or join in any religious exercise or devotion, objected to by parents."
14. Establishment (reënacted from the laws of 1841 and 1843) of Roman Catholic Separate Schools, where the teacher of the locality was a Protestant, and vice versa. (These schools received grants in accordance with their average attendance of pupils.)
15. Levy of rates by district municipal councils, at their discretion, for the erection of school houses and teachers' residences.
Such were the principal provisions of the first School Act, proposed and adapted from other school laws by Dr. Ryerson in 1846, so far as rural schools were concerned. In the following year he prepared a comprehensive measure in regard to schools in cities, towns and incorporated villages.